Christmas cards are my favourite! I had to jump on the Christmas in July bandwagon quick before the month was gone! I have a ‘little’ 😉 stack of stamp sets that have never been used and few of them are Christmas sets. I do have a good excuse for not having used them … the Christmas ones that is!!! Last year I ordered quite a few products for Christmas card making but unfortunately the mail delivery during that period of time was very slow and many items were not received until after Christmas. So how excited was I to finally pull out Critter Sweaters! This is the cutest and most unique set ever … in my opinion! I have a set of six cards that I put together in assembly line fashion and would be perfect for mass producing! So here we go!
I began by die cutting the animals. As I cut them, I considered how they would be grouped on each card to guide the number of die cuts of each critter that would be needed. Groupings were cut from either Neenah Classic Crest 110lb card stock, Desert Storm Kraft or Simon’s Ivory, Fog or Smoke card stock. Because I knew I would be using different stamp patterns and colours on the sweaters for each each card, I decided to dust off my acrylic blocks. Just figured it would be easier! I am including an image of the stamp/die set to give you an idea of how this awesome set works.
I chose a sweater design and colour pattern for each grouping of animals and then got busy stamping with Distress Oxide inks. Honestly, this was so much fun!!! The colours I chose for each card were:
Orange Card - Abandoned Coral, Rustic Wilderness, Spiced Marmelade
Pink Card- Shaded Lilac, Spun Sugar, Candied Apple
Red Card - Mermaid Lagoon, Candied Apple, Broken China
Blue Card - Mermaid Lagoon, Blueprint Sketch, Festive Berries
Green Card - Cracked Pistachio, Festive Berries, Pine, Needles
Purple Card - Picked Raspberry, Dusty Concord, Kitsch Flamingo
I stamped 22 sweaters in no time at all! The cute faces and the bow tie on the bears were stamped (again using acrylic blocks) with Simon’s Intense Black ink.
To create the backgrounds, I used a ‘tone on tone’ stamping technique. I wanted a subtle backdrop so it would not compete with the sweaters .... as it turns out, some of the backgrounds are more subtle than others!!! I chose six different Simon Says Stamp’s red rubber stamps. Because the rubber stamps are thick, I removed the insert from my stamping platform and stamped the following backgrounds:
Card - Background Stamp - Simon’s Card Stock - Ink
Orange - Leaves and Berries - Burnt Orange - Distress Oxide Ripe Persimmon
Pink - All Snowflakes - Cotton Candy - Simon’s Cotton Candy
Red - Ornate Background - Schoolhouse Red - Simon’s Schoolhouse Red
Blue - Damask BackgroundIs - Island Blue - Distress Oxide Mermaid Lagoon
Green - Mod Trees - Peacock Teal - Simon’s Peacock Teal
Purple - Falling Snow - Blue Violet - Simon’s Blue Violet
The panels for the A2 sized cards were die cut with My Favorite Things Stitched Rectangles die set The panel for the slimline card was cut with the second largest die in Pinkfresh Studio’s Slim Stitched Rectangles set.
Various hillsides were die cut from white card stock using Simon’s Layered Hills die set. This is another one of those products that becomes a ‘go to’ in the craftroom! The sentiment was stamped with Versafine ink and clear embossed on the hillsides that would be in the foreground. These hillsides were then mounted on sheet foam.
The scenes were arranged and adhered to the cards. The bunny die was used to cut foam and most of the bunnies were stacked. The panels were adhered to foam and attached to card stock slightly smaller than an A2 size. The card bases for the A2 cards measured 4 1/4” by 5 1/2”. The slimline panel was adhered to card stock that was die cut with the largest die in Pinkfresh Studio’s Slim Stitched Rectangles set and then attached to a card base measuring 3 3/4” by 8 3/4”. Various Nuvo drops were used to embellish the sweaters and highlight some the facial features on the critters.
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