Keeping Christmas {Holiday Greetings}

 "I will honor Christmas in my heart...and try to keep it all the year long." ~Charles Dickens

Welcome to May's installment of my Keeping Christmas series. I am just having way too much fun putting together these monthly holiday projects! If you're just joining me, my "Keeping Christmas" series is something I've started this year. I will be posting a new holiday project on the 25th of every month. 
We had a cold snap last week, which even included snow, so I jumped on the opportunity to get my projects started!

I made up my mind about where the project this month would go, but it ended up in a completely different direction! I just love these neutral cards and tags (scroll down to see the tags). I really like the retro/modern juxtaposition. 

To begin, I die cut A LOT of the "holiday" image. Each piece is stacked three times on the cards and twice on the tags. I wanted them to have a chipboard weight and durability. I just used Stamper's select white card stock for all of the layers that don't show and then I used glitter card stock for the top layer. It is one of my favorites; it's like a champagne color, not quite gold and not quite silver...I always call it "Gilver"! I picked that term up from Rachel Zoe and it has just stuck.

You can see the two tag designs that I created for this project. After I finished making the cards, I just wasn't ready to be done. I thought I'd make a quick tag and a more labor intensive tag. I don't think you can ever have too many tags at Christmas. I put up 6 trees at Christmas, so I really like having a good variety of beautiful tags to dress up my gifts. These particular ones will go perfectly on the gifts under the tree in my Great Room.

Okay...let's get on with the details of each project. To begin the cards, I cut 4 bases from Kraft card stock which measure 4 by 5 1/4. I stamped the pine bough image and the pinecone image using the old SU! set called "Peaceful Wishes". I've seen many similar sets come out since then, but it doesn't seem prudent to buy more of the same just because it is new. 

The sentiment is from the Christmas Cheer set and coordinating dies. Instead of adding the tiny little dotted "i", I added a 5 mm jingle bell as the dot. I just love the extra detail it adds to the design. These are one of my favorite things to add to tags and cards on all of my holiday projects. The "greetings" portion of the sentiment was heat embossed using gold powder. I love the striking look against the black card stock. 

My poor son has been having a hard time with me as I play my Christmas CDs while I am working on these "Keeping Christmas" projects. I told him that it helps me get into the Christmas mood. He told me that it will take all of the magic out of it once Christmas is finally here. I tried to tell him that there is a special Christmas spirit that you can't duplicate no matter how hard you try. That being said, I was listening to Michael Buble's rendition of "Silent Night" as I was working and the glitter was falling like snow and all of a sudden I felt the sweetest Christmas spirit. I quickly found this sheet music pattern paper with the words and music to Silent Night and added it to my design. I also decided it would be fitting to use the Silent Night sentiment on the simple tags as well as the inside of the cards.

I duplicated the layout and elements on this tag design. I didn't stamp the pine boughs or pine cones on the tags because I thought it would look too cluttered.

The silent night tag does have the pine boughs and they worked up so quickly. I can't wait to add them to my gifts. I always like to add some baker's twine to attach them to the bows. It is so fast and easy that way.

I added some gold sequins and a strip of metallic gold washi tape to each tag as well as the cards. I am almost all out of these burnished gold sequins...I hope I can still find them to replenish my stash.

I'm hoping that with all of this Christmas preparation that all will be calm and all will be bright come December! LOL! I am having so much fun with this series. I've gotten a few more emails from you sweet readers showing me your amazing projects! You have no idea how happy it makes me! Keep them coming! If you post on Instagram, use the hashtag #keepingchristmas2017 . So far...it's only me...I'd love to see your creations as well. Thanks for fluttering by!

P.S. I'll be sharing some end of year teacher gifts before school gets out on June 2, so stay tuned!