It's never too early to make a start on hand-made Christmas Cards - for the past couple of years I started making 1 or 2 cards a week from about July onwards and I found I didn't end up having that big rush to make Christmas cards at the end of the year!
Today I decided to get out my Rasberry goodies and get creative with their last Christmas collection - pattern papers, cardstock, bling and rubons!
Like I do on almost all of my greeting cards, I used plain white textured cards for the base of all these cards - it makes card making so much quicker because I only have to create the front decorated pieces and then attach them to the card front!

Although it may look like I've added ribbon to the cards, it's actually just strips of pattern paper and cardstock which I've then hand stitched along the sides of.

As you can see on the above card, I applied the Rasberry rubon images to white cardstock and then used a scallop punch to cut them out before mounting them to my cards with dimensional adhesive.

For a little added interest, both this card and the one below feature a cluster of different sized bling in the centre of some of the stars on the pattern paper!

As you can see - a little more hand-stitching too!

The pattern paper ribbon on this card has actually been folded and looped to create a different effect - I'd actually seen this done online and was keen to give it a go myself

I think it would look quite effective in real ribbon too and you wouldn't have to worry about it creasing quite the same as you do with paper!
Today was actually my Longford Crafters fortnightly get together and I'd like to thank everyone in my group for their lovely birthday wishes (for tomorrow) AND for the gorgeous bunch of Liliums they gave me - they're not quite open as yet but as soon as they do I'll be sure to share a pic - I'm sure my kitchen is going to smell absolutely divine in the coming days!
Also on the homefront, I'm really looking forward to tomorrow because our sewing group get together is on and all being well I hope to finish my patchwork apron! I can't wait!