June Christmas cards: Winter shaker

I had my June Christmas cards made and this post started two weeks ago. Now here I am finally getting them posted on the last day of the month. Nothing like waiting until the last minute! Without further ado, here are my Christmas cards for this month:

I don't make many shaker cards because they can get a little fussy and time consuming. But these were pretty easy because I used a pack of self-adhesive shaker pouches and pre-cut card stock frames. The hardest part was deciding what to stamp on the white panel behind the shaker!

I used the Winter Wishes stamp set (Stampin' Up!) and stamped the images using Real Red, Soft Suede, Pool Party, Crumb Cake and Shaded Spruce inks on panels of white card stock. I made eight cards total, and at first I was just going to stamp two full sheets of white card stock and then cut them into panels. But it was hard to plan what would actually be visible in the shaker that way. So instead I cut the white card stock first and then stamped the images. I also stamped the shaker frames with the Wood Plank Background (Taylored Expressions) in Pool Party and added the sentiment Warm Wishes in Soft Suede along the bottom edge.

To create the shaker portion for each card I first set a shake pouch on a stamped white panel (without removing the adhesive backing) to find the right placement, and then I lightly traced around the pouch with a pencil. (When I think of a pouch, I picture some kind of bag or envelope. These are more like shallow plastic dishes with a lip that has adhesive on it. But they're called pouches on the packaging, so that's what I'll use.) I placed a little pile of the fillers in the center of the area I traced. I used several fillers: a sequin mix with silver circles and white snowflakes, little clay snowflakes, Buffalo Snow (those little iridescent pieces that fly everywhere), and glass glitter. Then I removed the adhesive backing on the shaker pouch and adhered it to the white card stock, lining it up with the traced pencil line. I adhered a frame around the pouch and glued the whole piece to a Soft Suede card base.

I wanted one simple embellishment outside of the shaker pouches, so I added a red-and-white twine bow in the upper left corner of each frame.

I was excited to finish these because I used up the package of shaker pouches as well as the frames. Yay! I'm really trying to use up some of the consumable items I have, like embellishments and papers, because I have soo many of them. Sometimes it's hard because I'm tempted to save something for the "perfect" project. But I try to remind myself that the more stuff I use up, the more room I have for new goodies. :)

Thanks for stopping by!