Crafting for the Holidays

All hardcore crafters know that now is the time to start crafting for holiday gifts or sales. The new Hero Arts background rubber stamps provided the jump start that I needed. These large rubber stamps are just the right size to stamp and attach to card fronts. Then with just a few embellishments.....voila! You have a card....and then a stationery set!

To me the most important element of card making is the color scheme. Try thinking of seasonal colors or get ideas from advertisements. I saw the salmon, light aqua, sage green, and brown colors on a stationery set that I really loved. Finding the right embellishment can be a challenge, but if you stick to a favorite color palette when shopping you'll probably have something in your stash. I tend to organize by color or companies (especially if they produce paper with matching embellishments).

If you are making cards for sale or gift sets, you will need to economize both supplies and production time. Once you produce a card that you like, make multiples by stamping a whole sheet of the design and cutting all your paper at once. Then you can assemble the cards in a factory line. By varying the embellishments, you can still make each card unique. For example, the four card set has flowers from the K and Co. paper punch out pad and some from Sandy Lion stickers. Also the word stamps came in a Hero Arts set but are general enough that they can be used for many occasions. Oh, be sure to use Merikan (Heiko) tape because it applies easily, is super cheap, and won't make your card warp like liquid glues or peel off like stick glues.

You can click on the photos to enlarge the images. Write to me through this blog if you have any questions about the cards or crafting in general.