Birch Press Design

Category: Christmas

  • Peace Love Joy | by Rosemary Dennis

    Peace Love Joy | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hello, hello! Rosemary here on the blog today with a snowy scene card that was so much fun to make! Let’s have a look.

    For my card I used the new Littletown Home, Wavy Hillside, and Peace Love Joy word die sets. The next few photos will show a little bit of my process for creating the card. I try to remember to take these kinds of photos, but sometimes get so involved in the process that I forget. This time I remembered!

    I started by cutting piece of light blue cardstock from the Lagoon 6×6 cardstock pad to 5 1/2 by 4 1/4. I pulled out several distress oxide inks in shades of blue and blended them onto the top of the cardstock. I knew I would be covering up the bottom so no need to waste time and ink there! Once I had the blues blended to my liking I added in some black using Black Soot distress oxide. I used Blueprint Sketch, Prized Ribbon and Chipped Sapphire for the blues (could only fit the Chipped Sapphire in the photo).

    Once the ink blending was done I put the panel into my splatter box and liberally splatted the panel with white acrylic paint. I let the panel dry and moved on to the next step in my card process: creating the wintry hills for my little houses!

    I used Glossy Accents to cover the hill pieces, but I didn’t cover the cardstock pieces completely as you can see in the above photo. I did this because I wanted a more realistic snow look to each piece. Giving it the look of high and low areas in the snow that are there in real life. I then covered each piece with Rock Candy glitter and let them dry.

    Now it was time to make the little houses, trees and sentiments. I die cut the houses from white, grey and yellow cardstocks and then adhered them together. Glossy Accents was added to the roofs and then Rock Candy glitter for that icy, snowy look. For the trees I simply added some liquid adhesive and then sprinkled on the Rock Candy Glitter. I had a scrap of the light blue cardstock so I ink blended that with the blue distress inks I used and die cut the shadow layer of each word from that. The words were die cut from white and then adhered to the shadow layer with liquid adhesive.

    For the snowy hills I adhered the bottom one with foam tape. The middle layer was adhered with thin foam squares and the top layer with liquid adhesive. I layered the hills this way so that I could tuck the trees behind the bottom hill layer and the houses. The trees were adhered with a combination of liquid adhesive and thin foam squares. The houses were adhered in the same manner. The sentiments were adhered simply with liquid adhesive.

    I hope you enjoyed today’s card and seeing a little bit of the process I used to create the card. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

    Supplies

    57567 Littletown Home

    57543 Peace Love Joy Confection Script

    57563 Wavy Hillside

  • Merry Christmas | by Rosemary Dennis

    Merry Christmas | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hello everyone! Rosemary here on the blog today. Can you believe it is already September? I can’t. Today I have a Christmas card to share with you that I made with several new Birch Press Design products. Let’s have a look at what I made.

    I love the Birch Press Design Poinsettia Contour Layer dies and the new Classic Poinsettia Contour Layers die set is no exception. It is so beautiful! I started by die cutting the layers from three shades of red Memory Box cardstock and one shade of green Memory Box cardstock. I then took the the top layer of each layer of the poinsettia and sprayed them with either Tart Cranberry or Peppermint Stick distress mica sprays. The top layer of the leaf was sprayed with Tree Lot distress mica spray.

    Once the layers were dry I adhered them together with liquid adhesive. The center of the flower was die cut from yellow Memory Box cardstock and layered together with liquid adhesive. I did the same with the leaves. All the layers of the flower were then adhered together with liquid adhesive, as well as the leaves.

    I die cut the pieces from the Tiny Berries and Leaves Contour Layers die from dark green and brown cardstock. The berries were die cut from dark red Memory Box cardstock and sprayed with Tart Cranberry mica spray. I cut down the berry stems to fit my design and then adhered the little berries to the stems with liquid adhesive.

    In the close up photos you can see some of the pretty shimmer from the mica sprays. I arranged the leafy stems and the berry stems and then glued them together with liquid adhesive. I did have to trim off a bit of the bottom before apply liquid adhesive to the piece and adding the flower on top as you see in the photos. The sentiment is the new Merry Christmas Confection Script die set and it was die cut from the same cardstock used for the poinsettia and leaves. I adhered the two pieces with liquid glue and let it dry.

    For the background I die cut some cream woodgrain Memory Box cardstock with a rectangle die and then sprayed the piece with Frozen Fog distress mica spray. Once the panel was dry I adhered two additional die cut rectangles behind it for a bit of dimension and then adhered it to my kraft cardstock base with double sided tape. The flower cluster and the sentiment were added to finish the card. Now I have another Christmas card to add to my stash!

    I hope you enjoyed today’s card. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

    Supplies

    57518 Tiny Berries and Leaves Contour Layers

    57557 Classic Poinsettia Contour Layers

    57542 Merry Christmas Confection Script

  • 105 days until Christmas | by April Antonio

    105 days until Christmas | by April Antonio

    Hello friends! Design Team member April here today sharing an early Christmas card using some of the products from the new holiday release. With Autumn almost upon us, everything is about to speed up, so why not start on creating some holiday cheer?! Also, these new dies are just too cute to put down!

    Here’s how I pulled this card together:

    I grabbed a pre-cut slimline card base in white, and glued a dark blue cardstock mat to the background to represent the night sky. I used the new Wavy Hillside die set and cut the largest die from white cardstock twice. I glued the die cuts twice to the front of the slimline card using foam tape, and made sure to leave a little room at the top so that I could later tuck in some of the houses and trees.

    I cut the Littletown Village, Littletown Church, and Littletown Home die sets all from white card stock, and assembled them accordingly. I then did some light ink blending in blue and purple on the bottom of each building, and did some darker ink blending in green on the trees. I then arranged the trees and houses across the hillside tucking some behind the ‘snow’ and placing some on top. I also added some to the bottom of the card front in either corner.

    For my sentiment I used the Merry Christmas Confection Script die with the shadow in the same dark blue as my background and the letters cut out from white cardstock.

    Finishing touches: I used a white gel pen to add some ‘falling snow’ to the dark blue background. I also added some silver jewels from the Memory Box Christmas Fairy Jewels set, and used a glitter pen to add some sparkle to the roofs of the buildings.

    Supplies

    57563 Wavy Hillside

    57564 Littletown Village

    57565 Littletown Church

    57567 Littletown Home

    57542 Merry Christmas Confection Script

    JWL005 Christmas Fairy Jewels

  • Warm Wishes | by Rosemary Dennis

    Warm Wishes | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hello, hello! Rosemary here today with a holiday card to share that I made using the following products from the new release: Holly Sprig Contour Layers, Little Poinsettia Flowers and Warm Wishes Confection Script. I also used the tried and true Cora Layering die set. Let’s have a look.

    As I was looking through the new die set I noticed that the Little Poinsettia Flowers would work perfectly with the Holly Sprig Contour Layers die set. To create my little flowers I used patterned paper from the new Yuletide Cheer 6×6 pad from Memory Box. The die is all one piece allowing you to die cut as many flowers as you need very quickly. I cut the die twice in order to make enough flowers for three holly sprigs. I adhered the flowers using liquid adhesive and added yellow fairy jewels to the center of the flowers.

    I then die cut the holly sprigs from a green plaid paper from the Memory Box Yuletide Plaid 6×6 pad. Since there are touches of gold foiling on all the papers I decided to die cut the sprigs from that side of the patterned paper for that little bit of added sparkle and shine. There are also little pine like sprigs in the Holly Sprig die set. I die cut those from the reverse side of another piece of Yuletide Plaid that had a brown hue to it. I adhered the flowers to the Holly Sprigs on the spots where the berries are supposed to be. I really like the look!

    For the background I decided to use another piece of paper from the Yuletide Cheer pad that featured gold foiling. I tried just layering the three holly sprigs on to the background but decided I needed a little something else. So I went through my layering die sets and settled on the Cora Layering set. I die cut the bottom and middle layers from the patterned papers I used for the flowers and stems and the top layer from gold metallic cardstock. I adhered the layers with liquid adhesive and then added it to the background paper. Because the patterned paper is thin I die cut additional rectangles of the same size from white cardstock and adhered them behind the patterned paper rectangle using liquid adhesive. I weighted everything down so it would dry flat.

    I die cut the Warm Wishes Confection Script from the green plaid paper, as well as from the gold metallic cardstock and adhered the layers together with liquid glue. Once the background was dry I layered on the holly sprigs that I created with liquid glue. I tucked some of the little pine sprigs into the arrangement at various points. I finished off the card with a bow tied from gold metallic thread and the sentiment.

    I really like die cutting using patterned papers, especially papers with a subtle pattern to them, as it adds so much texture and interest to a card. I hope you enjoyed today’s card. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

    Supplies

    57541 Warm Wishes Confection Script

    56121 Cora Layer Set

    57562 Little Poinsettia Flowers

    57559 Holly Sprig Contour Layers

  • Holiday ATC’s | By, Natasha Vacca

    Holiday ATC’s | By, Natasha Vacca

    Hello Birch Press friends, it is Natasha here today sharing a couple of ATC’s (Artist Trading Cards) using the Holly Sprig and Pine Needle Twigs die sets. I had a lot of fun creating these, let’s get started!

    I started by die cutting both the Holy Sprig and Pine Needle Twigs die sets using paper pads from Memory Box. I used the following pads: Blush, Greenery, Earth Neutral, and the Festive Glitter Pad. For each of the die cuts I used a combination of dye inks, sprays, as well as embossing powder to add texture to each of the die cuts. Once everything was completed, I adhered all the layers together using liquid glue.

    Next I chose a gelli print background from my stash. The background was made on my gelli plate using the Geometric Crystals embossing folder. I dry embossed the folder, then used the dry embossed panel to create prints on my gelli plate. I also kept the dry embossed panel as an extra piece for additional layers. I trimmed the panel down into 2 ATC’s. I then inked the edges using Distress Ink.

    Next I determined the layout for each ATC. I added additional texture to each ATC with a piece of cheesecloth, as well as pieces of the Geometric Embossing folder. I adhered everything using liquid glue and foam tape.

    I completed the project with 2 small sentiment strips from my stash. I had a lot of fun creating these and I hope you enjoyed them!


    Supplies


    57559 Holly Sprig Contour Layers
    57519 Pine Needle Twigs Contour Layers

    Supplies


    sp1012 Blush 6×6 pack
    sp1009 Earth Neutral
    GP1006 Festive Glitter Pad
    sp1003 Lush Green
  • Adornment Dove Tag | by Rosemary Dennis

    Adornment Dove Tag | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hello! Rosemary here on the blog today. Today is July 25th and so I decided to make a “Christmas in July” project. I used several older products and one newly released product for today’s project. Let’s have a look at what I made.

    Today’s project is a large tag that can be used as a deco piece at Christmas time. I really enjoy making these kinds of projects to share. I started with a Tim Holtz thickboard tag. I pulled out a piece of plaid paper from the Poinsettia Plaid 6×6 pad that had various shades of red in it and trimmed it down to fit the tag. The top of the paper has a hole in it so that the pad can be hung and I used that to my advantage. I aligned the hole in the paper with the hole on the tag, trace around the tag and then trimmed out the paper. There was a little bit of the tag not covered at the very top, but in the end you don’t really notice it.

    I then adhered the paper tag to the thickboard tag using distress collage medium and let it dry. I then decided to add another layer of texture to the tag by adding the large Pinpoint Snowflake that I die cut from the reverse side of the paper used for the tag. I adhered the snowflake to the tag using the collage medium, as well, and once things were dry trimmed off the one side. Once I had the base of my tag put together I worked on the focal point of the tag. For this I used the pretty Adornment Dove die set. Initially I die cut solid layer of the dove from three different papers from the Poinsettia Garland 6×6 pad and determined which one I wanted to use. As you can see I went with the lightest paper dove.

    I then die cut the top layer from gold foil cardstock from the Vintage Pastel Mirror 6×6 pad. To give the base layer of the dove a little more stability I adhered the other two doves I wasn’t using behind the main one. The Vintage Merry Christmas sentiment was also die cut from the same papers and adhered together. I used liquid adhesive for both. Then I got out distress crayons in festive berries and ground espresso to blend onto the edges of the dove, the tag and around the snowflake. Once I had done that the small gap at the top of the tag almost completely disappeared!

    As I was working on my tag the newest release from Birch Press Design landed in my mailbox. It is absolutely gorgeous! So I decided to make sure to incorporate one of the new products from the release into my project. I made the decision to use the Pine Needle Twigs Contour Layers dies. I die cut them from scraps of the paper I used, as well as the gold foil cardstock and then layered them together using liquid adhesive.

    Once they were dry I began layering the elements on to my tag. I started with the Pine Needle Twigs using liquid adhesive to attach them. I used a combination of liquid adhesive and foam squares to attach the dove. Foam squares were also used to attach the sentiment. I finished off my tag with some ribbon looped through the hole in the top and then tied with some red twine.

    I hope you enjoyed today’s project. I had a lot of fun making it! Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

    Supplies

    57519 Pine Needle Twigs Contour Layers

    57538 Merry Christmas Vintage Sentiment

    57385 Pinpoint Snowflake

    57479 Adornment Dove

    fp1002 Vintage Pastel Mirror Pad

    pp1024 Poinsettia Garland 6×6 pack

    pp1023 Poinsettia Plaid 6×6 pack

  • Finding Joy | by April Antonio

    Finding Joy | by April Antonio

    Happy Saturday! I’m so excited to be back on the blog today sharing a card on this Christmas weekend. I used the really fun Piped Icing Star die set to create a sparkling holiday card. Read on to find out how I paper pieced this card together.

    I cut an A2 sized panel from white cardstock and then used the ‘icing’ part of the Piped Icing Star die set to cut from the panel three times — at the bottom, the middle, and the top, creating a visual triangle along with the placement. I then took the panel and die cut it withe the Pinpoint Contour Plate to give the background the fun wavy dot texture.

    I glued the panel to an A2 card base and then did one of my favorite things – die cut inlay. I cut the intricate star from white cardstock multiple times, and then stacked them three times into the openings I cut into the cardstock panel.

    I also cut the star from three colors from the Glitzy Glitter Pad (dark blue, medium blue, and purple) and added the inner star pieces into my die cut inlays.

    I used the same dark blue to cut the words ‘find joy’ using the Find Joy die set. The shadow I cut from vellum, and I cut the word once from black cardstock and layered it underneath the glitter from some added dimension.

    Lastly, I had to add some sparkle of course! I used the Bright Jewels rhinestone set to add matching jewels to each star.

    That is it! I love die cut inlay, and with the beautiful piped icing set it’s easy to cut everything from white and add a little shine with glitter. I hope you have an amazing holiday season and happy new year!

    Supplies

    57454 Piped Icing Star

    GP1007 Glitzy Glitter Pad

    57511 Pinpoint Contour Plate

    57452 Find Joy and Outline

    Supplies

    jwl003 Bright Jewels

  • Merry Patina(mas) } by Crystal Komara

    Merry Patina(mas) } by Crystal Komara

    Hello Birch Press Design fans and followers! This is design team member Crystal Komara here today with some non-traditional and rustic holiday inspiration using the Twinkle Ornament Layer Set.

    Now before we get to the card details, I know you’re going to first inquire about that background! So, in full disclosure, I recently attended a gelli plate class and this was one of the backgrounds I created from that class. I’m no expert and I couldn’t tell you all the professional gelli plate terms, but I’ll describe what we did as best I can.

    On the gelli plate we dropped acrylic inks in gold and amber and swirled it around the plate with a brayer. When it was almost dry, we took a patina blue paint and dotted it onto bubble wrap. Then we dipped the bubble wrap into the ink. Lastly, I took a 5 1/2″ x 4 1/4″ sheet of mixed media cardstock and smooshed it into the gelli plate. Easy peasy, right? Just kidding. And you know with gelli plates even if I tried to recreate this background, it would never look exactly the same!

    Card details:

    The base of this A2 sized card is made from 80 lb. kraft cardstock. I added the dried gelli plate background directly to the card base.

    Using the Twinkle Ornament Layer Set, I die cut Layer C (the bottom layer) from a teal cardstock. Layer B from a gold glitter cardstock and Layer A (the top layer) from the same teal cardstock. I layered the three together using a fine tip liquid glue. Then I adhered the ornament to the card using 3M foam adhesive for added dimension.

    I die cut the ornament topper from gold glitter cardstock. I die cut the “merry” sentiment from the Handwritten Merry Christmas and Outline die. I die cut the top thinner layer from the same teal cardstock and the bottom outline layer from gold glitter cardstock. I decided to cut off the “Christmas” portion of the die, so it just reads “merry.” I adhered the sentiment to the card using foam adhesive.

    This card is SOooo far outside of my comfort zone, but I guess that’s why I like it. Sometimes taking a creative risk is worth it! Try it for yourself and you just might be surprised! Thanks for visiting and have a wonderfully creative day.


    Supplies

    56116 Twinkle Ornament Layer Set

    57538 Merry Christmas Vintage Sentiment

    SP1003 Lush Green 6×6 pack

    SP1006 Stormy Blue 6×6 pack

    GP1006 Festive Glitter Pad

  • Ho Ho Holidays | by April Antonio

    Ho Ho Holidays | by April Antonio

    Happy Saturday! With Christmas less than 10 days away, I think many of us are in full swing with holiday themed cards. I had a lot of fun creating a Santa card using the Adornment Santa die set. Read on to find out how I pulled this card together!

    I started with the Santa Adornment die set and die cut each piece from white cardstock. I also cut the hat from a beautiful red glitter cardstock piece from the Memory Box Glitzy Glitter Pad.

    I used ink and blending brushes to color my Santa brown, and used red on the circle shape for his nose.

    Next I assembled Santa together, starting with his face and, beard, and hat pieces. Then I added his mustache and nose, and also made sure to layer the thin outline cut out pieces (I did leave the outline pieces off of his hat by choice). I used a shiny black gel pen to add eyes to his face 🙂

    For the card base I cut the outline from the Adornment Snowflake out of silver cardstock I grabbed from the Vintage Pastel Mirror Pad (which is one of my favorites!). I cut the snowflake background from white cardstock and layered the white and silver pieces together. I then glued the assembled snowflakes to my A2 card background, and trimmed off the pieces that were hanging over.

    I then glued my Santa on top of this background, and added red Christmas Fairy Crystals around him for some extra shine.

    That is it! The Adornment Santa is super cute and perfect for the holidays!

    Supplies

    57482 Adornment Santa

    57483 Adornment Snowflake

    Supplies

    GP1007 Glitzy Glitter Pad

    FP1002 Vintage Pastel Mirror Pad

    CRY102 Christmas Fairy Crystals

  • Simple Ornaments | by Rosemary Dennis

    Simple Ornaments | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hello everyone! Rosemary here on the blog today. With Christmas right around the corner I thought it would be fun to make a couple of simple ornaments using the Pinpoint Snowflake die set. Let’s take a look at what I created.

    The first ornament I created is a 3d one. I started by covering some heavy weight white cardstock with a distress spray stain and several different distress mica sprays in icy blues and grays.

    When the panels were dry I die cut them with the Pinpoint Snowflake die, scored them down the middle of each snowflake (which was really pretty easy) and then folded them in half.

    Then I glued them together using liquid adhesive. I did each side one at a time and after adhering each side together placed an acrylic block on the finished side to allow the glue to set. Before adhering the final snowflake I cut a length of silver thread, knotted it at one end and then laid it down the center of the snowflake. The final snowflake was adhered securing the hanger inside the snowflake.

    I finished off the ornament with lots of fairy jewels in an icy blue and milky white. There you have it a three-sided dimensional snowflake to hang on your tree! The second ornament was even easier to create and can be used as a tag for a gift before hanging it on the tree.

    For this one I pulled out some plaid papers from the Memory Box Christmas Jolly 6×6 pad to die cut the snowflake. I had some thin chipboard that I used to die cut the snowflake from and that was sandwiched between the patterned paper snowflakes. When I die cut the patterned paper snowflakes I made sure to position the die in approximately the same spot on the paper to that the back and front would match fairly well.

    After adhering all the pieces together I used a pointed tool I have to help place gems, etc on my projects to pierce a hole through the top of the snowflake. Then I stamped a sentiment from the Contempo Christmas Greetings stamp and die set on white cardstock with dark red ink. I die cut with the matching die and pierced a whole through it. Gold thread was used as a hanger for this ornament and was threaded through the ornament and little tag, then tied in a knot.

    I finished off both the front and the back of the ornament with two little gold snowflakes in the center and red fairy gems on the points of the snowflake. The dies I used for the little snowflakes are the Felicity Snowflakes.

    I hope I inspired you to think outside the box and create an ornament or two with your snowflake dies! Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

    Supplies

    57453 Felicity Snowflakes

    57385 Pinpoint Snowflake

    cl8162 Contempo Christmas Greetings clear stamp set