Saturday, November 05, 2016

Christmas cards - little trees, a baby Jesus and a snowflake


 I taught three Christmas card classes yesterday as a fundraiser.  These were the first cards I taught at each class.  The kits all had the same supplies - 4"x 4" decorative paper, 1 1/8" strip of coordinating paper, 3/4" strip of coordinating cardstock, a little embossed tree die cut (SX) (CB) OR a colour printed Jesus die cut (Nesties) MDZ) and a coloured laser printed greeting punchie (SU - Word Window) with a coordinating layer (SU- modern label).
 As you can see there were several options available to the participants in designing their  cards.  The pieces could be arranged to create a portrait or landscape card with the large piece on the top or the bottom OR the left or the right.  The embellishment could be placed on the left or the right and the greeting could be positioned in quite a variety of locations.
It was fun to play with the layout to see how many options were possible.  It was also fun to work with so many different papers as well which really helped to give all the cards a bit of a different look.  I created over 200 kits for the three classes so to make the process manageable I located sheets of decorative paper which coordinated with the little trees which were already cut.  I cut each sheet of decorative 12" x12" paper into nine 4" x 4" pieces and then I found scraps of decorative papers in my stash that coordinated and cut nine strips.  Then I dug into my cardstock scraps to find coordinating pieces and cut the little strips and punched the greeting layers.  I embossed all the little trees and the cardstock strips to add texture to the card.  Once all the pieces were cut I designed my greetings, chose colours that coordinated with each decorative paper, printed and punched them all out.  As I assembled my kits I added coordinating cards, quarter sheet inserts with sayings and put all the pieces into an envelope.  One of the ladies requested all religious cards so used the little Jesus graphic from Melonheadz, digitally coloured it to coordinate with the papers I was using, laser printed what I needed on white cardstock and die cut them with my scalloped circle Nestibilities.  This is only a sampling of all the options that I created.
Everyone was happy with their cards and they created even more variety as they positioned elements diagonally, left some elements off completely and located their embellishments and greeting it yet many other locations!!
UPDATE:  I had another small class so I changed up the kits just slightly so they would not be exactly the same as the previous ones.  This is the one features a snowflake as the focal element.  I added a snowflake brad in the center to add some dimension and stability so it could be adhered with 3D foam tape.
Love the versatility of this sketch!!!!

Therese

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