It’s always nice to put some extra time and effort into a few of your holiday card projects. I like to have special, detailed cards to give to those few people who appreciate cardmaking or who live far away. For me, this project was one of those special, detailed cards - where the card itself will be the Christmas gift.
I started with the Bird and Poinsettia Border Stamp by Technique Junkies. This stamp is so lovely and is really versatile for Christmas, holiday and also general winter cards. I also think this would be the perfect stamp to use for those “winter birthday” cards as well.
I stamped with brown Archival Ink and then used my Nuvo Waterbrush Pens and a combination of Distress Oxide inks and regular Distress Inks to color in the image.
Then, I used my craft knife to carefully cut out all the INSIDE spaces… look carefully in between the branches and the little pinecones. This was all hand-cut out with my craft knife and some time. :)
After I cut out the INSIDE spaces, then I could easily fussy-cut around the outside of the stamped image. I used Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive to glue the stamped, fussy-cut image to a piece of patterned paper from the "Frosty Sparking" paper collection by Craft O’Clock.
I stamped the Dotted Merry Christmas stamp with black Archival Ink and used a rectangle stitched die from my stash to cut it out and add to my card.
The paper collection has lots of coordinating fussy-cut elements, so I simply found a bird, a candy-cane, two leaves, one anise seed, and a few flower elements to add on top of the stamped image. I used a combination of hot glue and my Nuvo liquid adhesive (the hot glue adds dimension).
I mounted the whole thing on top of a black card base. This card did take me quite a while, but I enjoy the detail work every now and then. When I showed my husband the finished card, he said, “Wow… you really put some time into that one!”
Hope this inspires you! Thank you for looking!
