I started batch making all of my own Christmas cards a few years back now. This is no mean feat, as we send over 100 cards every year. Apart from those for close friends and family, it’s crucial for my sanity to come up with designs that are relatively easy to make and easy to reproduce in quantity. Nowadays, with increasing postage costs, it’s also important to create cards that are neither too bulky, large or too heavy. I have lots of Christmas stamps and dies in my stash and am constantly buying new ones too, so choosing what to use is always hard. This year, apart from 1 stamp set, I used items already in my stash. When I say already in my stash, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve actually used them yet. As, like most crafters, a good part of my stash is waiting patiently for me get round to using it. To keep things interesting I decided on a three different designs using stamps, stencils and dies. Hope you like what I came up with.
Design One – Using Woodware Clear Singles Bubble Mini Baubles stamp set. I stamped onto silver pearlescent card stock and heat embossed with silver embossing powder. I then die cut the baubles. Using different shades of silver mirror, glitter, and gun metal card stock and Tattered Lace tuck in dies I die cut lots of circles to fill in the baubles with and used gem stones for the smallest size thereby reducing the depth of the finished cards for posting. On the card base I applied Cosmic Shimmer Graphite coloured gilding polish through a home made stencil and Cosmic shimmer Silver Chrome Glitter kiss through a Memory Box stencil. I finished off with a thin strip of mirror card for the string and die cut sentiment sentiment and bow.
Design Two – This design used a Julie Hickey stamp and matching die set. I did this in two different colourways, Kraft card stamped and embossed in white and white card stamped and embossed in brown. Both versions were coloured with various shades of brown distress inks used as watercolours. Once dried I applied glossy accents to highlight the flowers and other elements in the design.
Design Three – For this design I used the Elegant Deer thinlits die from Sizzix which I embellished with spare silver circles left over from making design One. I cut some in Kraft card mounted onto white and other in white card mounted onto Kraft card. I stencilled the background using various shades of brown distress in and Cosmic Shimmer Golden Sand Glitter kiss for extra sparkle. I used the same sentiment as for design One cut from silver mirror card.
