I know, I know…..Christmas? Well I may have a slight addiction to all things Christmas and I may have a large supply of Christmas related things I have not used. I had great plans …. BIG plans! I had so many ideas and so many things I was going to make for the holidays; cards I was going to send out, home decor, tags, gift card holders, things for the tree, gifts for friends and family. All the things.
I only got a fraction of the things I wanted to done as time got away from me and frankly life got in the way as it does sometimes. So I decided rather than pack up all my Christmas related stuff for months that I would do a bit every month and next Christmas time would not get away from me. True confession time, I have promised myself this before and it has not stuck for the whole year but this could be the year right?!
But I started with this simple card. It doesn’t take too many supplies and the longest part was waiting for the pastes to try. Now the Lunar Pastes that I used (and LOVE) by Simon Hurley are heat safe so they won’t bubble up like some pastes do but it still only really dries the top layer if your paste is put on thick like mine was.
This is how I made the card.
First I cut down a black cardstock sheet to 4.25×5.5 and stuck it to my mat using a sticky grid sheet. I love these sheets as they are reusable, easy to use and really hold down your papers while stenciling.
I then placed the holly stencil of this two part stencil on the paper and used some painter’s tape to hold down the stencil. I spread the Green Lunar Paste on and set it aside to dry and cleaned my stencil and made sure to put the lid on the paste so they do not dry out. I like to put a bit of press and seal over my pastes and gessoes before closing them up as I find it helps prevent things from drying out.
Once the leaves were dry, it was time to add the berries. One of the things I like about this stencil set is that there are numbers in the top left corner of each stencil and you can use these to help line up the layers. Again I used painter’s tape and sticky grid to hold down the layers as I worked.
While this layer dried I stamped the Holly Jolly sentiment using black ink on some white cardstock and then cut it out and matted it with some black cardstock. I also decided to make a few extra holly leaves and berries and I fussy cut them after they dried and added them to the sentiment block. Sorry somehow I missed taking a photo of this step.
Well there it is, my first card for Christmas 2022. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you will play along with me and make a little Christmas all year long…future us will thank us!
