Happy Holiday season everyone!
Let’s create some easy-to-make Christmas cards together: shop your stash (I did! 😃) and make good use of the tips, tricks & tutorials I’m sharing with you in the below videos! Let me know what you think in the comments.
Have a very merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!
You can watch my free video tutorial for my deconstructed envelope card here:
Hope you found these tips & tutorials helpful, either for your Christmas cards or for any other occasion!
Here’s a quick Christmas gift craft idea: mat and decorate a little box, create some dividers, and fill it up with small goodies, neatly divided! 😃 (short video embedded below)
There have been years that I’d finished all of my Christmas cards by September – having started as early as July – and heaps of them at that. (You can check them out here.)
But not this year. This year I’ve only just finished my very first Christmas card last week. What can I say, I’m not crafting as much as I used to – though one of my new year’s resolutions is More Crafting, so I remain hopeful. 😇
I have to say it was fun to create again, after many moons with hardly any papercrafting at all (except for the occasional card here & there, which I posted here, on my blog).
Here are my design steps:
1. I started by shopping my stash and I found this fresh & modern looking design paper by S.E.I., called Kris Kringle. It is no longer available, however I’m hoping it will inspire you – either to shop your own stash for some great finds, or to shop for similar design papers that evoke the same atmosphere if you like these specific papers.
2. Some baby blue cardstock became a nice base for the card, echoing the occasional light blue the design papers offered and off-setting the rest of the colors nicely.
3. I wanted a special card design so I decided on this slanted tri-fold shape and folded it ‘zigzaggingly’ (I don’t know the official term but I think you’ll catch my drift 😉 ).
4. One of my label dies came in handy to add a stamped sentiment to the front of the card.
5. Tri-fold shapes are always fun because they give you six panels to mat and play with your design papers! You’ll have to keep your embellishments flat however, otherwise your card won’t fit into its envelope. Stamping is a good option of course, as would be (heat) embossing or adding some ink sprays.
In conclusion
All in all I had fun, maybe even more than I expected. It was nice to think about a specific friend and design a card with them in mind. What shape hadn’t they seen from me yet, what colors would they like and what kind of sentiment would they appreciate. Happy thoughts to be pondering.
I’ve found again and again that tailor-making a craft project for a specific person adds an extra dimension of inspiration and fun to my craft projects. Maybe this can be the way forward for me – and who knows, perhaps for you too! – for the foreseeable future, to find some much needed inspiration again!
I might even do some video tutorials again on my Youtube channel (which I always embed on the blog too), so let me know if you’d like one for this type of card – or mini album insert of course, whichever might fit your needs best!
Have a blessed New Year every one! And thank you for your continued readership and support in 2022!
So, speaking of last year, apparently I forgot to post my 2022 Christmas cards here on my blog after uploading it to Youtube last December…. However, the tips are still useful, for they are for card making in general, not just Christmas cards.
So imagine any occasion you’re planning to celebrate with a card, sit back & relax and apply every tip to your own cards. I hope you find some inspiration, not only by way of card ideas but also to avoid the Chore Trap of crafting. Enjoy the video 🙂
For all of you who are anything like me and are in dire need of some quick, last-minute Christmas cards, I’m sharing four tips to create them!
In my previous post I already shared a step-by-step on how to make the cards in the above picture.
So to summarize: tip 1 is the regular papercraft way of card-making: create designs from cardstock, then mat each seperate part with design paper.
The next two pictures show tip 2: die-cut a sentiment or an image from specialty paper and stick it onto a mixed media background. Then mat on top of cardstock.
Here are the materials I used for both of the above backgrounds:
Tip 3: create a mixed media background, but don’t use it as a background. Instead, die-cut something from it and stick it onto some white cardstock. Clean. Simple. Elegant.
These are the sprays I used for these:
Tip 4 is of course a mixed media die-cut on a mixed media background. Add some glitter accents if you like.
Bonus tip: if you’re not a mixed media kind of crafter, you can use design paper instead! This will give you the same elegant and sophisticated effect, both on white cardstock and on design paper.
Now off you go, hurry up with those last-minute Christmas cards! 🙂
A relatively quick and easy way to create Christmas cards is using mixed media techniques. For this week’s card I first created an inked background, then I die-cut from other pieces of inked paper. This week I’m sharing step by step how to do it.
Keep in mind that although there are quite a few steps, it all takes very little time. For instance, to create the background, you simply spray some ink and let it dry. If you use a drying tool like Ranger’s heat tool, this will take you about 10 minutes. And so on, and so forth. So enjoy!
Step by step
The technique I use for this is: I spray one piece of cardstock, then press it onto a second piece of cardstock of the same size. You now get a nice blend, get the most out of your inks (it’s used for double the surface area) and a fun bonus is that they are eachother’s mirror images.
Intermezzo: You can now either go on with the step by step below, or you can layer the smaller cards on top of the larger ones and decorate:
2. Die-cut an image or a large sentiment from one of your inked backgrounds. I used the Layered Pine Trees by Tim Holtz. Play around with the placement of the dies, to get a nice colorplay.
3. Fussy-cut around the edges of one of the holes your die left, to get a bonus decoration.
4. Glue the first die-cut to one of your larger backgrounds to get the placement you like. Then die-cut a sentiment from the same piece of inked background, place it below the decoration (or wherever you like basically 😉 ).
The way I placed the elements, on the right, offers the possibility to now fold my card in half and have a beautifully inked double card.
5. In the end however I decided to simply cut it in half, doubling the number of inked backgrounds I had (I did the same with the other large background).
6. If applicable: layer your elements. Then add glitter to your liking.
7. Glue all elements to your background. You have now created a nice piece to mat onto any cardstock you like.
Done!
If you want to see how I used the other Christmas-colored backgrounds I showed above, check out my next post! 🙂
For my first batch of 2020 Christmas cards I planned on scrapping up an entire 6×6 inch paper pad and make 7 cards in the style I showed in my previous blog post.
To that end I have a tip for you: to avoid being overwhelmed by an entire pad, just rip out all of the sheets and make little 3-sheet stacks – for you’ll need 3 sheets for each card (plus some cardstock of course).
In the end I made only one card in the style I planned; then I went with the creative Flow and made five more cards, all in their own unique styles. Oh well, plans are made to be thrown out right.
The point being, don’t let those pesky little paper pads get the advantage – you’re the boss, so rip them apart and use every single last one of those lovely sheets. You go!
Stay crafty, see you in my next!
It’s that time of the year again, time flies even if you’re not having as much fun as you hoped for… It has been a bizarre year indeed, so we have perhaps even more reason to spread some color and joy by sending out beautiful handmade Christmas cards 🎄
To help you kick off you holiday crafting, let’s start with a lovely yet easy card design. You only need 2 pieces of cardstock (each a different color) and 1 sheet of 12×12 inch design paper.
One of the cardstock pieces will be your card base: cut to 6×12″ and fold in half. I chose a bright yellow. Use the other cardstock piece to be the first layer to mat on the front, back and inside; for this I chose green.
Now cut three mats from the design paper, and mat on top of the cardstock mats – so we’re double-matting. I worked with a sheet from the red, yellow & green Christmas Treats collection by Piatek.
Decorate the front any way you please and go as dimensional as you like; me, I was contented with simply showcasing this beautiful paper. I only added to things: a die-cut Christmas wish (for which I used the B-side of my double-sided design paper); and I went around the edges with glitter glue. I always use Ranger’s Stickles for that, these are simply the best I’ve encountered on the market.
You can decorate on the inside as well of course, but keep two things in mind: don’t go bulky, for otherwise your card won’t close anymore; and leave at least some room to write your Christmas wishes 🙂
I never decorate the back of my cards, but I always mat them, and often with lovely papers that could easily have gone on the front too!
So, I hope you feel inspired to start making your Christmas cards as well! Next time I’ll show you how to easily use up an entire 6×6″ paper pad to create a bunch of them (with a video!). 🧑🏼🎄
Gelukkig Nieuwjaar – Happy New Year!
Thank you all for your support and encouragement in 2019! I wish you many blessings, inspiration and of course creativity for 2020 – may at least one of your dreams come true!
Papers used: Graphic 45 – Midnight Masquerade collection
Techniques used: matting, layering, die-cutting, stamping, corner punching, inking around the edges
Extra interest items: dimensional tape, glitter glue, corner chomper
Only two more days and then it’s Christmas! So, time to share two more Christmas cards, each with a special design that makes it just a little bit more Christmassy 🙂
The first is a tri-shutter card, for which I have a free video tutorial available. The second is a gatefold pocket card, which you can fill with nice tags and pictures.
Enjoy the video, and of course a Very Merry Christmas to you all!
Here’s a fun Christmas holiday project, which will be easy to take with you in your purse because it’s relatively small. It will hold at least 47 pictures, which is perfect not only for said Christmas holidays 🙂 but also for all other occasions, like birthday events, weddings, baby’s first year, summer vacations, back-to-school brag books, remembrance of loved ones and – why not – rock concerts or visits to the zoo 🙂
The only thing you’d have to change to achieve all of those are your paper collections – and we all know What Fun that is! 🙂 Mine was the Wassail collection by Basic Grey, an older collection not available anywhere anymore I think, but you can of course substitute any awesome Christmas collection you like.
So watch the video to find the inspiration to create one yourself, or help yourself to my written pdf tutorial, sporting 70 pages with step-by-step explanations and 160 clear pictures. This makes it absolutely suitable for beginners as well.
Merry Christmas!
Christmas is nearing ever more, so this week I’m sharing two great interactive wallet cards decorated in a truly Woodland Winter atmosphere. You can find the tutorial here.
You can of course use embellishments as elaborate as you like with these cards, as I did with previous iterations of this design, like the Time Machine version:
This time I used only paper decorations, some came with the collection and others I added myself, by way of decorative borders and die-cuts.
This is a pretty elaborate design, which makes it a great group gift or group card (to give as a group, with each individual adding their own wishes). It can also hold at least 5 pictures, which makes it kind of a mini album card 🙂
Have a great December month!
