I am keeping these cards relatively simple intentionally. Most people have lots of Christmas cards to make and if they are really complicated then it just gets tedious. so first I am going to go through some stamping techniques. We will use the stamped images later in the cards.
oh and holler and let me know you are here - I like to know Im not alone
Find the supply list here.
Here are all the photos.
here are all of the finished cards.
In this class I will use the Echo Park Everybody Loves Christmas paper line, an Imaginisce stamp and various mixed media products to show you different things you can do to get more use out of your stamps.
First, I use this size envelope because it allows me to get pretty much the largest size card possible, and still get two cards from one piece of cardstock. I keep a stash of these envelopes on hand and just always make my cards to fit these. Normally I would make the card a quarter inch smaller in both directions to fit in the envelope, but in order to get two cards from one piece of cardstock, I make my cards 6x4.5
Here you can see that my first cut is at the 9 inch mark, so that I have a full 12x3 inch strip leftover (the largest possible)
Then I cut the 9x12 piece in half to give me 2 - 9x6 inch pieces, which I fold in half. For this class I used one sheet of red, two sheets of white and one sheet of green cardstock to make the cards.
Setting the folded cards aside, I got out my acrylic block and stamps. First I positioned the santa stamp towards the middle of the block. Then I layed the sentiment down on the table face down (the side that will hold ink facing down) This allows me to hold the acrylic block over the sentiment and line it up so that it is centered and looks the way I want it. Then I just press the block down onto the stamp to adhere it to the block. This first image, the 'Happy Holidays' part is actually laying on the desk.
and here it is centered just the way I wanted it.
Here I am using a Dye-based into to stamp the combined image onto one of the white scraps. Dye based ink dries almost instantly, allowing me to color in the image soon after stamping.
Here is the image colored in. I have a few copics, but on my friend Sandy's advice I got a set of prismacolor alcohol ink markers from acmoore or micheals, used a 50% off coupon and they work very similar to the copics. I am by no means an expert colorer though, and I dont really have enough colors to do shading, so I pretty much just color in the image like a coloring book image.
Next, just to give this image a little pop, I used some glossy accents on his shoes, belt and gloves. The glossy accents container has a great small tip to make application easy, but his shoes were really tiny and I went outside of the lines a little bit. Since I am such a perfectionist, I cleaned it up with my paper piercer, by just sort of scraping the excess away from the bottom.
I dont think this image shows it but I added a little bit of dark red stickles to the berries also.
Moving on. To save time, I stamped 4 more Santas on the remaining part of the scrap, using the dye ink, and set them aside so they could get good and dry before I used them. dye ink dries fast, but I always like to be on the safe side if possible.
Next I got out my embossing stamp pad and clear embossing powder.
This time I stamped 3 santas close together because I intend to use them together (whereas the others from above will be cut apart)
Working quickly, I covered the stamped images with clear embossing powder. (The idea of an embossing stamp pad is that it does not have color and does not dry very quickly. To be honest, I have no idea how long the embossing ink would take to dry, but to be safe I always try to move sort of fast at least to get the powder on there)
I use an old broiler pan for a glitter / embossing tray. But using a sheet of paper also works fairly well, and to save myself a step I usually just put the paper in the broiler pan.
Shake off the excess powder. then I usually gently make a crease in the scrap paper and fold it up and use the crease to funnel the excess powder back into the jar. You also could wipe the powder out of the pan, but inevitably some of it ends up on the table next to the jar, and that annoys me. So I put the jar in the pan, and use the paper to shake the powder down. If there is a lot spilled around the jar I will dump it back onto the paper and repeat the procedure. Otherwise I will just shake the pan into the trash, or wipe it with a baby wipe. Or just leave it - depending on my mood and how much spill there is.
Next you want to get out the heat gun. Place it over on spot (usually a corner) of the design holding it a few inches above the paper, until the powder starts to melt or look shiny. then move the heat around until the whole image has been melted. I love the way the melting embossing powder just sort of bleeds or melts around the image - like magic! Tough to get a good photo of this, but you can sort of see that the top of the middle santa head is a different darker or wet color compared to the other santas. Like I said, I would normally start at a corner, but taking the photo threw me off.
Here is the finished, clear embossed image. I repeated this process, clear embossing three more Santas on the other end of the red cardstock scrap because we are going to use two sets of them for two different cards.
You can also use pigment ink for embossing, because it doesn't dry as fast as the dye ink. It probably dries faster than the embossing ink though, so you want to hurry. Here I stamped with black pigment ink, and sprinkled with clear embossing powder for a different look. This is a great way to stretch your supplies. I have black embossing powder which has a more flat look to it than this, and is a little more, well, black. But if you don't have black or blue or red or whatever, embossing powder and you want a colored embossed image, sometimes you can make do with colored pigment ink and clear embossing powder.
Now back to that second set of clear embossed santas. Here I used some grey smooch spritz to create a resist technique. I held the bottle up for you to see, but then I realized that isn't the right bottle anyway. The original bottle broke so I transferred the remaining spray into a water mister. Also, the resist technique didnt work as well here as I had hoped. I think because the Santa image has delicate lines. The resist technique works better where the embossed areas are thicker or more solid. Still, it's a fun thing to try, just spray the mist, and let it set for a second, then wipe the excess from the embossed parts with a tissue or paper towel.
Here are the two sets of santas with totally different looks.
Now, while the mist dries, lets go back to that row of santas on the white and color them in.
Then grab that glue pen and the flock. The glue pen is great for applying glue to small areas and getting it right where you need it. It works great with flock and glitter. In fact, I had to get another glue pen for this class because my daughter stole my old one because she loves to glitter things using it. It would be cute if I didn't have to constantly help her put the glitter back in the bottles.
Anyway, using the small side of the glue pen, apply some glue to the red areas then dump the flock onto the glue and gently press it with your fingers.
If the glue pen isn't working right away hold it directly vertical with the small point down on a scrap paper and press a few times to get the flow moving. Even that didn't work with mine after a few minutes, so I pulled the felt like tip out and turned it around.
shake the flock off, and maybe flick the cardstock with your finger or tap it on the scrap paper to get the excess off, and then let dry.
Here I used the same technique, with the glue pen, but I used red glitter instead.
Another use for the glue pen, I put three tiny dabs of glue and then positioned tiny rhinestones on the berries of his hat using tweezers.
look how cute! If you don't have tweezers in your scrap area - you need them! they are great for so many things
Here I used crackle accents on his beard after the glitter and rhinestones.
Here, after the flock, I used green glitter on his pants.
Here I used glossy accents as the glue for microbeads on his beard. I love how this turned out. Again, the red parts were flocked first.
This one didn't work quite so well, but I used glitter flakes on his beard for this one.
and here I used black stickles on the black parts. Usually I leave the stickles until last though because they take longer to dry. So I will add red stickles to the berries on all of the santas' hats at the very end.
phew! lots of stuff you can do to make your stamps stand out!
on to the cards next!
Now onto the cards. We will use the two sets of embossed santas first. If you have seen one of my classes before then you will remember how I 'measure'. I want the adorable candy cane striped paper to be the background of the card with just a small white border, so I laid it down and made small pencil marks where I want to cut.
Similarly, I wanted the Santas matted on green, so I laid them down on top and cut approximately where the mat would be the right size. I find it easier to get the image centered on top if I cut first and then glue. That way if my cut is slightly off I cant adjust the placement of the image on top. Incidentally, I also pay more attention to getting the paper that I am cutting lined up straight with the cutter, than lining up the image that I am matting. Just be careful not to let the image get so skewed that you cut it WITH the paper. I have done that before.
Now, since we didn't have the sentiment on the santas, I stamped the sentiment on an oval that I cut out with my cricut. You could use an appropriately sized punch if you have one. I used staz-on ink because I like the dark crisp image that it makes, and I like that it dries almost instantly. You could use dye or pigment ink here too, just be sure to let it dry if you use pigment ink.
As always, I inked the edges of my papers. Usually I will ink all layers in the same color, but this time I inked the candy cane paper with red, the green paper with green and everything else with black.
Next, I cut a strip of paper from the paper with the red and white swirls on it. The strip was about 3/4 of an inch. I flipped the stamped oval over and applied glue all the way around.
Then just fold the paper as you move around the circle.
you will run out of the strip before you make it all the way around. To make the seam invisible, I always put it in a crease of one of the folds.
Then assemble the card
Moving right along. I wanted some ribbon on this one. Not necessary but kind of fun. I only had a little bit though, so I put it part way across, knowing that it would be covered by the next part.
I matted one of the santa images on some of the candy cane stripe paper, then used foam spots to pop it up. That gives dimension AND eliminates the problem of the paper warping with the ribbon underneath it.
the finished card.
Here I matted the black embossed image on green paper
Then kept the rest of the card simple to let the gorgeous papers take center stage
For this one I used more matting, and some foam tape under the image. I also used some of the alphas from the sticker sheet
For this next card, I broke one of my cardinal rules and stamped directly onto the card. I wanted the sentiment to sort of sit on a strip that I planned to put across, but if I had added the strip first the stamp would not have gone on cleanly because of the difference in height of the papers. So I created the border, and figured out where I wanted it, before removing it and stamping the sentiment
For the border, I cut a strip from the paper with strips, and then used a white cardstock scrap and my apron border punch to make a strip of white scallops to frame it. I also hand cut the santas.
after adhering the white, I stamped the sentiment again so that the tail of the Y was visible on top of the white border. I positioned the two santas on the sides first then used foam tape to pop up the center one.
Here I reversed the popped up santa - the middle is down and the sides are popped up. I used a punch around the page on the smallest size that makes a square. Then I made a little neat bow. I didnt tie the bow, I just took one piece for the loops and a tiny one for the wrap around the middle and glued it with fabric glue. It makes the bow lie nice and flat so it will fit in an envelope, AND you can use bits of ribbon that you wouldnt otherwise make a bow with.
This one I used sticker strips, and used the santa as the center of the bow. no need for a sentiment because it is there all over the paper!
and finally, this one has no stamps, and uses all the blues from the collection. I always like to have a less holiday holiday card because we are an interfaith family and DHs family is Jewish. I don't send them christmas cards but I sometimes send holiday cards.
bonus coming up...
and finally, since I always like to give a little bonus and the really great thing about stamps is that you can use them over and over again - I made some tags. I cut out rectangles with my cricut out of white cardstock. Then I stamped the santa on each one.
next I used my magnetic poetry stamps and stamped the longer of the two sentiments on each card 'with love'
then added the 'for'
then I cut some more rectangles in a slightly larger size with the cricut, inked the white and the colored ones, and matted the white tags on the patterned paper. Originally I was going to use my scraps from the cards, but I was really short on time and wanted a full sheet of paper that I could just set the cricut to cut and walk away, so I used a different one. You could totally use some of the larger scraps from this class though
when I get a chance I will color them in and probably flock the red parts of the santas. but, well, I was due here and running late
happy stmaping!
