Merry Christmas, chalkboard style!

Well hello, friends! I hope your holiday plans and preparations are going swimmingly. Emily here today to show a super quick, super simple, but pretty elegant last minute holiday card for you. (If you're anything like me, you're scrambling to get those last minute cards finished and in the mail.) 

Let's get started, shall we?

The main thing to remember when trying to create a chalkboard effect, at least in my opinion, is that you should try to have a couple of different shades of white. On this particular card, I heat embossed the sentiment from Winnie and Walter's Merry and Bright stamp set with bright white embossing powder on a scalloped rectangle die cut. I added a few little holiday greenery accents in the same white embossing powder in the corners and on the bottom of the sentiment. To add to the general "chalkboard" look, I used a chalk marker to add some lines around the edge of the rectangle to emphasize the sentiment, as well as some dots and lines in the corners and on the sentiment itself to try to make it look a little more hand drawn. The sentiment from the W&W set is written with such beautiful calligraphy, it doesn't take much extra fussing to make it really pop. I used a white pencil to color in the holly leaves on the swag below the sentiment and add some shadows to the bottom of the letters on the sentiment.   

The penultimate step was to add just a pop of color. I absolutely love black and white with just little tiny pops of red, so I used Christmas Red Stickles to add little pops of red to the holly berries and other little accents. (Nothing says Christmas like red glitter, am I right?) The final step was to pop the scalloped rectangle up on a black card base. 

I hope you enjoyed this card! Though there are several steps, they're all relatively quick. This card would be pretty easy to mass-produce, I think. I've got soooo much left to do before Christmas... For some reason, I haven't been adding sentiments to the interior of my holiday cards as I make them, so that's my project for this weekend, in addition to addressing the envelopes and making cookies. (Whew, can't we add just another hour or two to each day, just for the month of December??)

I hope you're all having a wonderful holiday season! Merry Christmas!