More is More

I don’t know about you, but I am one of those stampers who hates to do mass production.  I know some people make it a habit to always make several of the same card, but not me.  I might use a sketch or a color combo several times, but I like to change it up and not do the same card….except when it comes to Christmas cards.  I usually try to make between 80 – 100 Christmas cards so mass production becomes a necessity.  I usually do batches of 10 or sometimes 20.  Today I get to join Taylor and some of the Baker’s Dozen girls in a little Merry Mass Production Blog Hop.  Our Challenge was to create a set of 4-10 identical or very similar Christmas cards.  I had all intention of making 8, but only ended up with 5.  I do plan to make another similar batch soon though.  I love this stamp set and I’m sure you’ll be seeing a lot more of it from me!

I knew that the new TE stamp set Christmas Blessings would be perfect for this challenge.  I have a ton ideas for this set and the solid images and wonderful choice of sentiments make it easy to create beautiful cards very quickly. Everything you need is all in one set!

For this set of cards I used designer paper from the Christmas Mint Collection  at TE along with SU cardstock in Garden Green and Ruby Red and some shimmery Posion Ivory.  TE has a set of Prism cardstocks to coordinate with this paper, but I forgot to order it so I was really happy to see that these SU colors also work well.  The card base is a 4.25″ square.  I had originally thought of doing tent toppers, but as I played around with the layout I ended up extending the image panel out to the right.  The overall width of the card is 5.5″ so it fits into a standard envelope.  I was really pleased with this look as the Wise Men seem to be traveling off into the distance.

The trick to mass production is to design the first card and then do the rest in an assembly line fashion.  The main image was stamped onto the ivory cs with chocolate chip craft ink (those craft spots sure do come in handy!) and heat embossed with clear ep.  Same with the sentiment.  The image was then die cut with a rectangle nestie and the sentiment was punched with the SU scallop oval punch.  The garden green layers were cut with a scallop rectangle nestie and punched with an SU wide oval punch.  The image layers were sponged and then assembled onto their matting layers.  The card bases and layers were cut and assembled.  It was then quick work to adhere everything together.  I used some foam tape from TE to pop up the sentiment.  In the end I decided to add some clear Taylor’s Tiny Twinkles which can barely be seen in the photo, but I just really wanted a touch of bling.  Honestly if I’d had a little more time and had planned ahead a little better, this would be a really easy card to make a batch of 20.

Here’s a close up of a single card.  I didn’t get a chance to photograph the inside, but there is an ivory panel on both the left and right of the inside.  The left panel has the Bible verse from the stamp set

“Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:11

On the right panel is the sentiment

Christmas Blessings

I have one more little tip to share for using the 6×6 papers from TE or from the scaled down 6×6 pads you might have in your stash.  In the case of the Christmas Mint, I had 4 sheets of 6×6.  I could only get one card front from each sheet, but then I had a number of various strips left over.  So I made this 5th card using some of those strips and I have enough  left to make a few more cards – I just ran out of time.  I just cut random widths and I actually really like the look.

So when you are running out of designer papers, look at ways you can use up your precious scraps! 

Now I can hardly wait to hop around and see what the rest of the girls have to share.  Need some Christmas inspiration?  Then come hopping with me!

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great day!