Quick Christmas Tree Cards

I know, it is only October, and I am on a Christmas card kick. I seem to be particularly inspired by Christmas already. I have a couple of Fall cards to share with you over the weekend. So, here is my own handmade designed by me Christmas trees on cards.

What I did first was to take the snowflake background stamp from Stampin Up's "Serene Snowflakes" stamp set, and their White Craft ink, and stamped all over an entire piece of Garden Green 8-1/2X11 sheet of card stock. Then I cut it into sheets about 8-1/2" x 2-1/2", then at the end I had a large section that was approximately 8-1/2"x 3-1/2". The larger section is the one that I cut to make the first card you are seeing with one large tree on it. I just kept cutting these strips until I had a bunch of tree shapes. This idea makes some quick mass card production when you have waited til the last minute to make your Christmas cards.Now, the tree base is was made with my Word Window punch, and cut in half. So you can get two tree bases from one punch. The star at the top was made with my Stampin Up Star punch (the smaller one). Then my last touch was to add some bling with my favorite embellishment...sticky gems. You could just as easily use a red marker to add accents, a very small circle punch and red card stock, or even some Red Smooch, or Red Liquid Pearls (if they make that). The sentiment is from Stampin Up's "Teeny tiny Wishes" stamp set.

The next photo is my version made with the smaller strips that I cut. This one is my favorite of the two, but takes a little bit longer to make. This time, however, the SU star punch was too big, so I am used a mini star punch that I got a long time ago in some one's dollar bin. I am sure Michael's has them. I used the tiniest sticky gems on this one too. The tree bases on this one were made with my Stampin Up Small slot punch. The glitter used on the snowy hills is Dazzling Diamonds from Stampin Up. I think some chunky glitter would look better, but I don't have any of that yet, so I improvised.

I tried something new with my Picasa photo editing software today.......soft focus feature. I like this! The top photo didn't hold onto it's changes though, there is a little gremlin inside my Picasa I think. Oh well, it was free, what can we expect. I am not an expert on photo editing yet though, so if any of you have been working with Picasa or Photoshop for awhile and have any tips for me, please by all means leave me a comment. If I missed something or didn't explain it completely, please feel free to leave me a comment that I can respond to.

Until next time.......Blessings, Lisa