Completely Crackers!

Hi everyone!
Now that the wedding is over and I'm still going to be on holiday for a few more days I thought I'd better get caught up on all the cards that I haven't had the time to blog over the past few months.
So, just to get them out of the way I thought I'd show the few Christmas cards that I made first - it won't take long, I didn't make very many!

To start with here's the one (or two?) that I made for my wee niece and nephew.  I'll show you the rest in a couple of days.
I had the idea months ago but thought I wasn't going to have time to get it made before the big day, so I got stuck in and got it made quicker than I thought I would - I suppose that's what happens on the rare occasion that you know what you're doing and what you want! lol

In the words of the great Frank Carson..."It's a cracker!"  I made it out of an A3 sheet of card and I measured and cut the zig-zig split but I didn't cut the points the whole way through at the back so it stayed together until it was opened and then they pulled it apart like a real cracker and each side was a separate card.

Here's what I did with the 2 separate cards

I used some Magnolia stamps - a mixture of new and old ones - and masked them off to stamp a seat under them.  I added facial features which I've never done before but I saw it on some other blogs and although I love Magnolia's as they are, I thought that for Ryan & Holly, they needed faces.  The one of Holly actually bears a slight resemblance to her! lol - she's so cute!
I coloured them with copics and cut them out.

I used some Tim Holtz grunge-board die-cut letters and coated them with glossy accents and then smothered them with different coloured glitters.

The papers are from the Christmas Carnival Collection from Kaisercraft.  I used a Stampin' Up! edge punch for the backing papers and curled them up from the split in the cracker.  I cut out some baubles and decorated around the figures and then I used a couple of the die-cuts from the back of the paper pad for the ends of the cracker.  A wee bit of ribbon and a few jingle bells finishes it off.

The inside is fairly plain due to time and the fact that it was hard to keep the card open to decorate it! lol

It was a fun card to make and the recipients had fun opening it so it all worked out ok!
Tip: I had to be imaginative with the envelope as I didn't have any to fit so I took 2 A5 envelopes and laid them side by side and slit down the 2 middle edges and stuck them together.

This card fits the following challenges (there's loads of them!):

4 Crafty Chicks; Something New (new style of card)
Bling It On; Christmas
Crafts & Me; Anything Goes
Creative Inspirations; Anything Goes
Daring Cardmakers; Spots & Stripes
Diva's By Design; Merry Christmas
Dream Valley Challenges; Christmas
My Mom's Craft Shop Challenges; Anything Goes
One Stop Craft Challenges; Winter Wishes
Paper Play Challenges; Christmas
Paper Sundae's; Celebrate
Saturday Challenge: Anything Goes
Simon Says; Anything Goes
Stamp, Scrap and Doodle Saturdays; Bells
Top Tip Tuesday; Anything Goes
Totally Gorjuss; Happy

So I'll take this oppurtunity to wish everyone a really happy new year.  I hope 2012 holds all you wish for and more!

See you next year with more catch-ups!

Thanks for looking! xx