Christmas Cardmaking using Contemporary Colours

Hello there crafters! Lisa Tilson here with you today on the Spellbinders blog. I’m excited to be here to show you some ideas using the Home For The Holidays Collection. For my three cards today, I thought it would be fun to use modern, contemporary colors for a super pretty Christmas vibe. I love traditional colors at Christmas, but it’s always good to shake it up a little and I usually end up with a fairly even mix of styles.

The Home For The Holidays Collection is a big one and it is packed with super fun dies, gorgeous press plates, beautiful sentiments, and an embossing folder that actually could be used all year round.

Fa La La La La

Hands up if you like poinsettias? Well, I definitely do and so the Poinsettia Spray Etched Dies were the first thing I reached for and I couldn’t wait to pull this beautiful spray together! I love how easy it is to create a perfectly balanced array of flowers with this die set.

To kick off my card, I die cut the flowers, leaves, and stems. I used Waterfall Color Essentials Cardstock for the stems and I die cut this die twice so that it has some extra stability. I find this particularly useful when I come to adding this onto a background panel as it doesn’t flop around as much. These two stems were then adhered together using Bearly Art Glue. I then die-cut the leaves from Teal Topaz and Waterfall Cardstock. To give them a bit more interest, I blended some Salvaged Patina Distress Oxide onto the lighter aqua leaves and some Peacock Feathers Distress Oxide onto the teal leaves.

The flowers were cut out from Pink Sand, Fruit Punch, Champagne Glitter Cardstock, the pink glitter card from Spring Tones Glitter Cardstock, and also from white card. All the pieces were adhered with wet adhesive where required. I then just added them onto the stems and set the spray to one side.

This spray fits perfectly onto one of the panel dies from Emerald Cut Labels and Tag Etched Dies. So, I die-cut the larger frame from white card and also a smaller panel from the white card. For extra interest on the plain white panel, I thought it would look pretty if I embossed the Sprinkled Confetti Press Plate onto it. This is another great way of using your press plates. Don’t worry about inking them up, just emboss them instead! I did this by placing it onto the magnetic platform of the BetterPress Letterpress System and adding a few extra shims. I then ran it through my Platinum 6 Die Cutting Machine. You can see the detail of the plate in the photo below. As there is a lot of white in this card, it is nice to distinguish one piece from another by adding something extra to look at!

I then glued the poinsettia spray on top. I die cut a further two panels the same size as the embossed one and adhered them together for extra dimension. I adhered my larger die-cut frame piece onto a top folding A2 note card and trimmed off the corners using a guillotine. The smaller stack with the floral spray was then adhered on top.

I added some Berry Color Essential Gems around the spray and also into the center of the champagne glitter flowers. This is a newly released color of gems and they worked really well with the other colors of pink.

To finish the card, I foiled a sentiment from Mistletoe Greetings Press Plate & Die Set using Satin Champagne Glimmer Hot Foil and the Glimmer Hot Foil System. I put a little bit of foam tape onto the back of this and adhered it across the flowers.

Merry Christmas

For my next card, I used the Color Mix Merry BetterPress Registration Press Plate. There is also a Color Mix Joy BetterPress Registration Press Plate which is equally as fun! It was these two plates, which have a super contemporary font/design, that triggered me into creating with non-traditional colors for this blog post.

I began by taping the registration template down onto the magnetic platform of the BetterPress Letterpress System.  I then placed the “M” & “R” letters down where indicated and inked them up with Wild Berry BetterPress Ink. Next, I taped a panel of A2 Porcelain Cardstock to the platen using Best Ever Craft Tape, popped it back onto the platform, and ran the whole sandwich through my Platinum 6.

I repeated the process to get good coverage and then worked on the other letters. I used Saffron BetterPress Ink for the “R” and Teal Topaz BetterPress Ink for the “E” and “Y”. The registration templates are so easy to use and it is fun to see it all coming together at each stage!

Next, I popped the pressed panel into my MISTI and stamped the “Christmas” sentiment from Snowflake Wishes Clear Stamp Set using Versafine Clair Nocturne Ink. I left this to dry as the black ink stays wet for a little while.

I then die-cut the tree from the St. Nick Etched Dies set. I cut it from Teal Topaz Color Essentials Cardstock and some white card that I had blended Salvaged Patina Distress Oxide onto. The layers were adhered together with Bearly Art Glue. The star and trunk were die-cut from the white glitter cardstock from Spring Tones Glitter Cardstock.

To finish the card, I die-cut the snowflake from St. Nick Etched Dies. I used Teal Topaz card and adhered it onto the top right section of the panel. This helped to balance the card design. Some Berry Color Essential Gems were added for a bit of sparkle!

Sending Joy

For my final card I covered an entire panel with small die cuts! This is something I do fairly often as I really like creating a background this way. I used the Candy Canes & Holly Etched Dies for this.

I can’t lie here, the die cutting took me a little while but it was a good way to use up all my tiny pieces of scrap cardstock! I die-cut the holly leaves from Waterfall and Teal Topaz Color Essentials Cardstock and the berries from Pink Sand and Fruit Punch Cardstock. I adhered the berry pieces together with glue and then set everything to one side. I did in fact run out of berries so had to die cut some more three-quarters of the way through!

I wanted to add my sentiment first and then build up the background around that. So, I took the Sending Joy Sentiments Press Plate and Die Set and pressed the sentiment plate onto Porcelain Cardstock using BetterPress Black Ink. It was then cut out with the coordinating die. I added some foam tape onto the back and popped it onto an 80lb white cardstock panel.

I then adhered the holly and berries around it, working out towards the edges, covering the top part of the panel first and then working my way down. The best way I have found to do this is to temporarily place about 5 or 6 pieces onto the panel first; check the spacing looks good and then adhere them down. I also make sure I have some of the die cuts overhanging the edge. This helps to create the illusion of continuity. It’s a bit like stamping a repeated pattern but you just use die cuts instead.

I was pretty happy with how the pieces looked at the end and I trimmed off any excess from the sides. To add some pretty sparkle (it is Christmas after all!), I adhered some silver gems in between the die cuts. The completed panel was then added onto a top folding A2 white note card (11” x 4.25”, scored at 5.5”).

I hope that you have enjoyed seeing today’s cards and that they give you some ideas for using non-traditional colours for your Christmas cards. If you would like to see more of my cards, I would love to have you join me over on my blog, Instagram, Facebook or YouTube. In the meantime, thank you so much for joining me here on the blog today. I hope that you have a wonderful day!

Spellbinders Supplies:

Other Supplies

Neenah Solar White Classic Crest 80 & 110lb card, Distress Oxide Inks Peacock Feathers, Salvaged Patina, Hero Arts Blending Brushes, Tweezers, Thin Foam Tape, Picket Fence Studios Day & Night Gems, Waffle Flower Grip Mat, Waffle Flower Shader 0 Plus Brushes, Embellishment Wand, Removable Tape Runner, Double-Sided Tape, MISTI Stamping Tool, Versafine Clair Nocturne Ink