Christmas Season

Welcome to our final Stamp Off of the year. It’s also the last official Stamp Off for awhile. Susan, Jackie, & I have all been overwhelmed lately, and, let’s face it – we’re not spring chickens anymore. (Did you hear that in Aunt Bea’s voice, from the Andy Griffith Show? In case you never saw it – or don’t remember, here are some “reviews” that give a recap.) We’re putting the challenges on hold for now. Keep an eye out, though, because we may be adding some challenges every now and then just for fun.

Today’s challenge is to show our personal Christmas cards. That was definitely a challenge for me, because I have already shown you all the cards I made for Christmas. Here’s the one I had scheduled for today, but I realized it uses the same Embossing Paste/Soft Pastels background idea that I showed you on Monday, so this is a bonus for you.

I added some snowflakes die-cut from the Ombre Specialty Paper to add a little more sparkle.

Here’s the actual card for today.

This is the fourth and final card in my Using Soft Pastels series. For this card, I used the chalk as ink. It’s so fun and so easy, and it gives a watercolored look to your card.

I shaved Mossy Meadow, Granny Apple Green, and Poppy Parade chalks onto acrylic stamp blocks. One of our Silicone Craft Mats would work as well.

Next, I affixed one of the stamps from the Christmas Season Stamp Set to another block, spritzed the stamp with a little water, then “inked” it with the chalk dust. You can spritz the chalk dust instead of the stamp, but sometimes the dust will fly off the block with the force of the spritz, and it’s also very easy to add too much water, so I prefer spritzing the stamp.

Now, simply stamp randomly on Basic White Cardstock. You can stamp at least two times before re-chalking your stamp. Clean the stamp, and continue with the rest of the images and colors you want to use.

I stamped the pinecones with Classic Stampin’ Ink, because I wanted them a little more detailed. I used Crumb Cake and Soft Suede, then I die-cut with the Seasonal Labels Dies. These dies coordinate with the Christmas Season Stamp Set, and if you bundle the stamps and dies, you’ll save 10%. But hurry! While the stamps and dies are continuing, the bundled price ends January 3 with the July-December Mini Catalog.

I used two of the label dies to create the sentiment in Basic White and Poppy Parade. The sentiment is from the For Unto Us Stamp Set that will be retiring on January 3.

If you haven’t used the Soft Pastels Assortment, do give them a try. I have only shown you four ways to use them, but there are so many more!

Please take a minute to check out Jackie’s and Susan’s Christmas cards. I received one from each of them, but, like me, they may have lots of different designs. I can’t wait to see if they used the beautiful ones they sent me or something different.

Thanks for stopping by Stamping with Buffy, and for your support over the years. We have thoroughly enjoyed our challenges, and I hope you have gotten some inspiration from them as well. While we won’t each be using the same idea on Fridays, we’ll still be blogging, so we look forward to having you drop by! Have a lovely day!

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