Christmas Cards from Friends Part II

As I mentioned in this post,  I've received some absolutely beautiful hand made cards from friends and family this season. These cards are so outstanding and I wanted to share them with you. 

The first card is from my good friend and fellow stamping demonstrator, Ethel DeTemple from Surrey, BC.  

I smiled when I took this fun Christmas card out of its envelope.  In our world, Ethel is totally the master of decorating cards and tags with her wonderful little owls.  Therefore I was simply thrilled to receive one of her signature cards. She uses the Stampin' Up! Owl Builder Punch for her creations.  

I love how she spotlighted this little gem by adding a window to the card interior.  She also combined a beautiful mixture of smokey slate and pear pizzazz designer series paper for a clean look on her card.  I have to say this card is just amazing inside and out.   Thanks so much Ethel for making my day with this great card! 

View of the interior of the card where she's added another owl image to match the one on the front.  So clever. 

My second card came from another friend and Stampin' Up! demonstrator Debby Evoy who is from the Abbotsford area.  I love Debby's cards.  She's always so creative and likes to try different techniques.  

For this card she stamped on a piece of vellum to create a snowy window scene over top of the beautiful pine bows from the Ornamental Pine stamp set (retired).  This card front is amazing!  It's like looking out a portal at a snow blizzard. Wonderful job Debby, it took my breath away! 

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The top layer of Debbie's card is dry embossed with the Wood Grain Embossing Folder.  It really looks like a front door the way she's layered it with the vellum on this card front.    

The snow is created by stamping the speckled stamp from Gorgeous Grunge in vellum and then heat embossing Whisper White Embossing Powder over top. Simply beautiful technique! 

The third and final Christmas card I want to share with you is from my talented sister Heather Hopson.  This card took ever so long to arrive because of an address mix up,  but when it finally did and I took it out of its envelope, you could have seen my smile from a mile away.  I loved every aspect of this card from the clean and simple lines to the textured embossing and silver pine bow. Well done Heather! 

Well that's it for Christmas 2014 season, but I hope you enjoyed seeing the beautiful cards I received from my friends and family this season.

Happy Stamping!
Penny Tokens 

Owl Friendship Cards

Recently some very good friends of ours came for dinner.  They arrived with this absolutely stunning white bouquet, to thank us for our hospitality.  I can't even begin to describe how wonderful a gesture that was.  

For me, there is something so absolutely special about receiving flowers in the first place, but when I get an all white bouquet it simply takes my breath away.  

These beauties lasted for over a week and brought me joy each and every time I walked in the room.  What great friends and how thoughtful!  

During their visit my girlfriend spent some time in the card room with me and she got a big kick out of this owl card I made while CASing one of Dawn Griffiths projects (see original post here).  

She liked it so much in fact, that she asked me to make her five cards to give to her friends.  I changed up a few of the colour details, but basically kept the same design features.  I thought I'd share the cards I made for her, because they are just so darned cute.  

The highlight of this card is the Owl Builder Punch.  This unique punch is a two-step punch that cuts out all of the pieces you need to build an owl. The punch includes an owl body, detailed eyes (not just one circle size but three so you can create dimension), and a small heart. All you have to do to start creating just punch and then layer the pieces.
 

Owl Punch #118074  Price $22.95

Owl Punch #118074  Price $22.95

The card base is done in Night of Navy with Whisper White and Cherry Cobbler layers.  The Night of Navy DSP is from an old retired DSP pack I had and worked really well on the front of the card.

Here's a view of the inside of the card complete with this dressed up little owl.  Isn't she cute!

 

I've added some google eyes and her dress is cut from beautiful red glimmer paper. The flower was cut from Silver glimmer paper and is topped off with a basic white rhinestone. 

Hope you enjoyed this post.  The owl builder is such a versatile punch.  There's no end to the characters you can make with it.  

Penny

Christmas In July Workshops

Everyone loves to get a jump on making their Christmas Cards and because of this I decided to hold a "Christmas in July" stamp-a-stack workshop to help get things rolling. I actually offered this class on July 10th at my home and again on July 13th in Vernon, BC. What fun we had. Each participant made 4 of 4 different card designs in a 31/2 hour class. Whew!!! That was a lot to accomplish. Want to see what we made: 

Here are the 4 Christmas Card Designs.

Each of the cards has it's own unique feel and utilizes a number of punches and stamp sets from the new 2011-2012 Idea Book and Catalogue.  Here are the individual cards and a brief description.

Christmas Ornament Card:  Sahara Sand cardstock stamped with Christmas Collage, Baroque Motifs and mounted on Cherry Cobbler.  The new Lace Ribbon Border Punch adds a decorative design.  The ornament is from the Delightful Decorations Stamp set and punched out with the Ornament Punch. 

The Vernon class used River Rock cardstock in place of the Sahara Sand and the edges were sponged in Cherry Cobbler.  The combo really worked.

The second card design was inspired by a design on page 21 of the IB&C which features the Snow Much Fun Stamp Set from page 35 of the catalogue.  I love this new set and so did everyone in the class.   I've also provided the details for this card in my earlier post entitled Inspiration in Action Case Contest.

Here's a closeup view of the Snowmall layering and the inside of the card.  The layering makes the snowman look so fat and jolly and brings some life to the card too!

The third card featuring two adorable penquins in the snow is based on punch art using the Owl Builder Punch (118074) page 213 IB&C.   What fun this was.   To position all the little parts of this punch art like the eye balls and nose, we used a tip I found on one of the blogs (sorry if it's your blog please let me know so I can give you credit here) whereby you use a toothpick dipped in melted bees wax to pick up all the little pieces.  This worked like a charm and made it both easy to glue and position these small little pieces.   The card is layered on Whisper White cardstock.  A piece of Baja Breeze is embossed with the Northern Flurries Embossing Folder and the sentiment is from the "Sincere Salutations" stamp set. 

And finally, the fourth card which also uses one of my all time favourite seasonal stamps "Holiday Lineup" is designed to look like these happy little snowmen are all huddled outside a window on a cold frosty day.  Lots of colouring with markers here but the design is super simple to recreate and is all about stamp placement.

I still have some class sets left so if you are interested in making the stamp a stack or a class just featuring one of each of the 4 designs then give me a call, I'd be happy to arrange a date and time.