Lots and lots and lots of robins 🎄🎅 for Christmas

I recently bought the Simply Cards and Papercraft magazine when I went on holiday.  With the magazine was an embossing folder, dies and stamps.

 For my selection of Christmas cards I went with the red, gold and green traditional colour scheme for Christmas.  I used various backing papers from my stash and put them through the wreath embossing folder.  I then used a gold Pan pastel to highlight the embossing of the wreath.

 Next came the long saga of die-cutting.  I could not realise how my robin bodies were not the same in the picture until I eventually realised I have to remove a die from the shape of the robin.  Needless to say that this was hard to do with wire cutters and it left sharp edges so I had to be very careful to not catch my fingers on them (well I did it once and paid the price and had to wash, clean and cover my cut with a plaster).  As this part was intended never to be used inside the body of the robin it should have been added to the main fused dies rather than needing to be cut off and not everyone has wire cutters and the metal was far too tough to cut with scissors.

Once the robin pieces were cut I then inked with brown VersaMagic ink pad.  I then added googly eyes.

The poinsettias I stamped and then cut out of red paper.  I did one full layer with just adding some green for the leaves and then cut these bits off on the second layer so I could decoupage the poinsettias.

For the greenery I have cut from various green and gold papers and I have used the die from the magazine along with some from Marianne Designs and Crafter's Companion.  As some of the die-cuts were too big for these 5 inch cards I cut them down to fit.

I then stamped various sentiments onto the cards.

Next came the building up of the images using various greenery dies, the poinsettias and the robins.

The cards have been finished off with some red glitter glue for the berries as well as some gold Pinflair pearl wand and finally some doodling.

These cards, although small, have taken a long time but I hope the recipients will like them.

Here is a photo of all the 10 cards together.

I am entering these cards into the following challenges:

Crafty Sentiments - Anything goes
Digi Choosday - Anything goes
Crafty Creations - Anything goes
Cute Card Thursday - Festive

Dragonfly Dreams - Christmas/winter

Lemon Shortbread - Anything goes

Tuesday Throwdown - Fall/Holiday

QKR Stampede - Anything goes
Crafty Friends - Christmas
Allsorts - Christmas flowers (poinsettias)
Crafty Hazelnut Christmas - Anything goes with the option of glitter
Crafty Catz - Anything goes with the option of birthday
Polkadoodles - Anything goes