Christmas Cards made

I needed 62 Christmas cards to send out this year.  I decided to make a gate fold card.  The first picture is the 'prototype" of the card.

I used one Christmas paper pack for all of the cards from My Minds Eye.   The medallion in this card is stamped with writing, embossed in clear, and inked Stampin up inks.   The tree is cut from the Christmas noel cartridge and the medallion is cut from French Manor.  The inside of the card

Making the cards this way would be very time consuming so I streamlined it a little bit.   Instead of embossing the front medallion, I ran it through the Cuttlebug using either the Swiss dots or swirls folders.    For the inside, I just stamped the Merry Christmas on the cardstock rather than cutting, inking and gluing or taping the ovals.  I used two colors of stickles in the prototype; but only used red stickles on the rest of the cards. 

 So I started to mass produce this card starting with the card base of 8 1/2 x 5 1/2, scored at 2 1/8" and 6 3/8".   I cut the tag from the Pop Up Neighborhood cartridge at 4".  I was able to cut 8 tags out of a 12 x 12 sheet of paper cutting 6 landscape and 2 on portrait.   I'll be posting a video on how I did this.  I'm all about saving.   I cut the tree in shadow at 3 1/4" tall.  I was able to cut 12 from a 12 x 12 sheet but I used the parts in between as they were nice trees too and saved several sheets of paper.  I'll show this in the video too. 

 Then I cut what I used on the front panels of the gate card.  I first cut a 12 x 12 sheet into 3 4" strips and then cut 2, 5 3/8" pieces out of each strip yielding 6 per 12 x 12 sheet.  I waited to cut the 4" strips in half to mount on each side of the card until I was going to actually adhere it down.  I'll explain a little later.
I used Tim Holz Distress Winter Trio pack that came in the mail, for all the inking on the cards. 

I then stamped "Merry Christmas" on the inside panel with the red ink and folded and used a bone folder on cards.   Next I taped the pieces on the front panel.   I cut each 4" x 5 3/8" piece in half (2" each) and then taped them to the front of the card making sure that the pattern matched when the card was closed.  This is why I cut these one at a time to keep the pieces in order.
Next I ran the tags through the Cuttlebug BEFORE inking with the green or red.  I inked after the Cuttlebug to get the effect of having the ink on top of the embossing but not in between.   I assembled the cards using a combination of ATG tape and glue stick (again to save tape).   Then I put the red stickles on the trees and stood them up on the coffee table to dry (as shown in the picture).
I'm going to write "and have a Happy New Year!" on the inside with a Stampin Up marker and put my "trademark" on the back with the year.
I will show more detail in my YouTube video that I will post here.  Thanks for visiting and have a Merry Christmas!!! Amy