MFT Photo card frame Christmas cards

Hi blogging friends

I can't believe how quickly November is flying by:  I am sure the year speeds up once November hits!  It sure seems like it every year.  I have been beavering away in my Craft Room in-between alot of medical appointments this month with my loved one.  Thankfully, they are doing well even if their recovery is long and slow and challenging - and I am so grateful for the times that we can cherish together no matter whether we are travelling in peak-hour traffic coming home from hospital or just sitting for ages in a medical waiting room.  Life is so fragile and you have to make the most of these moments together no matter where you are because you don't know what is around the corner.

The card I am sharing today is a clean and simple design based around a new My Favorite Things die called Photo Card Frame.  When I first set my eyes on this die, I had all sorts of ideas running through my head.  I think the main idea behind the die is to take a Christmas photograph of your family, pets or something Christmassy and pop it into the frame - but I had other ideas of using dies to make a simple scene within the frame - and here is the result:

I diecut the frame out of silver glitter cardstock then attached the diecut elements to that before attaching the finished frame to my card front.  I used my Cottage Cutz Snow Swept border die for the main part of the scene and a My Favorite Things Snow Drifts die to add the extra layer of snow.  None of the layers are up on dimensionals - they are just layered together with doublesided tape.  Even though the Snow Swept border diecut looks like it is up on dimensionals, it just merely the dry embossing that it is on top of that bumps it up a little to look that way.  The snowflakes are by Impression Obsession.  I glued down just the snowflake centres and bent the tips up a little to add a little dimension to them and added a silver rhinestone to the centre.

I ran my white cardstock card front through my Big Shot using the (retired) Cuttlebug Kars Snowflake embossing folder.  If you do not have this folder - plus it is virtually impossible to find online - you can substitute the Sizzix Dots embossing folder from the set Merry Christmas Words and Dots Item #658285 which is readily available.  You can see a little pic of it here:

Once I had embossed my card front, I attached the scene/frame then just trimmed up the edges of the white cardstock base so that I had a thin border around the silver frame although the angle of the photo makes it look a little uneven.  My white card bases are bigger than a Cuttlebug embossing folder which means I can just have the dry embossing within the scene and not spill over onto the cards edges.

While I was on a roll, I made another scene, this time using red glitter cardstock:

Again, I used the same embossing folder for the background snow - just a different die for the scene which in this case, is the Memory Box Deer Trio die.  The top right-hand snowflake is by Simon Says Stamp:  Kate's Snowflake and the bottom left-hand snowflake is the smallest of the 3 dies in the My Favorite Things Die-namics Snowflake Trio set.  Again, I glued down the snowflake centres and bent the points up a little and added a red rhinestone to each centre.  The white cardstock base edges (again!) look uneven in the photo but they are perfectly even in real life:  just the angle of the photo trying to capture a little of the red glitteriness plus the embossing which make it look a little weird.

I can see myself using this Photo Frame die ALOT - and you could even just cut off the words if you didn't want them and stamp a different Christmas sentiment - or use the frame for another occasion.  Yep, one of those really useful dies which I will definitely get my money's worth out of.  

I have a couple of other scenes in the pipelines - watch this space!

Challenges:

I am entering my cards in the following challenges -

Christmas Card Weekly Challenges (by Sparkle Creations) - Challenge #51 - Sparkle and Bling.  My sparkle and bling is the glitter cardstock and rhinestones.

Totally Papercrafts Friday Challenge #193 - Clean and Simple

Splitcoaststampers Fan Club Christmas Card November Challenge - Window In/Out into Christmas.  Create a window scene at Christmas time eg: something you see when you look out your window at Christmas such a snow covered trees, snowmen, streets lined with snow - or when you are looking inside a window such as table decorations, tree, presents.  Now of course, being Australian, we don't have snow at Christmas-time because it is summer so I am not looking out my window at snowy scenes but I have friends and/or relatives in Canada, USA and the UK and I send them cards depicting their snowy winters - so my card depicts what THEY see out their window instead LOL!   Please note you have to be a (paid) Fan Club Member of SCS to be able to play in these challenges.

Thanks for stopping by!  Hope to see you again soon.

Jocelyn


Card Recipe - Card No. 1:

Stamps and Ink:  None

Designer paper:  Silver glitter cardstock

Accessories:  My Favorite Things Die-namics Photo Card Frame die + Snow Drifts die, Impression Obsession Die100-F snowflake die set, Cottage Cutz Snow Swept Border die, Big Shot, Cuttlebug Kars Snowflakes embossing folder (RETIRED), Kaisercraft silver SB700 rhinestones, doublesided tape, cardstock - white (Paper Mill)

Card No. 2:

Stamps and Ink:  None

Designer paper:  Red glitter cardstock

Accessories:  My Favorite Things Die-namics Photo Card Frame die + Snowflake Trio set (smallest snowflake die), Memory Box Deer Trio die, Simon Says Stamp Kate's Snowflake SSSD111309 die, Big Shot, Cuttlebug Kars Snowflake embossing folder (RETIRED), Kaisercraft red SB711 rhinestones, doublesided tape, cardstock - white (Paper Mill)