Season's Greetings - December 2nd with Lisa

Good morning, Lisa here!

I'm thrilled to be kicking things off for our month of 

Season's Greetings

I picked out a technique that I love on scrapbook pages but that I've become rather obsessed with on cards! 

Backing pretty die-cut designs with pretty papers

I've made a few birthday cards recently using die-cut files by Paige Evans and am simply delighted with the result. 

So it was an easy step to think about replicating this on Christmas cards.

I looked in my Cameo library and found some Paige Evans designs that I thought would work in the smaller 6x4 format. To be honest, I'd love to make more 7x5 cards but the cost of international postage at that size (about 1/4" too much!) is too high so I keep to the smaller size. Of course, this does make a difference when scaling something down from the much larger full page format.

I cut out a full 12x12 page of different designs and then used the reverse of the shapes as a template for cutting out a bunch of pretty Christmas papers. I've tried various adhesives for this fiddly work and find that a standard glue pen works well.

I cut out all the letters or shapes first from patterned paper - 6x6 pads work excellently for this as the design is shrunk down proportionately. Then glue round the reverse of the cardstock for each shape, attach the patterned paper and then check the front of the shape to make sure that there are no spaces showing and to see if any paper can be seen outside the shape it's supposed to be backing. This can carefully be trimmed down using sharp scissors.

With these close up photos, I've noticed that I need to work a
 little more carefully and tidily so that I don't have any overlap
round the edges or any glue spots showing on
the white outline!

It sounds and seems way more complicated than it really is. I have limited patience for really detailed work but this is similar to fussy cutting for me - not as time intensive as you think and rather meditative! 

Once I had filled in all the spaces, I could provide a simple background on my card base - stitching round the edges makes a nice detail if you feel it's a bit too plain. Then I use foam squares to raise the die-cut image and that's it! Done and finished. I love how they turn out. 

Just for info: I have a Cameo and purchase all my die-cut files in the Silhouette store but I know that Paige Evans offers a free file each week in her FB group as well as offering her files on etsy. At the moment she is also selling an exclusive set of 25 Christmas files - check out her FB group "Paige Evans - Happy Scrappy Place" for more information. All her designs are gorgeous and I get every one!

And just because I'd cut out all the shapes at the beginning of the process, I decided to back another design which I think turned out even more cute!

Don't forget that we'll be back every day this month with a different card to share and inspire! We hope you enjoy this as much as we have enjoyed creating our cards!

You know that we LOVE it when you share!

So, if you are inspired to make your own cards, layouts or projects - from Season's Greetings, a previous Christmas special, a Counterfeit Kit Challenge kit that you haven't quite used up or a new kit inspired by any one of our dozens and dozens of inspirational kits - you can share in these places:

• our Monthly Link-up page
• our Facebook Community
• on Instagram (we are @counterfeitkitchallenge or tag us using #counterfeitkitchallenge and #ckcdecember2019).

See you tomorrow for more CKC inspiration!

Merry Christmas from Lisa