Christmas Card Head Start 2021 | Watercolor Stamped Background

Hey friends! I'm back today to share more Christmas Card Head Start inspiration. Today's cards use an oldie but a goodie and also new to me stamp set called Christmas Classic by Tim Holtz. It was released several years ago, but since none of his stamp sets are ever retired you can alway find these older designs. Another thing I love about these stamp sets is because of the vintage design, they have a classic feel to them that never seems to go out of style. Of course, I wanted the focus to be on Santa, but I also had a lot of fun creating the watercolor stamped background. Keep reading for all the details on how each card came together.

Christmas Cards by Juliana Michaels featuring Tim Holtz Classic Christmas Stamp Set and Watercolor Stamped Backgrounds

To create the background on both cards I used the watercolor stamping technique. I began with a piece of Distress Watercolor paper cut to 4.25 x 5.5 inches. I then selected the various branches images from the set and picked a different Distress Ink color for each image. I used Iced Spruce, Peeled Paint, Bundled Sage and Old Paper.


With the inks selected I applied ink to the stamp and then lightly spritzed it with water using my Distress Sprayer. Seriously a very light spritz! After the spritz, I stamped the image onto the paper. I repeated this process for each different branch. I stamped the images and even slightly overlapped them as I moved around the edge of the paper.


I didn't bother with stamping in the middle since that spot was already saved for Santa! For a bit more distress, I splattered a bit of watered down Peeled Paint Distress Ink onto one panel and Iced Spruce on the other. To finish off the background, I trimmed it down to 4 x 5.25 inches and then inked the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.


For each card, I stamped the Santa using Distress Ink in either Black Soot or Vintage Photo Archival Ink onto Distress Watercolor. I used a water brush to watercolored each image using Peeled Paint, Iced Spruce, Aged Mahogany. For the face I used Antique Linen and then added touches of Spun Sugar. I then added Hickory Smoke to the shadow areas on the beard, eyebrows and hat trim.

Merry Christmas Card by Juliana Michaels featuring Tim Holtz Classic Christmas Stamp Set and Watercolor Stamped Backgrounds

On this first card, I used the Stacked Postage Thinlits to cut out Santa after I had watercolored the image. Before I adhered it to the card front I layered it onto a piece of metallic Kraftstock.


The sentiment is from the Sketch Greenery Stamp Set. To finish off the card I added some gold sequins from my stash.


On this second card, I fussy cut Santa and lightly inked the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

It's A Wonderful Life Christmas Card by Juliana Michaels featuring Tim Holtz Classic Christmas Stamp Set and Watercolor Stamped Backgrounds

Next, I adhered the image to a die cut stitched oval cut from Metallic Kraftstock and then layered that onto one cut from vellum.


Once again the sentiment is from the Sketch Greenery Stamp Set and I finished it off with some gold sequins.


Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed another batch of Christmas Card inspiration to help you get a head start on your Christmas cards for this year!

Supplies

Below you can find the products I used to create this project along with compensated affiliate links to Scrapbook.com. These links are at absolutely no extra cost to you. If you want to learn more about what an affiliate link is, you can see my full affiliate and product disclosure statement here.

2 comments

  1. that's one of my favorite Santa stamps. love your card. thanks as always for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beautiful cards! I love the background and the colours you chose. Thank you for sharing! :)

    ReplyDelete

Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing. ~Mother Teresa

HUGS!
JULIANA

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