Merriest (Easiest) Christmas

November means Christmas card frenzy at my work table, so I got the party started for this week's Stampin' Buds post.  I send about 75 cards myself, plus I have a set to make as a belated wedding gift.  I always promise myself that I'll get started in January making one Christmas card per week, but I never follow through.

Close to my Heart's new Artfully Sent Cricut cartridge to the rescue!!  By shamelessly stealing this idea from the catalog...

I came up with this:

I set my Cricut to cut the reindeer shape from p. 47 and let it run page after page after page.  Now, I'm not only a sucker for "quick," I want to get the best use of my supplies possible.  By sizing the reindeer panel to 3.75" tall, I was able to get 12 images per 12x12 piece of Crystal Blue cardstock without much wasted.

Notice the tag.  It was cut using the Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge (p. 50), but I sized it to more closely match the stamp image.  By using the sizing tools available in Cricut Craft Room (or Design Space for a Cricut Explore machine), I squished the length to about 2" while leaving the width at 1.5".

If you look at the actual stamp set shown in the catalog, you'll see that the sentiment is all one image.  To get two colors easily, I cut my stamp into three separate pieces. I then arranged the three pieces together on the square block to get the spacing correct, peeled the center piece out and mounted it on its own block, then stamped in the two separate colors.

I'll be honest, the first time I cut a stamp apart it scared the bejeebers out of me.  Not so much anymore.  These are my stamps.  I paid for them. There's no "stamp police" that's going to come to my house to see if I've maintained the integrity of the image as originally purchased. I didn't get the "MERRIEST" lined up perfectly, but again, no stamp police!!

And if anyone dares to complain to me when they get their Christmas card, I won't send them one next year.  Who says Santa is the only one who can have a "Naughty & Nice" list?

Last but not least, the glittery reindeer was made by coloring the cut out reindeer with a red pen, covering it with glue, then pouring extra fine red glitter over the top. I adhered my blue panel with the black shimmer trim, glued the back side of my red reindeer, and lined up the blue panel image with the red one before gluing the red one to the card base.  (If that's too much trouble, you can very easily get away with leaving that part off.  I did most of this "fussy" work while watching football, so it didn't seem like too much effort to me.)

Oh, yeah!  Check the box beside "Get Christmas Cards Done"!

Until next time,
Becca

Cricut® Artfully Sent Collection	Merriest Christmas	12" X 12" Crystal Blue Cardstock	Cranberry Exclusive Inks� Stamp Pad	Crystal Blue Exclusive Inks� Stamp Pad
Black Shimmer Trim	ShinHan� Touch Twin� Carmine Marker	Bonding Memories� Glue Pen	1" X 3 1/2" My Acrylix® Block	2" X 2" My Acrylix® Block

InLinkz.com