Christmas Cards Using Your Stash, Part 1

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

Hi everyone!  It's November, and I've only got about a fourth of the Christmas cards I need for the year, so I'm starting to get serious about things.  

There are so many great new products out, but I'm really trying to watch my spending this year, so I'm making a concerted effort to shop my stash for Christmas fodder.

Today's cards feature some non-Christmas products combined with Christmas sentiments.

I started by pulling a couple of 'finished' distress ink created panels.  When I pull all the inks/sprays out to get messy, I tend to create a pile of panels.  Some get used immediately, and some get saved for later.

I thought it would be fun to add patten to the panels using my Interlocking Circles stencils for Simon Says Stamp.

This is a set of four stencils, but for this fist card, I used just three of the stencils along with Seafoam, Surf, and Ocean inks.

The panel was so pretty I wanted to leave as much exposed as possible.  I added a red mat, and a sentiment from the XL Christmas Greetings set.  

I used the coordinating die to cut a mat for the sentiment which was off set for a bit of interest, and then popped the entire piece up with foam adhesive.

Super easy.

This next card is a bit bolder and glitzier.

I used the same stencil set, this time on a pretty saturated green panel, with Fairway, Field, and Pine for the first three stencils.  For the final stencil, I used gold embossing paste (love this stuff!).

After the embossing paste had dried, I added a bit of inking around the the edges of the panel with Field to really make the center glow.

For the sentiment, I used the CZ Merry and Bright dies.  The shadow piece was also inked around the edges with Field, and the sentiment itself was cut from Matte Gold cardstock. 

Once again, I popped the finished piece up with foam tape.

These backgrounds/cards were so much fun to create!

I have lots more Christmas stash card ideas.  Stay tuned!