Cricut Christmas Card challenges

 

This weeks challenge on the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog
is to create a Christmas card.  Last week we had a similar project sans green or red (see below), so I was very familiar with all of the Christmas images on my cartridges.  I have quite a few to work with but I just wasn't feeling inspired, so I decided to do an outdoor scene of Christmas.  I selected the city scape from Formal Occasion,

and I mounted it on dark blue glitter paper.  I put tiny gems along the outside of the buildings to look like strung Christmas lights.  It took forever to get the right arrangement for the Christmas lights and when it was all done, the proportions of the gems to the buildings were too far off. I scratched that card and started working on a different approach.

I loved the idea of a big building strung up with Christmas lights but I didn't have a Cricut cartridge with a skyscraper.  I used my Gypsy to manipulate the cityscape from Formal Occasion but it didn't work like I wanted it to so I decided to cut out a high rise building by hand.

I was really pleased with how the building turned out once it was mounted and had lights draped across it but it was missing a critical element...A Cricut cut!  Then I got an idea. I pulled out a reindeer punch and created a night sky with Santa approaching the building...Rudolph "with his nose so bright" leading the tow.

I used the Imagine Buccaneer cartridge and cut out Yo Ho Ho to make Santa's Ho, Ho, Ho... The cut pulled everything together and lead into the interior text perfectly.  I love it when a series of random ideas formulate into a complete concept. 

So that is how I put together my holiday card and it is a good example of how you can use cartridges beyond their suggested uses.

Now last weeks challenge for FCCB was "Beyond Red and Green" meaning create a Christmas project without the use of red or green.  This is not as easy as you might think, especially when you are integrating a Cricut cut and trying to make an original design.  Thank goodness I had the Winter Wonderland cartridge because there were lots of designs that worked beautifully with silver and gold.

I chose the phrase "Believe" and added a bell.  I used a few different shades of silver, gold and cream to accomplish the look.  I love this cartridge because there are quite a few layers to work with for each image.  This allows you to tinker with the look and feel to best suit your project.  I assembled my layers with adhesive and foam dots so that their was nice dimension.  I mounted the assembled artwork on an Anna Griffin card and voila, Christmas sans rad and green.