Top 10 Christmas cards of 2014

Hi everyone,

I would like to wish you a very Happy New Year and I hope 2015 brings only good things for you. We had a lovely New Year's Eve celebrating with friends and playing silly games, but if you are feeling a little delicate today, I won't blather on but get down to my favourite 10 Christmas cards of 2014.

Here are my picks, in no particular order

First up is a very CAS design using Papertrey Ink Polka Dot Parade #9 stamps and die





I really love this sweet tree, and the sentiment from Clearly Besotted Most Wonderful stamps is so beautiful.

The next card is a stepper card




and I really enjoyed playing with masks and Pan Pastels to create the snowbanks. I love the silver embossed Santa sleigh too!


I've been using kraft card a lot lately and for some reason this example really makes me smile.



I think red, white and kraft will appear in my cards again! The mix of snowflakes from Papertrey Ink sets and the large die cut word go really well together on top of the striped background stamp.

I wanted a card for a family with a new baby this year so I decided to make this shaker card



using the Papertrey Ink Snowglobe dies. I'm not a big shaker card maker because it seems like a lot of fiddling around is required, but these dies really made it simple! Love the cute baby image from Bugaboo too!

When asked to use ribbon on a card I decided to make a ribbon tree



by cutting different lengths of ribbon and cutting banner ends on them. To have a bit of fun and finish it off I added a partridge and a pear!

This next card uses the Lawn Fawn Winter Sparrow stamps and dies

Those birds are so cute and I enjoyed using texture paste and the Simon Says Stamps snow stencil for the background.

I like wreath cards and this one 

used the Papertrey Ink Rustic wreath stamp. I wanted a stamped border that didn't overwhelm the main panel and I found that the bough from PTI Bells and Boughs fitted the bill.

Embossing can look so elegant and for this card

I used a pretty snowflake embossing folder with a few gems to highlight them. There were lots of wonderful border dies around this year and I used one from Paper Smooches to split the card and add some interest.

I bet we all have friends who are real cat people and when I saw this cat image I knew exactly who I wanted to send it to.

This is one happy, festive cat and I just had to give him a little jingle bell around his neck. You will see that this is the same 'merry' die I used before, but this time  I glittered it to give some bling.

I really tried to get to grips with my Silhouette Cameo over the past year and for this card I learned how to import a digital stamp into the software and extract a cut from it.

I used the PTI In the Meadow dies for the snowbanks and embossed them with a snowflake embossing folder. There is no way that I could have fussy cut those reindeer without losing an antler or two!

My final card is a recent Christmas Tree one

using a very simple Clearly Besotted die, some glitter and and a lovely sentiment from the CB Most Wonderful stamp set. I love that textured kraft card!

I joined a Christmas card Design Team this year and I have to say I really enjoyed making Christmas cards throughout the year. It definitely helped me enjoy a more relaxed  December and I was able to make some gifts and home decor items that I wouldn't normally have had time to play around with. If you would like to keep your Christmas supplies within easy reach and make some cards throughout the year, why not join us over at Christmas Card Challenges which is a weekly challenge with a theme for inspiration, but the only requirement is to make a Christmas card with anything that touches your fancy.

All that remains is for me to thank you for visiting me over the past year.  I really appreciate you, whether you come regularly, dip in and out, follow me, pin my cards on Pinterest, or leave supportive comments. You make blogging worthwhile.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs

Carol x