Happy Monday! I go back to work today, which gives me a much-needed break from my weekend of high-intensity stamping. 🙂 I was so happy to see Ann’s Paper Players challenge this week – Christmas in July. Yay! What a great opportunity to showcase some of my new Christmas stamp sets! Oh, wait! They haven’t yet arrived, so I had to go to my current stash of stamps to come up with something Christmas-y for you today. Here’s my card: 
Since you have seen the Annual Catalog, you know that Stampin’ Up! has moved all the Holiday stamps to the Holiday Catalog (available starting August 1). NOT ALL OF THEM! There are still several sets available from last year (available now). Click here to see the sets that are currently available. A great selection so that you can get started on your Holiday cards in July. 🙂
Tips, Tricks and Reminders:
- Old Olive. Man, oh, man. Last year was the year of Cherry Cobbler and Lucky Limeade. I don’t know how I ever got through holidays before that inevitable pairing. When Lucky Limeade took a trip to The Land of Non-Current Colors earlier this year, I thought Old Olive could never match the bright Limeade. I was wrong. I felt at home working with this Old Olive and Cherry Cobbler combination. I’ve been eyeing this page from the Etcetera Designer Series Paper since the Annual Catalog was released. It’s not “Christmas” per se, but it sure works here. I love the antiqued, but not dirty, stripes of Old Olive.
- Chalk Talk. I loaned out my 3/16″ Corner punch some time ago. Between my house and her house, my customer set the punch on the roof of her car (I’m still not sure how that happened), and now my little punch is lost and alone – probably curled up in a ditch somewhere off Peachtree Industrial Boulevard. My customer offered to buy me a new one and suggested I add it to my next order – yet with every order I place, I seem to forget that I need my corner punch. [big sigh] Anyhow, I ran this sentiment through the Big Shot with my Chalk Talk framelits. I turned it around and cropped the opposite side with the same framelit to create perfectly rounded corners on my sentiment that fit nicely inside the Decorative Label punch.
- Color Balance. Excluding Very Vanilla (in the Designer Series Paper) and Whisper White (in the baker’s twine), Cherry Cobbler and Old Olive are the only two colors featured in this card. Since the ornaments are so solidly Cherry Cobbler, I wanted to balance out the Old Olive a bit by shrinking the Cherry Cobbler border around the center of the card. This gave the card a larger Old Olive matting, allowing Old Olive to shine a bit more here.
Stamp Sets: Mosaic Madness, More Merry Messages Inks: Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive Papers: Old Olive, Cherry Cobbler, Very Vanilla, Etcetera Designer Series Paper Accessories: Mosaic Punch, Decorative Label Punch, Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack, Chalk Talk Framelits, Rhinestone Basic Jewels, Baker’s Twine (Cherry Cobbler), Stampin’ Dimensionals
I hope you’ll check out the other Paper Players cards this week.
Thanks for stopping by my blog today!
Brian
Oopsy Daisies. Do you connect to my blog via your iPad or iPhone? If so, you have experienced issues with the “mobile version” of my blog over the past several days. When you click on my email, it takes you to a comments page. You COULD have just said, “I LOVE IT! You are so talented! Wow!”, but instead you want to read my post and see my project. I checked with WordPress Help, and there have apparently been a lot of people with the same issue after the latest “update” (shall we call it a “downdate” or a “bad date”). I’ve turned off the mobile version for now and will reinstate it when WordPress corrects the issue. The email should now link directly to the online version of my blog. Thanks for your patience.
Oh this is a WOW! Super Cute!
Ah nice to see how you’ve used Mosaic Madness here for ornaments! Love the distressed dsp!
“I LOVE IT! You are so talented! Wow!” and it’s so true. 🙂 Another reason to buy mosaic madness.
“I LOVE IT! You are so talented! Wow!”
Ha. Ha. The card is beautiful.
Cute card and I thought of mini Christmas ornaments the first time I saw this set in the catty . You pointed out something that I wondered about . Why does distressed paper have to look dirty ? Not all old or “vintage” items look like they have been run over by a truck . And don1t you just love that Decorative Label punch ?
I’ve always envisioned the mosaic stamps as ornaments. Great card, and the background paper you selected is perfect.
I love the way you used the Itty Bitty Shapes in some of those Mosaic Madness “ornaments”, Brian! Sets these off perfectly! LOVING that dsp, too! Perfection once again in the Kingdom!! ;D Have a wonderful day!
Love the Christmas in July notion, this is the perfect time to start making your Holiday cards. This card is beautiful Brian, love the little ornaments, that is one fabulous stamp and punch bundle. I can’t wait till the Holiday Mini arrives, I’m really anxious to see what new Holiday stamps will be available.
I had trouble seeing your posts, but I persisted and went to “view full site” and I was finally able to see the posts! Didn’t want to miss your creativity…
Love your card!! I wouldn’t have thought about Christmas Ornaments with that set. Love it!!
I love that the adversity of the displaced punch has led you to find another way to use the chalk talk framelits. I do hope the corner rounder punch was picked up by some appreciative new mommy or daddy and is now in a new home being stroked and hugged and probably called, “George.”
Lovely card Brian.
Mind blowing! Do I need say that I LOVE IT! You know I do. Great minds think alike about using this stamp set as ornaments. Even better, the great tricks you share with using the framelits to customize your wonderful creations.
Love your Cherry Cobbler & Old Olive card, Brian! Perfect! Great tip about how you rounded the corners, too. Not a fan of that corner rounder punch, anyway.
Sorry!
And I agree with Sonny 100% about the “dirty look” of some vintage paper. This is DEFINITELY my kind of aged DSP!
Thanks, Brian, so much!
Good morning Brian. What an absolutely classy card! I can’t believe I’ve seen a truly classy Christmas card without glitter on it before this one. Yes, I know the G word makes you run to the corner and hide behind Bandit but, I LOVE glitter and can see tons of places to add it to this design. I usually start my Christmas cards in January (I do 10 a month to avoid the pressure) but this year I haven’t even thought about them. Thanks for the reminder. I need to get busy. LOL
Beautiful card Brian, your thinking outside the box ideas are the best. Oh and thanks for letting us know about the issues with mobile devises, thought it was just me.
Love the Mosaic Madness ornaments!
*Love* your creative vision, Brian! The shape of the Mosaic Punch is just perfect for Christmas ornaments. Thanks for the tip about using the Chalk Talk framelit for corner rounding. Great color combo!!!
Who need the Holiday Mini when you have Mosaic Madness? Just kidding. . . . I’m already in anxiety mode since I’ll be on vacation when the mini is released. As I’m one of those holdouts for new technology like smart phones and “i” thingys I’ll have to find a computer somewhere for my first look. Brian, love the card – another beautiful creation. Thanks for the corner rounder tip. Tools that ‘multi-task’ are great!
Christmas cards are the last thing I am think about but you are inspiring me with your beautiful card! Love the Mosiac punch as ornaments, they are perfectly wonderful! And a great color combo for the Holiday cards! You rocked this challenge!
I was just thinking of Christmas cards the other day and thought Mosaic Madness would make lovely Christmas ornaments. You proved my thought process. Thank You!! I LOVE the card, as always! Your talent knows no bounds!
Your cards are sooo beautiful. Thank you for explaining why I could not see your cards. I thought it was something I did.
Brian,
This is sooo clever. You always come up with the greatest ideas!!! Another BRAVO!
This is super cute! I may just have to make one myself.
Wow!! Your creativity truly is boundless Brian!! Great take on Christmas in July!! & so glad to hear you finally got a well-deserved break from all that high-intensity stamping at work today!! WHEW!! 🙂
WOW WOW! I knew when I saw this set I was thinking Christmas ornaments. You have taken this to the next level ! Stunning card! I love the stripes and the Baker’s Twine is perfect to hang them. Question though: I am seeing a Cherry Cobbler edge to the mosaic punch outs. Did you just color those with the marker? Very cool.
Hey Bobbi! Thanks for your kind words. I stamped the image in Cherry Cobbler and trimmed around it, close to the stamped edge. I then punched the Mosaic in Cherry Cobbler and combined the two. I think it adds that extra something to have a frame around it.
LOL, I thought the same thing when I saw this challenge! The big brown box didn’t arrive in time. Love your mosaic ornaments–great job! Thanks for playing along with us this week!
This is fabulous! I was just lying in bed thinking about how I could use these images as ornaments for my next Christmas card class….and here you are!! Terrific idea! Thanks for sharing this with us this week at the Paper Players!
Beautiful, Brian! You are so clever!
Brian, I really hadn’t seen this as a Christmas set and you are so clever and creative to have thought of it! They are perfect with the Cherry Cobbler baker’s twine! So good to see you at the Paper Players this week 🙂
Love this one, Brian! Very creative way to show versatility with this stamp set, too. I didn’t even think to use it for Christmas cards. I chuckled reading your Old Olive overview. That has always been my “go-to” green. So glad you joined us this week. 🙂
I somehow missed this one Brian. It’s quite stunning. And I love Old Olive, not so much Lucky Limeade, so I think this is great.
Hi Brian. Will you please share how you made the ornaments? How did you get a red boarder around each one? Thanks
Natalie – I snipped around each of the ornaments and then used the coordinating punch to crop the same shape in Cherry Cobbler. There is some fussy cutting involved, but that is the only way (I know of) to create that additional border.