Hearts for Christmas

Sylvia has a Christmas Card Challenge on her blog, and for the month of March, the challenge is to use a heart on our Christmas cards. Do click on the link and see her gorgeous, elegant pieced and embossed heart card. Stunning!

I am behind on my goal of pre-making Christmas cards this year, and coincidentally, the February Waltzingmouse Stamps Christmas Card Challenge was *also* to use hearts. I was very inspired by Sylvia's heart, and decided to try my hand at that piecing and embossing technique. I die cut four Memory Box hearts out of four different printed papers, then sliced them all the exact same way and shuffled the pieces around. Once I taped them together, I added a bit of faux stitching with a marker and ran them through my Cuttlebug in an embossing folder, then hit the raised areas with some Distress Inks. I am sharing three cards from this slicing and dicing. The jury is still out on the fourth one I made - something to do with a new glitter glue and I not seeing eye to eye!

I recently acquired some Pink Paislee City Sidewalks Collection papers and love their retro feel so used them for all the cards. The "Keep Christmas in your heart" is a Waltzingmouse Stamp. The red and white baker's twine-accented button is actually die cut from cardstock using a My Favorite Things die.

The branch and holly berries are created with a Memory Box die for this second card. I am entering this one in the weekly Christmas Card Challenge. The strips of cardstock are there, if you look closely.

I tried creating my own banner instead of using a die cut banner. None of my dies were exactly the size I needed, and I wanted a striped border. I was surprised I still knew how to use scissors!

And last, but not least, I hearkened way back to Grade One in Lord Nelson Elementary School, where the teacher let us play with chunky silver glitter to create Christmas crafts. Whenever I use this Martha Stewart silver glitter I am transported back to that classroom.

Again, I created my own banner and the pennants with scissors. My Grade One teacher would be beaming with pride now!