Getting ready for the 'Holly Days'

I make lots of Christmas cards each year.... like about 75!!! For me, making all 75 exactly the same seems a little boring, so I like to make maybe 15 of each style, changing a little bit here and there to keep my interest.
For all of these cards I used the Christmas Holly stamp found on Sweet Pea plate #12, and 2 of the fabulous vertical sentiments that are on Sweet Pea plate #13. I also kept the color scheme basically the same - pink cardstock for the card, dark wine, deep mauve, or plum colored cardstock for the layering, white or light pink cardstock for the stamped image, and raisin Adirondack dye ink.
Also, for all of these cards (except the last one) I began by first stamping the vertical sentiment along the right side of the card. That way I knew how much space I had left for my focal point.
Quite some time ago, I had taken various colored sheets of cardstock and sprayed them with gold webbing spray. One those sheets happened to be dark wine, perfect for the color scheme of these 'Holly Day' cards. After stamping the sentiment I cut a piece of the dark wine cardstock to fit in the space left on the card front. I edged the piece of white card, that had been stamped with the Sweet Pea holly image, with a gold Krylon pen before attaching to the wine colored cardstock. After trimming the wine colored cardstock and punching all 4 corners with a decorative corner punch, I edged it with the gold Krylon pen and then mounted the stamped piece onto it. Then I attached it to the card front.

Here's the second card... I mounted the holly stamped piece onto a slightly larger piece of gold cardstock and trimmed the gold to create an even border. Next, I mounted that piece onto a larger piece of web-sprayed dark wine cardstock. After using a decorative corner punch on all 4 corners of the wine colored piece I edged it with a gold Krylon pen. I attached the piece to the pink card using double sided tape.








I had recently purchased a new decorative photo corner punch and wanted to put it to use. I cut a piece of the dark wine colored cardstock that was larger than the piece stamped with the holly image. I punched one corner, inserted the stamped piece, and trimmed the 4 sides to create an even border around the image. I edged all 4 sides with a gold Krylon pen before attaching to a piece of mauve handmade paper. I trimmed the handmade paper with a straight edge scissors on 3 sides, but trimmed the right side with a decorative edge scissors. The vertical sentiment was stamped along the right side of the pink card and decorative ribbon attached to the bottom of the card.




Once again I started by stamping the vertical sentiment along the right side of a pink card. After doing that I attached the strip of decorative ribbon along the bottom of the card. I cut a piece of plum colored cardstock to fit within the newly created borders, but before attaching to the card front, I trimmed the right side with decorative scissors and edged the entire piece with a gold Krylon pen. I like the festive look that the Krylon pen offers a card.
I cut a piece of gold cardstock slightly larger than the piece the holly was stamped on and layered both of those onto the plum cardstock. Can you tell by now that I like these color combinations???






I didn't use the vertical word stamp for this card. I created a background using dark wine colored cardstock. I edged both the background and the smaller piece with gold Krylon pen. But before I attached the Sweet Pea holly image to the background I attached a piece of decorative ribbon vertically onto the background. The entire piece was then attached to a white card.
Enjoy your 'Holly' Days with these Sweet Pea images...
Chrissy