LOSTie Christmas/Winter Kits

Over the last month, some of the LOSTies participated in a card kit swap - the theme was Christmas/winter and each participant had to send each of the other girls some stamped images as well as cardstock or patterned paper. Everyone then had to take those materials, add some of their own embellishments, and create their own card. It's really cool to see how many different takes there are using the same materials. I chose not to participate because with moving and all, I had to pack up my stamp supplies and didn't have time to put a kit together. I also wasn't sure when my stamping stuff would be unpacked and if I'd ever have a chance to put the kits together. But, those girls are too sweet for words and each made up an extra kit for me to play with when I got settled! Thank you!!!

This weekend I got a lot of playing time in and tonight was able to finish putting together all the kits. Let me tell you, it was not easy. This was the first swap of this kind that I'd done before and I think I took things too literally. I felt like I had to include every component included in the kit, so if there were 3 different designs of patterned paper, I thought I had to use them all. Well, until the last few kits when my creativity was too stretched and I just gave up! I also didn't realize we could add other things of our own, like additional cardstock, besides embellishments. So I'm really not happy with about half of the cards I made. I avoided looking at any of the cards the other girls had posted until I was done because I didn't want to be swayed by their ideas, but looking at them now, I realize they all did a much better job because they weren't bound by the rules and in a lot of cases, only used bits and pieces of the supplied papers or added some extras of their own. Regardless, I had fun with them and was definitely forced to stretch myself into using styles that I'm not used to!

And here they are:

This was Amanda's kit. I'd been wanting to try an acetate card for a long time and had just never gotten around to it, so this was a welcome challenge! I wish I had stamped something on the acetate to make it stand out more, but I guess I didn't realize that we could add stamps to the card beyond the stamped images we received in the kit and maybe a sentiment if needed. Again, I was taking this much too literally! The patterned paper is adhered on the inside and the image is on the outside so that the adhesive I used on the pieces was completely hidden. I did the same thing on the back panel - one piece adhered on the inside of the card and one on the outside.

This one was from Barb - more acetate! She had the globe from Lizzie Anne Designs' Build a Bauble set stamped on acetate, so I used it with the base piece to create a snowglobe of sorts. Only there's no snow, just merry Christmas wishes in a lot of languages! The three circles in the bottom corner were punched out of a scrap of the patterned paper I had left with a 1/4 in. punch. Other than that, I just added some SU grosgrain ribbon.

This kit was from Cindy. I decided to make it into a tent topper card using my Marvy oval punches. I used SU's word window punch on the red strip to allow the sentiment to show through. Added some stardust stickles to the snow and snowflakes on the Elzybell image and that's it!

Next up is Colleen's kit. This is the first card I've ever made with a MFT image because usually I'm adverse to headless people, but this stamp I like! I just used a bit of a random layout so as not to hide the cuttlebugged patterns on the white and aqua papers. I added a clear gemstone to the center of the snowflake embellishment and lots of stardust stickles to the snowy ground!

This kit is from Debbie. I love this paper and the cute snowman image and I just didn't do them justice. I couldn't figure out how to put this card together using all the components Debbie included (there was another piece of patterned paper and cardstock too), and I'm regretting my choice of red for a card base, but I didn't figure out until I'd adhered it all that brown really would have been better. But by that point the paper would have ripped if I'd tried to unstick it. The snowman is cut out and popped up with dimensionals and the snowflake is popped up as well and then embellished with a large clear gemstone.

This card kit was from Edie and I think it was my favorite because there was no coloring involved! You may have noticed that I very rarely post cards that involve coloring and if they do, it's just little detail work here and there. So a lot of the kit images were a real challenge for me. I am not good at watercoloring and do not have Copics, so it's really a struggle to get my stuff to look good. So, Edie's card was a welcome break! Plus, the ink is a gorgeous metallic and the light and dark teal cardstocks are shimmery! So pretty in real life! I kept this one pretty simple, just added A LOT of gemstones for even more sparkly bling!

This was from Jeannie's card kit. She included three different pieces of patterned paper and, again, thinking I needed to use them all, the only thing I could come up with was punching out a circle of each one and popping them up with dimensionals. My mojo was not with me for many of these cards, as you can tell! The pink background was stamped with Papertrey's Polka Dot Basics and I added SU grosgrain. That's it!

I cheated just a little bit with Justine's kit. She included a piece of Baja Breeze cardstock embossed with the cuttlebug snowflake folder and it was so pretty, but the paper is also very pretty (and glittered in real life) and I didn't want to cover it. So, I cut out two of the embossed snowflakes (NOT something I would ever do for mass producing) and put a dimensional between the two of them, added a gemstone on top, and created my own embellishment out of it. The moose is stamped on shimmery cardstock and I added some stardust stickles to the snow for extra sparkle.

This kit is from Kim. I LOVE this Wassail paper from Basic Grey but I am really trying to avoid buying it since I'm on a stamping spending ban for a while. So I'm glad I got to play with one piece of it at least! The owl is punched out with the mega Marvy circle punch and then the giga scallop circle is matted behind it. That whole thing is popped up with dimensionals. I dotted the scallops of the circle and on the scallop border with a white gel pen (the BEST white gel pen I've ever used btw - made by Inkssentials. I've tried so many different ones and this is only one that always works for me!) and added SU grosgrain ribbon across the kraft piece. I wish I'd cut that whole strip across the bottom a little more narrow, but again, didn't figure that out until it was already adhered.

Next up is the kit from Kris. The piece of vellum cuttlebugged with the snowflake embossing folder was included in the kit and I just put a white strip of cardstock behind it to make it pop more. Kris also included another strip of paper from the Basic Grey Figgy Pudding collection that I really wanted to use because it had presents on it and that goes perfectly with elves, but I just couldn't make it all work. This was one of the last kits I pulled out of the envelope, so by this point I was breaking rules and not using all the pieces. ;-) Overall, pretty straightforward, I just added some wedding bells dewdrops to the left corner.

This was Rachel's kit. I struggled with this one, wanting to showcase both the pretty paper and the cuttlebugged cardstock, so I ended up going with a very basic layout. I added stardust stickles to the snow and still thought the card looked too plain, so I added a clear gemstone to the center of each of the embossed snowflakes. Not sure if I like that look or not, but those babies are stuck on there!

This one was from Stacy. The trees are stamped on a really pretty shimmery vanilla paper and the paper is pre-glittered for extra sparkle. I just supplemented what Stacy provided with a few extra layers of cardstock and some SU grosgrain.

This kit was from Suzanne and I think this came together for me the fastest out of all of them. Well, except for the fact that my big dumb hands smeared red ink all over the first image I colored, so I had to color another one - thank goodness for extra images! This is a really simple card, I just sponged the edges of some of the layers with Old Olive ink, added stardust stickles to the snow, and added a sentiment from Lizzie Anne Designs that I think goes perfectly with that happy Santa!

And finally, this kit was from Tammi, the swap hostess. Tammi is one of the best colorers on the planet, so I knew right off the bat I could never do this image justice. But, I did my best! The background is three different pieces of patterned paper that I pieced together and I added two strips of SU stitched ribbon behind the image. To finish it off, I punched out two holly leaves with my Martha Stewart holly punch and used a glittered brad from Imaginesce as the "berry". This was stuck on the corner with a glue dot.

Whew, that was long! Thanks for sticking with me, if you did! And thanks Tammi for hosting this fun swap and for including me in it even though I didn't send any kits to you! And now, since this post took me over an hour to put together, it's time to find some dinner!

P.S. Please ignore the somewhat uneven layout of this post! It is not cooperating with me and I am too hungry to have the patience to try fixing it right now!