studio ·Dec 14, 2019

CARD ART 2019

you guys…

this was so much fun!! I mentioned last year that I figured out this design while planning #cardart18 and I while I knew how it would look, I didn’t know which materials I’d be working with. I was in JoAnn’s in late september and found the PERFECT red paper and grabbed a stack. I can’t tell you how many years I’ve been hunting down paper in mid-december because I didn’t buy it when I first saw it.

I used 12” x 12” red paper and wanted to cover most of the white cardstock so I had to measure carefully to maximize each piece when cutting it down. and this year, I didn’t have to visit my neighborly FedEx store to use their paper cutter because I had my very own, personal-sized & portable swingline paper cutter!

once I had ‘card-sized’ red rectangles I needed to cut the perfect 3” circle in each. I started out using my handy-dandy fiskars circle cutter from #cardart16 but quickly realized that my arthritic shoulder couldn’t handle the repetitive work. so after a quick amazon search, I found the perfect 3” punch and I knocked out the bunch in no time.

bonus: I used my leftover 3” circles as gift tags when wrapping and place setting cards for holiday dinners.

I had leftover green paper from #cardart pasts for the ‘tree’ piece I had planned but I realized that using a splatter technique on it would take it to the next level. I also knew it was going to make a huge mess but thankfully, I can use the huge workspace in my studio for making messes.

I spread out my green paper, mixed 1 part white craft paint with 1 part water, and went to town with a wide brush. I started by flicking the bristles but covered more area “anointing” the paper (aka flicking my wrist) and the end result was the perfect snow-covered look I was going for. I used my paper cutter to make 1.5” wide strips and cut those at an angle to make tall triangles for the trees.

for about 5 minutes I debated whether there should be two trees or one but decided they looked more like sails than trees so went back to plan A.

if you haven’t figured it out yet, I was going for a snow globe-like look. I used a plain old glue stick to attach the red paper to the white card, applying it mostly along the edges. I used the glue stick on the trees, too and tucked them just inside the circle.