Start Early!

 

This year, I’m hoping to avoid that hectic period of Christmas card making in early December.  It’s not always very enjoyable as it gets super stressful and is not really what I want out of my crafting time.  I’m in a crafting Facebook group where they have a reminder at the beginning of the month to make a few Christmas cards so I thought I’d share the ones I made for this month.  Only two, so not a big dent in the ‘to do’ pile but you’ve got to start somewhere!

As I’m learning watercolour, I’m trying out a line and wash technique.  Usually, this is done by drawing your scene in waterproof ink but (since I can’t draw) I stamped mine with these new Anita Jeram (of ‘Guess How Much I Love You’ illustrative fame) stamps. 

I started by painting the sky and adding a little salt whilst the paint was wet.  This gives lovely texture that looks a little icy.

My colour scheme for the card base was inspired by another lady in the group.  I love seeing other people’s ideas as I would never have thought about using lime green for a Christmas card but by adding that colour to the scarf, it gives a really cohesive look.  I added a little more interest to my card bases by stamping a distressed stripe background stamp in the same ink as the card stock.

The scenes were cut out using a stitched rectangle die and simply glued on the card front.

They’re completely flat cards too so easy to post.