The Squirrel Sisters are back at it and happy to bring you another mini hop! For those new to us, we’re a small group of crafty friends that decided to challenge ourselves to use all the supplies we’ve squirreled away, and each time we pick a theme to inspire us. This time, we opted to make cards for our favorite holiday. Now, it wasn’t until after I made my Christmas projects that I realized I could have made cards for Squirrel Appreciation Day, January 21st. Doh! Missed opportunity!!! 😅 Before I share my cards, take a quick look at the hop list to make sure you visit the other Squirrels and see their holiday creations!

• V Fairchild
• Karen Page – YOU ARE HERE
• Marie Bingaman
• Anna Mahtani
• Lounon Riviere

I truly had a hard time picking a favorite holiday because I’m such a sucker for all holidays and have fond memories of when my son was little, making each holiday special for him. Given its July, I wanted to do a 4th of July card because I’m also crazy patriotic, but sadly I lacked the supplies to do it justice. And I certainly don’t lack Christmas supplies!! 🤣 I believe I could honestly make a Christmas card every single day for a year and not use the same thing twice, so Christmas it is!!! That said, its been a hella week, so my cards are simple and understated. Have a look:

A couple years ago, Hobby Lobby put a bunch of their stamps and dies on clearance and I scored some great stuff at a great price. In that haul, I picked up several Momenta cover plates for $4 each. I thought these would be a great starting point for quick cards. I dug through my stash of scraps to use some specialty papers to make these simple cards more special. My favorite of the 2 is this ornament card:

The die was cut from gold foil paper. Somewhere in my craft room is an entire 12×12 pad of printed watercolor designs, but for the life of me I could not find it, so I made my own! I pulled out my Gansai Tambi watercolor paints and made a background complete with green and gold splatters. Now, this design doesn’t allow a whole lot of room for a sentiment on the front, so I used a small sentiment from Jane’s Doodles Winter Village set to stamp and heat emboss on vellum. I added a foil mat to the vellum to make the sentiment more legible, and used a gold gem to hide the glue dot holding it all together. It probably took longer for the watercolor paper to dry than it did to make the rest of the card. I had originally tried another Jane’s Doodles sentiment from a set called Deck the Halls, but it was too big for the card front, so I added it to the inside, and added a few paint splatters to tie it in. Now for my 2nd card:

This die was cut from a pearl shimmer paper. I auditioned a glitter paper for the background but it just competed so I settled for plain blue cardstock, but to snazz it up some I used Distress Oxides to ink a highlight in the middle, and then inked the edge darker, like a vignette. It’s subtle, and the camera doesn’t pick it up well but it is noticeable in real life. Once again, I turned to my enormous stash of Jane’s Doodles sets and this time picked a sentiment from Driving Home For Christmas. This was stamped in Distress Oxide Chipped Sapphire and was also heat embossed. I felt like a mat didn’t help the sentiment this time, so I adhered the vellum straight to the card front, using one of the snowflakes the cover die creates to embellish and hide my glue dot. This cover die would be beautiful in a white glitter paper or flocked paper, but I couldn’t put my hands on those either! I really need to spend some time reorganizing my supplies!!! LOL

OK, so you should have arrived here from V’s blog, Passions and Distractions, and your next stop is Marie of Another Card Maker?, who unabashedly loves Christmas, so you will likely get more Christmas in July inspiration there! I can’t wait to see the other Squirrel’s creations!!! Thanks for stopping by, and before you leave drop me a comment to tell me what type of holiday cards you love to make!