Vintage Christmas

Happy Monday, everyone!! Emily here for you today with a trio of vintage-inspired Christmas cards. I can't seem to make one of anything these days, but who can blame me when there are such ADORABLE images to work with, like the ones in the Christmas Nutcracker set from Wplus9. Let's dive right in, shall we? 

I started out by die cutting three ovals using the Avery Elle Sweet Scallops die set (apologies if you're tired of seeing me use these... I can't seem to stop! They're just the perfect size.) using my favorite Strathmore watercolor card stock. I then stamped the three main images from the Wplus9 stamp set: the little girl, the nutcracker boy, and the Christmas tree, using Archival black ink. I then watercolored all of the images using my trusty Zig markers, some water, and my paintbrush. I added a bit of gold Wink of Stella here and there for some sparkle. The sentiment was the same for each, die cutting the word Magical (from the Waffle Flower word die) from glossy black card stock, and finishing the thought with some stamping from the Hero Arts's Merry, though the final result for the stamped portion of each sentiment was a bit different because of the placement and coloring on each oval panel. Each card has a similar color scheme to try to keep the set cohesive, but they are definitely unique, particularly in the treatment of the background. 

This sweet little nutcracker guy reminds me a lot of my little boy, with his chubby cheeks, mop of hair, and sweet expression. I decided he would look perfect up against some Christmas plaid, so I stamped a plaid using coordinating colors, including Gold Delicata ink and Hero Arts Navy dye ink. I mounted the watercolored panel on a piece of gold foil card stock cut again with the Avery Elle Sweet Scallops die, this time with the scalloped oval. I mounted the entire thing on a navy blue card base. 

This beautiful Christmas tree has some Clear Pico embellishment over the ornaments, so the stamped sentiment would not stick to the top of the glossy ornaments. I decided to die cut another scalloped oval from hot pink card stock, heat emboss my sentiment in the approximate spot it would be on the oval, and then trim the sentiment strips off, which allows the edge of the sentiment strips to match up to the edge of the scalloped oval perfectly. I mounted the finished oval on a scalloped cobalt blue foil oval, then mounted that on a panel of white and gold striped card stock. The whole thing is mounted on a royal purple card base. 

The final card is probably my favorite. There is just something about this little girl that reminds me of my own little girl (if and when she ever gets this much hair haha! Poor bald baby.) The energy, the excitement... so sweet, and so reminiscent of a child at Christmas. I chose to focus on the pinks and purples in my color scheme, though the little nutcracker she is holding is wearing the same colors as the little nutcracker boy in the first card. I heat embossed the sentiment using gold embossing powder, then mounted it on a pink glitter scalloped oval. I wanted to keep the background fairly simple so as not to detract from the sweet little girl, and so I used the Avery Elle Beautiful Bows set to gold heat emboss a ribbon on the background. I think the gold embossing looks stunning against that royal purple.

I hope you're still with me at the end of this rather lengthy post! I'm finding that I can not simply make just one of my Christmas cards... I figure, if the ideas are there, I better take advantage of them! I hope you enjoyed these cards. Have a fantastic week, friends!