Jill here, and this week I'm sharing my quick make Christmas cards that are the actual design I am using this year (I know, get me showing off, for the first time ever...I am organised early!).
It's a tough time time of year for us card makers; our nearest and dearest are well aware of our hobby and are looking forward to something fancy and bespoke, and I don't know about you, but for me I still want to make every card impressive and pretty, and to look like it took me a whole load of blood sweat and tears...but whilst being really easy to make and without taking too much time. I mean, making a whole batch of cards for a whole load of different people...is hard!
My answer...SENTIMENTS! Big, bold, beautiful, stylish and superb...SENTIMENTS!
Quick and easy to make, but hopefully pretty enough to make an impact!
For me, it's all about the organisation. I have an idea in my head, and I have all my tools and elements in place before I begin; stamps mounted, card-stock cut to size, paints and brushes ready to go etc...then I get to work.
I started with the backgrounds. I chose my colours and watercolour washed across each of my panels in an ombre effect. Once I was done with the last one - the first one was pretty much dry and ready to be covered in plenty flicks and flickers of beautiful iridescent and gold paint from Gansai Tambi's Starry Colours. Once each panel was dry, I had a variety of stencils and stamps at the ready to add extra interest to my background in soft and subtle white ink. I used a variety of snowflakes and the Tiny Bubble stencil from Altenew to act as snowfall.
I then moved on to the main event - the big bold sentiment stamping. A beautiful background with a big stand-out sentiment is my all time favourite design when it comes to card making. I just don't think you can go wrong, and it simplifies batch card-making so much. No colouring or fussy-cutting for example.
I decided to use Mama Elephant's Merry Christmas Wishes sentiment, but there are so many of this kind of stamp to choose from. All fabulous fonts and stylish designs.
I used a stamping platform to make my life that little bit easier, but really, there's no need. I had a little production line all set up - my pile of backgrounds which I stamped onto using Versamark, covered in gold embossing powder, and left aside to do all my melting at once. I added a little trim along the bottom from Mama Elephant's Zennith Borders. This border always reminds me of a Nordic folk tree design so thought it would finish of the card nicely, also embossing in gold.
And there you have it, a pretty background, a big bold sentiment, and few little added bits of interest, and you could have the task complete in next to no time!
As always, everything I used is linked below.
See you next week.
Jillx