Bulk Christmas Cards

Today it has been hot 35 degrees Celsius and that has to be a record for early November - and a sign of a very hot Summer ahead. And so it was a good opportunity to continue to get ahead with some Christmas cards. Over the last few days I have been working my way through the Watercolor Winter Kit. the kit comes with all you need for 20 cards (minus stamps and inks) and for those I turned to what I have already. For the water colouring, I fine-tuned my mix of water and ink refills quite quickly and being able to colour ahead meant the putting together of the cards came together quite quickly also. The Kit makes 20 cards -5 each of 4 designs. For my cards I decided to keep to the instructions and I was pleased with how they turned out for the most part.

My favourite design at first was the card with the Trees - lots of Gold Glimmer paper and you know how I love some bling :-)

This was my first attempt at it - so the colouring got better and I was more generous with the length of twine bow on future versions :-)

And yes - I also used some dimensionals to give a bit of added depth as per usual :-)

The white, woodgrain layer is raised as is the second tree and the "happy" oh and the Christmas banner.

For the "christmas" I used the Good Greetings stamp set. I do love the layer of gold glimmer behind the trees and that the "happy" is in so many languages. I used the 5 English versions on my cards so I have plenty of other language versions left to use on other things :-)

But my favourite card turned out to be the one I least suspected: with the coloured Sled! I love the colours and the beautiful snowflake and sequins even though Christmas in Australia is in Summer and Icy Poles are as close as we get to anything cold LOL! (Especially if todays weather is anything to go by!)

The Crumb Cake card comes pre-printed with the snow dots and so is quick and easy to complete just by accessorising :-)

For the greeting I used a vintage set "Many Merry Messages."

And to create the rich colour of the sled I used a mixture of Cherry cobbler ink mixed with water as per instructions and on a separate palate used a drop of Cherry cobbler ink that I picked up with the paint brush after the first inking of the sled with the watered mixture. I found this gave a more red sled as otherwise the Cherry mixture can tend towards being a little pink rather than red. I adhered the snowflake and sled with some Tom bow glue and then the Bermuda Bay piece using dimensionals.

Next, the simplest card to make is possibly the most elegant and effective I think:

For this card the "Merry" is water coloured using Old Olive (and a couple of drops of Mossy Meadow) re-inker in a small amount of water. This is the same mixture that I used for the Trees. To get the colour variations, simply colour the whole word first and then go back and add as much colour to the top 2/3 letters as you want -  remembering that the dried colour is always lighter too :-)

For the greeting here I used another stamp from the vintage "Many Merry Messages" stamp set. And again, the white, woodgrain layer is on a layer of dimensionals as is the Christmas banner.

For the vellum leaves, a few drops of Tombow multi- purpose glue comes in handy, just apply where the glue will be hidden by the dots.

And last and in my opinion, least is the last card style. I changed the colours to water colour the greeting to Cherry Cobbler or Old Olive.

There is something about the draped greeting over the pretty snowflake that seems not quite as lovely as the the other cards. Maybe it's my poorly drawn lines using Smoky slate ink added to some water. Or simply that it is a one layer card  - no dimensionals able to be used here! The words are coloured and then when dry the twine is adhered to the back using a find line of tombow and then the banner is able to be attached to the card quite easily.

But overall, I am really pleased with the Winter Watercolor pack - 20 cards at about $2 each and yet you can still make them individual - and now I have 20 Christmas cards done already and it is only the first week in November!! Wow!! As usually I am still struggling to get them all done before Christmas Eve - so is really good to have a head start this year! 

Happy stamping until next time,

Jan