Lots of Christmas Cards

Today I used a sketch from 365 Cards and followed Sparkle's Christmas Card Challenge #17 (Snowflakes) and KL's Stampin' and Scrappin' (1-2-3 Recipe Challenge) to make a card.  Then I just decided to make a bunch of the same card, so I ended up with a total of ten.  The first five are mostly identical (I ran out of white snowflake brads, so I used embossing powder to cover silver snowflake brads to use--directions at the end of the post).  The next four, I kept the positions of the two papers the same, but on two had to use buttons instead of brads (because I ran out of snowflake brads), and the ink color for the sentiment and the distressing were reversed.  The last card has the paper position the opposite of the rest of cards, but I used the reverse side for some more variety.  The last five all received sparkles in the centers of the punched-out snowflakes.

Papers: CTMH White Daisy cardstock, CTMH Evensong Creative Basics

Inks: CTMH Cranberry and New England Ivy

Tools and Techniques: Nestabilities Petite Oval Large, Martha Stewart Snowflake punches, unknown white snowflake brads, unknown silver snowflake brads, Stampendous embossing powder (Winter Wonderland), Horizon Group USA sparkles, CTMH Craft Buttons (Holiday), direct-to-paper ink distressing (around the oval), Zots glue dots
Stamp Sets: CTMH Christmas Scripts

To use embossing powder to color your metal brads is fairly easy.  You will need a Craft Heater (CTMH product number Z555 is what I use), embossing powder, and some tweezers (I use CTMH Z1205, as they have a fine point, rubber grips so your fingers don't get hot, and reverse action so you don't have to squeeze to hold on to your item).  Grasp the brad by the "flaps" with your tweezers.  Using your craft heater, heat the front/top surface of your metal brad.  This may take some adjusting, depending on the size of your brad as well as the powder you are using.  I held these snowflakes fairly close to the heater for about 20 seconds, but a regular brad wouldn't require as much time.  Once heated, dip immediately in your embossing powder, tap off the excess and then heat again with your craft heater until the powder is melted smooth.  If a second coat is necessary, simply put it immediately back in the powder and repeat the tap and heat.  Voila, perfectly colored or matched brads for your project.  Keep in mind, some powders don't handle too much heat well, so err on the side of too little heat (which you can fix by heating more) rather than too much heat (which can cause your powder to discolor).