Tuesday Tutorial: Christmas Card Technique

The count down is on... there's only 11 weeks until Christmas which means you should be thinking about your festive cards! Hello, it's Melinda here with you for another Tuesday Tutorial and today I hope to inspire you into getting started on your Christmas cards so you're not sitting up the night before licking the last of the envelopes.

The hardest part with cards is choosing the design, especially as you need so many at this time of year and if you are like me, you get bored doing the same card over and over again. However, I do like to keep a consistent theme so choosing a basic design and altering the look slightly with each card is a nice way to make each one an individual keepsake for the recipient.

STEP 1: Cut a 14cm x 14cm piece of cardstock for your Christmas card front plate. Mark the centre of the square. I used a small hand-held compass to cut my 12cm wide circle but you could use your electronic cutting machine or hand-held circle cutter.

STEP 2: Cut another 14cm square piece of cardstock for your scene background. To make the snow drifts, I used lily-white crushed velvet cardstock and added foam pop dots to the back to layer each drift when I positioned them onto the background paper.

STEP 3: Adhere your front plate over the background panel and the snowdrifts using foam tape.

STEP 4: A little tip to quickly remove the unwanted adhesive side to a sticker is to coat it with baby powder, rub gently until all the glue is no longer tacky then remove any left over powder.

STEP 5: Position your embellishments onto the card to create your whimsical scene, staggering the heights with different thicknesses of foam tape to create dimension to your card.

STEP 6: I used the Doodles 'Merry Christmas' cardstock stickers for the sentiment on each card which curved perfectly.

STEP 7: Cut a further piece of patterned paper 14.5cm x 14.5cm to act as a final backing plate then attach the whole piece to your card which will be 15cm x 15cm in dimension. As a final touch I added pearls to the snowflakes on each card in corresponding colours.

Now, although the cards look quite detailed, once you have cut out your template and backing pieces they really come together quite quickly and the fun part begins with the decorating. The best approach to getting your cards done smoothly is to work with a production line and you'll be through them in no time.

Supply List: North Pole Collection - Festive Frames, Sweet Tweets, Cute Cuts, In a Flurry, Frosty Friends; North Pole  Card Stock Stickers; North Pole Card Stock Frames; North Pole 6 x 6 Cardstock Paper Pad; Christmas Assortment Mini Pearls; Mini Doodles - Festive Flock, Flurry Pops, Snow Buddies, Tiny Pines.

I hope I've given you some inspiration to get you started on your cards.

Happy Scrapping - Melinda!