Hello and welcome aboard our Stamp of the month Australasian Close to My Heart Blog Hop. If you have arrived here from Wendy’s blog Expressions of the Heart,  then you are in the right place. If you landed here by accident, no problem, please join in by following the link at the end of this post.

Today I would like to share with you this  some cards that I have made which features the Home from the Holiday stamp set which is available exclusively throughout October for $33 or for just $5 when you spend $75.  This stamp set has some very versatile images that would be great for cardmaking and scrapbooking.

I have had some fun doing a selection of cards using this gorgeous stamp set ranging from traditional colours to totally untraditional Christmas themed cards.

First up is this card using the beautiful and very traditional Christmas papers from the Yuletide Carol range.  I have used an off cut that I had from doing the Yuletide Carol WOTG kit and it fitted perfectly on the card.  I have used the Art Philosophy cartridge to cut the shape of the ornament and stamped it with Ruby ink.  The pine leaves are stamped from the Yuletide Carol WOTG stamp set and I have coloured the bitty sparkles using the Carmine Shinhan Twin Touch marker to look like little holly berries.  The bow has been cut using the Artiste Cricut cartridge and embossing with the dot embossing folder.  To top the bow I have used a gold sequin and a clear sparkle again coloured with the Carmine Shinhan Twin Touch marker.  The sentiment is from the Scandinavian Wishes SOTM set which is no longer available.  Here is a close up of the bow and the leaves with the holly berries.

My next card has been made using my new favourite colour – Glacier.

This is such a stunning colour and very popular at the moment with all the Frozen merchandise out accompanying the popular film.  The polar bear image looks great in Glacier and I have matched it with the beautiful Snowhaven paper.  I have also used the beautiful Fundamentals Adventure paper to add a little bit of shine to back the Cricut cut image of the polar bear.  The background Glacier cardstock has been embossed using the dots embossing folder and then sanded to try and look a little like snow covered dots.  I love the fact that the CTMH papers are white cored as you can get lots of different effects with sanding and distressing.

Moving away from the traditional I have used Black and Glacier with a touch of Flaxen to create a totally different card.  Normally you would not associate black with Christmas but I love this combination as it stands out so much from the traditional reds and greens.  I think the black image helps the polar bear look like it is in a window looking out at you – what do you think?   Again I have used some Glacier Fundamentals paper from the Whimsy pack which gives a nice background to the stamped image.

Finally I have done a pink Christmas card.  Pink is not a colour normally associated with Christmas but I just wanted to do a fun card and I love this parcel set from the Artbooking cartridge.  It is great to layer and have some fun with colours and textures.

I have cut out the parcels from Pink glitter paper and backed with some Cotton Candy cardstock.  To add some interest to the parcels I have used some silver  geometric washi tape on a couple of the parcels to keep with the silver and pink theme.  I don’t normally use a lot of washi tape and strips like this but today I have done that with good effect.  The Pink spotted washi tape (unfortunately NLA) and the pink and silver shimmer trims add a base on which to place the parcels which helps pull the card together.

Materials used:

Cardstock – White Daisy, Ruby, Glacier, Black, Cotton Candy, Pink Glitter,

Paper – Yuletide, Snowhaven, Paper Fundamentals – Whim

Inks – Black, Ruby, Glacier, New England Ivy

Stamps – SOTM – Home for the Holidays, Yuletide Carol WOTH, Holiday Tags, Sparkle & Shine WOTG (NLA), Scandinavian Wishes SOTM (NLA)

Aqua Dots

Cricut Cartidges – Artiste, Art Philosophy, Art Philosophy

Pink spotted washi tape.

Silver Shimmer Trim

Pink Shimmer Trim

Silver geometric washi tape

Cotton Candy spotted washi tape (NLA)

Clear Sparkles

Bitty Sparkles

Shinshan Touch Twin markers – Cherry

Gold Sequins

Embossing folder – Dots

Home for  the Holidays is only available until 31 October  from your CTMH consultant.  I’d love you to leave a comment before heading off to the next stop,  Vandra’s blog – Vandra’s Virtual CTMH Craftroom.  I am sure she has an amazing project for you to admire.

Have a good week.

Happy Crafting

Patricia