Eliza Snowflake clean and simple Christmas cards

Hi blogging friends

I am typing up this post on a new (well, 2nd-hand re-furbished) laptop.  I had been having a few problems with my old laptop as the socket on the back of my laptop where the charger/power cord plugs in was getting loose and my laptop wouldn't be running off the mains power some of the time and therefore running off the laptop battery.  Now my battery has been crook for a while and only able to hold a small amount of charge - and in the past few weeks, it had worsened to the point where it would only hold about 5 minutes of charge. I had resisted spending the $70 to get a new one because, well $70 is alot of money and I had just spent $$ on replacing the keyboard.  BIG mistake!  Trouble was that when I was busy on my laptop, I wouldn't necessarily notice that the charger/power cord had moved slightly in the socket so my computer wasn't charging and then my laptop would suddenly shut down when the 5 minutes of battery back-up had run out which it did about 10 times over last weekend as the charger socket just seemed to get looser and looser.  

The last time it shut down, it damaged the hard drive....OOOPS!!  Computers do NOT like shutting down unless they are shut down properly!  It took hours of work to get it up and running again - it wouldn't even turn on at one stage - but I can't use it unless I get a new battery and a new charging socket - and there are still some problems to fix.   Sheesh, I was sooooo grumpy and annoyed:  I love computers but when things go wrong, it is probably the one thing that puts me in such a bad temper as I am the "fix-it" person for all things computer in our house - and it can take up so much time to fix them sometimes to no avail.

Anyway, my lovely husband went out last week and bought me another laptop and if I can fix the old one completely, my husband will take it over as his laptop screen is covered in lines due to it wearing out and is really old now and so slow in comparison.  I heartily recommend replacing a sick laptop battery and replacing the charger socket as you can easily buy them as long as your laptop isn't too old.  I have definitely learned my lesson the hard way!

Anyway, I am still catching up on things and with Christmas on our doorstep, I am frantically whipping up cards.  Today I am sharing some clean and simple Christmas cards which I have made for my Mum to post to her friends/family.  Mum is frail and has difficulty using her hands so I had to have mail-friendly and flat cards that are easy for her to handle.  If I had a ribbon on them and the ribbon came untied, she wouldn't be able to re-tie the ribbon.  And they had to be easy for her to put in an envelope so too many layers that made the card difficult to put in just wasn't going to work for her. So here is what I came up with which I have made multiples of and had a little production line going in my Craft Room:

The gorgeous snowflake is a die by Simon Says Stamp - Eliza Snowflake - which I ran through my Big Shot using the glitter cardstock.  I did run it through my Big Shot several times moving the die around each time as being such a detailed die and the glitter cardstock being quite thick meant it didn't cut cleanly on just one pass.  I glued the snowflake on using Tombow Mono Multi-glue which I applied with a small paintbrush.

I glued on a glitter cardstock strip to the top of the white cardstock front, border punched the bottom then glued on the glitter cardstock strip underneath the white cardstock front (I hope that makes sense!).  I thought I had better explain how I did it because you may think that I glued the white cardstock front to the glitter cardstock base instead as it's a little hard to tell from the photo.

Now here is the silver version:

The approximate sizes of my finished cards are as follows:

Card #1 - 4-11/16 inches wide x 4-9/16 inches long (120mm x 115mm)
Card #2 - 4-1/2 inches wide x 4-7/16 long (113mm x 112mm)

I really didn't think the cards needed a sentiment - and anyway, I am not sure where I would put one!  Even though the cards were simple to make, they are quite fiddly as handling the snowflake with glue and trying to get it level and straight takes some time.  I used my ruler to mark where the centre of the card was so that I could use the marks to line up the snowflake perfectly.  I often think that when you make a clean and simple design, you need to put quite alot of thought into it to get it "balanced" and looking right because having one element askew really stands out compared to a layered card.  Personally, I find them very challenging and I have some cards that I've made that just "don't look quite right":  I don't know what's wrong with them, whether it's not balanced or something is missing (?), but they sit in my pile waiting for me to go back to them later on one day (we ALL have those cards, don't we LOL?!).

Challenges:

I am entering my card in the following challenges -

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra - December - Anything Goes
Splitcoaststampers - Free for All F4A197 - Let it Snow

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great weekend!

Jocelyn


Card Recipe:

Card #1 -

Stamps, Ink and Designer paper:  None

Accessories:  Simon Says Stamp Eliza Snowflake SSSD111308, Big Shot, Tombow Mono Multi glue, EK Success Scallop Diamond border punch, cardstock - white, aqua glitter

Card #2 -

Stamps, Ink and Designer paper:  None

Accessories:  Simon Says Stamp Eliza Snowflake SSSD111308, Big Shot, Tombow Mono Multi glue, EK Success Scalloped Scallop border punch, cardstock - white, silver glitter