Handmade by Natty

This post might as well be entitled The Epic Christmas Card Assembly Project because it sure took some time to complete!

It all started weeks ago when I went to make this card (and 3 of the same design while I had my supplies out):

Stamps: Avery Elle – Starry Scene, Simon Says Stamp – Critter Sweaters, WPlus9 – Holly Jolly Christmas
Dies: Avery Elle – Starry Scene, Simon Says Stamp – Critter Sweaters

The main reason for this design was so that I could try out my new The Stamp Market ink colours, and what better way than to do some solid stamping for my background elements and some rainbow stamping for the Bear’s sweater.

I was pretty happy with how it all turned out and thought it would be a great template for another run of multiple card makes… It was 4 cards down, but just how many more could I make?

Coincidentally the following Friday was our local evening crop and I wanted to pack light and just do some step-by-step tasks that were just perfect for that scenario.

Well, this plan required some military preparation:

• All my A2 background panels were cut to size from coloured cardstock
• Every element that needed die-cutting in my Sidekick was cut down to fit those cutting plates
• I bagged up everything I needed for the individual steps and threw in a couple of extra tweaks for the design

Armed with just 1 bag of supplies I got down to work – interrupted only by our Chinese takeaway meal and a bit of chat. 😉

Boy had I underestimated how long it would take me just to stamp the stripes! I needed to double stamp all the main background elements to ensure smooth and solid results (it seems to be the norm with a lot of ink-heavy projects I do) so I wasn’t quite on track.

But it was all good, by the end of the evening my background panels were done, the sky was stamped and ready to die cut, the cats and rabbits had been cut and stamped, the mountains were stamped, die cut, coloured in and had a Wink of Stella applied.

I just needed to cut all the trees, do a bit of ink blending on them for extra pop, find the perfect sentiment, die cut the sky and assemble everything.

That ended up taking me a whole extra day (aided or hindered by watching a new show on Amazon Prime that I really enjoyed, called Modern Love).

And finally…. finally I had this small stack of cards to show for it:

As you will see, the tweaked design includes the perfect-fit sentiment from the WPlus9 Holly Jolly Christmas stamp set (it’s the same set I used for all those stripes) plus die-cut trees from the Neat & Tangled Scandinavian Prints Christmas set (it’s officially discontinued but this set is fantastic for trees and is still available in some stores).

Here are the main products used for this design:

Stamps: Avery Elle – Starry Scene, Simon Says Stamp – Critter Sweaters, WPlus9 – Holly Jolly Christmas
Dies: Avery Elle – Starry Scene, Simon Says Stamp – Critter Sweaters, Neat & Tangled – Scandinavian Prints Christmas (r)

I used the same ink colours for all the sweaters, here’s a quick list:

• Rabbit: The Stamp Market – Emerald Isle and Fresh Pink inks
• Cat: The Stamp Market – Party Pink and Tropical Teal inks

And here’s a breakdown of the individual colour variations:

Background: PTI – Sweet Blush cardstock and The Stamp Market Blush Pink ink
Sky: Altenew – Sea Glass ink

Keeping with the pink background I did a darker stripe:

Background: PTI – Sweet Blush cardstock and The Stamp Market Bubblegum ink
Sky: Lawn Fawn – Minty Fresh ink

The grey mountains stamped in Altenew Limestone ink and coloured with a Promarker in Warm Grey stand out nicely, and I used a white pen for extra detail. A very quick effect that was welcome in the overall process!

Then I moved into bluer tones:

Background: PTI – Aqua Mist cardstock and The Stamp Market Emerald Isle ink
Sky: Altenew – Blush ink

And finally more subtle tone-on-tone stripes:

Background: PTI – Aqua Mist cardstock and The Stamp Market Tropical Teal ink
Sky: Altenew – Blush ink

Don’t ask me which is my favourite! 😉

I like them all for different reasons, but boy have all the stamps and dies used in this series paid for themselves now!

Avery Elle – Starry Scene stamps Shop at: EH | SBC | SHC	Simon Says Stamp – Critter Sweaters stamps Shop at: SSS	WPlus9 – Holly Jolly Christmas stamps Shop at: MISC | SHC	Avery Elle – Starry Scene dies Shop at: EH | SHC
Neat & Tangled – Scandinavian Prints Christmas dies (r) Shop at: AZ | SHC	Simon Says Stamp – Critter Sweaters dies Shop at: SSS	Altenew – Blush dye ink Shop at: EH | MISC	Altenew – Jet Black dye ink Shop at: EH
Altenew – Limestone dye ink Shop at: EH | MISC	Altenew – Sea Glass dye ink Shop at: EH	Distress ink pad – Peeled Paint Shop at: AZ | EH | SBC	Lawn Fawn – Minty Fresh ink pad Shop at: EH | SBC | SHC
The Stamp Market – Blush Pink ink pad Shop at: EH | MISC	The Stamp Market – Bubble Gum ink pad Shop at: EH | MISC	The Stamp Market – Cactus ink pad Shop at: EH | MISC	The Stamp Market – Cherry Kisses ink pad Shop at: EH | MISC
The Stamp Market – Emerald Isle ink pad Shop at: EH | MISC	The Stamp Market – Party Pink ink pad Shop at: EH | MISC	The Stamp Market – Sea Glass ink pad Shop at: EH | MISC	The Stamp Market – Tropical Teal ink pad Shop at: EH | MISC
Versafine – Onyx Black ink pad Shop at: AZ | EH | SBC	Altenew – Cool Summer Night ink cube set Shop at: EH | SHC	Altenew – Green Fields ink cube set Shop at: EH | SHC	Altenew – Red Sunset ink cube set Shop at: EH | MISC | SHC
Altenew – Rock Collection ink cube set Shop at: EH | MISC | SHC	Neenah Classic Crest 110 lb smooth Solar White cardstock Shop at: AZ | EH | SSS	Neenah Classic Crest 80 lb smooth Solar White cardstock Shop at: AZ | EH | SBC | SSS	PTI – Aqua Mist cardstock Shop at: MISC
PTI – Sweet Blush cardstock Shop at: MISC	Uniball Signo White pen Shop at: AZ | EH | SBC	Zig – Wink of Stella glitter brush pen – Clear Shop at: AZ | EH | SBC | SHC	Tonic Studios Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive Shop at: AZ | EH | SBC
3M Scotch double-sided foam tape Shop at: AZ | EH	Lawn Fawn – Stamp shammy cleaner Shop at: AZ | EH | SBC | SHC	MISTI stamping tool Shop at: AZ | EH | SBC	Cosmetic blending brushes Shop at: AZ
Sizzix – Big Shot machine Shop at: AZ | EH | SBC	Sizzix – Sidekick machine Shop at: AZ | SBC	Thermoweb iCraft – Purple tape for die-cutting – 1 1/2″ Shop at: AZ | EH | SBC	Tim Holtz – Tonic guillotine trimmer (maxi) Shop at: AZ | EH | SBC
Tim Holtz – Tonic guillotine trimmer (small) Shop at: AZ | EH | SBC