Here are a couple more Christmas Cards, designed for and made by participants in my Christmas Card Design Studio this year. Neither of these ladies have had much experience stamping, and yet I think they both turned out BEAUTIFUL artwork!
This first sample (left) is Jane's Christmas card. It's a modified copy of one I received from a friend a year or two ago. Jane was particularly charmed by its "texture" – which, unfortunately, doesn't really show in the photo, since I shot it straight on. But it does have several wonderful layers of texture and dimension. The stamp set, Peaceful Wishes, is now retired, but it still remains one of my favorites. Main colors are Bravo Burgundy and Always Artichoke. With all the layers involved in this card, I thought this was a pretty ambitious effort for someone without a lot of stamping experience! But by beginning way back in early October, Jane's cards were all finished (including envelopes addressed) sometime in mid-November.
And coincidentally, Amy chose the very same main colors for her card, but we added some gold and some black for punch. Amy told me she has not stamped before, but you'd never know it by how this lovely card turned out! This stamp set, A Cardinal Christmas, is from the 2008 Holiday Mini Catalog. Amy watercolored the cardinal and leaves with an Aquapainter and various Classic inks, and then added highlights back in on the berries with the white gel pen. We had originally planned to stamp the bird with black Stazon ink, but found we got a better stamped image on the Naturals cardstock by using Basic Black Craft ink. So we just let that dry for a long, long time (like about a week!) and then I heat set it to make sure it was good and dry before Amy watercolored over it.