Making a start on Christmas

I fell in love with these Inkadinkado stamps (a clear set called "Holiday Greetings") the first time I saw them. It was an impulse purchase quite out of character for me. But the more I use them the more I love them and I'm beginning to see how versatile they are going to be. In fact, I can imagine being able to do my whole 2009 card quota with these 6 stamps. Which would be a shame as I bought several other Inkadinkado sets very close to Christmas last year and never got to use them.

My starting point was a blog post from Stamp Talk with Tosh. I love the way she'd coloured the images and attempted to do something similar. I stamped a sheet of images and enjoyed working on them in front of the tv, using Distress Inks, the odd marker, 'puffy colours' (a dimensional medium with a glossy finish which Elaine kindly brought back for me from her European trip and which I used on the poinsettias) and my trusty Clear Stardust pen. You can just see the sparkle in the images at the top of the sheet. I was really pleased that I seemed to get a nice balance between subtle and glam.

I managed to find the gorgeous Signature Christmas papers from My Mind's Eye to use with them and split the pack with my crafty friend Lesley. My first card was very simple but I thought the stamps needed very little to show them at their best.

By accident I found that once mounted, the images were a nice size to go on my tri shutter card so that became my second card.

I decided to make the panel for the handwritten greeting into a little card-within-a-card and to stamp with an image from Winter Trails which co ordinates with the design on the front.

A third card is almost finished but needs a final touch. I feel I'm on a bit of a roll so maybe I'll find the missing piece for my card this evening.