Craft room organization is a topic I could go on about forever, and quite often, it brings me just as much joy as cardmaking. Another thing that brings me oodles of joy? Digging out my holiday-themed supplies (which are hidden away for most of the year) and dreaming up all sorts of new creations – cards, tags, packaging – give me ALL the holiday crafts! I’m not sure about you, but the rush around the holidays always means I never have quite enough time to bring all of my ideas for a stamp/die set to life, so this past weekend, I decided to pull out a couple of my previously-released Essentials by Ellen products and do exactly that.
If you’ve been hanging around here for a while, you’ll know that I love the fun versatility of the shapes in the Abstract Nature, Organic Elements, and Abstract Paint Strokes stamp sets. These are some of the hardest-working items in my stash, and as my past card projects (like this one, this one, this one, these, and this one) will demonstrate, they can easily be used all year round. I also adore a good, clean font, and that’s exactly what you get with the Retro Holiday Greetings sentiments.
On this occasion, I decided to combine a few of the blob shapes from the Organic Elements and Abstract Nature stamp sets with images from the Essentials by Ellen Holiday Sprigs stamp set, released last year. I began by stamping 2 backgrounds – one with lots of overlapping going on, and the other, a more simple, vertical design using repetition of the same shape. Color-wise, I chose a palette of:
- Concord & 9th Ballet Slipper
- Catherine Pooler Be Mine
- Catherine Pooler Wintergreen
- Catherine Pooler Mardi Gras
As I typically do (and recommend), the stamping for the card with the overlapping blobs was done with the lighter colors first, followed by the darker ones after the light colors had dried. By allowing time between layers for the ink to dry, you end up with more crisp, sharp images. Patience can be hard, but it’s worth it! In addition, I intentionally avoided overlapping greens with pinks, as the result is typically a brown-ish mix that I really didn’t want to create here! If you were using different colors that blend nicely together, this wouldn’t be an issue.
Once all of the stamped ink was dry, I moved on to embossing the images from Holiday Springs and my sentiments in gold. If you have small hot foil images in your stash, you could absolutely use those here too, and I think it would look fabulous! Whether you foil or emboss, the metallic shine adds variety to the card’s textures and in this case, I think it helps to give these more of a holiday look too.
A card is not complete in my craft room without a bit of foam tape, so I slapped some on the back of each panel before mounting them to A2 card bases. As you can see, these are really clean and simple designs that don’t take very long to create. This makes them perfect for mass-producing, and I have a feeling that’s exactly what I’ll be doing!
