Summer Tree Christmas Card

Summer Tree Christmas Card

So I decided to make another blended tree christmas card to go with my engineering tree christmas card. This time I wanted to use little stamp images that matched a summer theme. The reason being that I live in New Zealand and we have christmas in summer. To add motivation to the cause I decided to also try and complete the card fast enough so I could enter this month’s CAS christmas card challenge, a link to which you can find below…

https://caschristmascardchallenge.blogspot.com/2020/11/cas-christmas-november-2020-challenge.html

To make sure I tied into this month’s challenge, I went with a blue blended/ombre background for the tree. Unfortunately, I did make a mistake with my stamping so to cover it up I added another piece of card on top of the original card front. It only adds one layer so hopefully still within rules of the challenge to have minimal layers; anyway, happy to have another card finished and sharing this design.

If you want to see a video on how I make these kinds of cards click the link below for the video below:

Just like my previous blended engineering tree christmas card, I used a triangle cut out to mask around which makes the ‘tree’ shape on the card front. My card front is an A6 notecard and I tape it down to my stamping platform.

I use Altenew crisp dye inks in, sea glass, ocean waves and dusk to blend a blue ombre background within the triangle tree using my blending brushes.

 

Altenew Crisp Dye Inks - blue ombre
Altenew Crisp Dye Inks - blue ombre

I then gather all my summer themed stamp sets and select the small image stamps and arrange as many as I can fit onto/within the masked triangle. After this I close the door on my stamping platform to grab the stamps.

 

Arranged Summer Stamps for Triangle Christmas Tree
Arranged Summer Stamps for Triangle Christmas Tree

I used gina k designs amalgam ink in jet black to ink and stamp the images onto the card front. I ink and stamp a couple of times to make sure I get a good stamped images.

Then I clean my stamps using a baby wipe. I take the small heart stamp and using an acrylic block along with the same black ink as before, I ink and stamp the small image multiple times in various orientations to fill in the gaps in the triangle tree.

Stamped Summer Images and Gina K. Designs Amalgam Ink in Jet Black
Stamped Summer Images and Gina K. Designs Amalgam Ink in Jet Black

Using an acrylic block I once again inked and stamped a ‘merry christmas’ sentiment stamp below the triangle tree image to portray a stump of the tree.

Unfortunately, I didn’t stamp it very well and it looked horrible. So, to cover it up I took another piece of A6 sized cardstock, cut out the triangle and overlaid it on top of the card front hide the poor stamping.

I then stamped the ‘merry christmas’ sentiment stamp using StazOn saddle brown ink onto this piece of cardstock using my stamping platform. I also, grabbed a black sharpie marker and colored in the inner edge of the triangle frame to give it a bit of definition.

Christmas tree frame with StazOn Saddle brown ink and Sharpie
Frame overlay with stamped sentiment and colored frame

Next step was I used double-sided tape to adhere this new frame to the card front, making sure to frame lined up with the triangle tree shape. Then trimmed off any excess.

As usual, I then adhere the card front to a card base this time a silver card base.

Frustratingly, I realised using a sharpie to color the edge of the frame was not a good idea because the ink bled and made the framing look untidy. To fix this I grabbed a black gel pen and a ruler and drew black lines along the edge of the frame over the top of the bleeding ink.

Unfortunately, I already sent the card by the time I got around to typing up posting this blog post so I don’t have a photo of the final ‘tidied up’ card, just a photo of before I fixed it but after the card front was adhered to the card base.

Summer Tree Christmas Card thumbnail
Finished card (before I fixed the bleeding ink)

I enjoyed making this card and I like the final design better than the previous versions. I also like that I can change the theme of the little stamps I use to fill the tree triangle to suit a certain genre or interests of the person I intend to send it to.

Thanks for visiting my blog and I hope you found something useful or interesting.

Happy crafting!

Mel Crafting



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