A Trio of Cards with Paper Smooches

Hello folks!  Are you all in the mood for some more holiday card ideas?  I've got a few Paper Smooches cards to drop today, and I've got two holiday and one "anytime" card.    This first one uses the fun Snowman 2 dies.  I love these outline dies because they make it so easy to make shaker cards!  

First I started with my background.  Since it's a shaker card, the background is all one layer.  I die cut a panel in two with the wavy Borders 2 die.  Then I blended ink on just the upper piece.  I used Ranger white watercolor paper which I really love because it's more white than other watercolor papers I've bought.   You really don't want a yellowy snowman;)

For the shaker part, I used my Fuse tool to create a little sealed pouch.  I really wanted my snowman shaker to be totally filled up, so I used the Snowman die to draw an outline on the pocket page as a guide for fusing.  If you want a looser fill, a simple rectangle would be fine.  The great thing about the Fuse tool is that it is very easy to follow any line, straight or curved, to get that custom shaker.  Here's a pic of me filling the partially fused shaker with my mini styrofoam ball filler.  {BTW, I got the styrofoam balls from the dollar store.  I *think* they are meant to be used to make snow globes.}

As you can see in this close up, I added a couple extra touches to my snowman by drawing in his arms with a marker and substituting paper eyes with black enamel dots.  This was such a fun card to make!  

Here's another holiday card for you!  I used the Evergreens dies.  This card shows you how versatile those outline dies can be when you just use the inside of the dies.  I layered multiple die cuts to create a larger tree.  Each tier is colored with watercolors and the whole thing was misted with white ink.   The background sky is just blended ink.  I really wanted to focus on the tree, so I created a frame with the oval reverse cut and the stub punched corners.  

This last card is not a holiday card, and made a quick colorful card using the Natural Beauties stamps and dies.  My goodness is this set ever cute!!!  I heat embossed the wreaths and then loosely colored each one with my watercolors (the Peerless watercolor papers if you're wondering).  

Thanks for stopping by today!  I hope you have a great weekend!  

Mahalo and Aloha,
jj