A Pair Of Holiday Floral Cards

Are you a traditionalist when it comes to the holiday season or a trailblazer? I am definitely a traditionalist. I LOVE red and green for Christmas, and although I admire the pretty pastels that many embrace, it’s just not the first color palette I go for when it comes to Christmas.

Today’s projects reflect my traditional holiday preference of red and green colors, and there are some great options from CutCardStock to choose from.

One image I love for Christmas is fresh florals paired with pine boughs, and this is the look that inspired my cards today. The florals on these cards are actually a single huge stamp cut in half and placed on red and green card bases made from CutCardStock’s DSC Discount line. This is a high quality 80 lb cardstock with a light canvas finish.

In this case, I chose the perfect Christmas Habanero Red and Bonsai Green.

The stamp I used is called Glorious Bouquet, a Tim Holtz and Stamper’s Anonymous collaboration. It’s not really a Christmas stamp, but I love getting lots of use out of my florals, and you can make any floral have a holiday look by the colors you choose and add a little shine.

For stamping, I used Neenah Classic Crest Solar White Smooth. The 110 lb weight is perfect for alcohol ink coloring. After stamping the image with Versamark Onyx Black, I Copic colored the oversized stamp in rustic reds, pinks, oranges, and yellow hints. Then I fussy cut the image out.

I used a water brush to apply Cosmic Shimmer Green Pearl Opal Polish to the cutout image’s white areas, including the edges. This gave it a bit of a glow and that holiday touch.

The cardstock is good quality, and it had no problem taking the marker saturation and the watercolor application without puckering or bleeding. It is important to make sure you use waterproof ink for stamping in this scenario, or it will bleed.

After drying, I picked a strategic location to slice this huge stamp in half.

I prepared my 5 x 7 card bases out of CutCardStock Green and Red by cutting each piece 7″ x 10″ and folding in half. On the red card, I glued a strip of pine tree patterned paper from my scrap stash and then applied skinny gold glitter tape and copper foil tapes as borders.

I trimmed the tapes at the card edges with a scissor. No extra gluing is required, and the use of glitter tape gives it great sparkle without the mess of working with loose glitter. Extra bonus! The glitter doesn’t shed, so the recipient doesn’t end up with glitter everywhere either.

The next step was to splatter the card with slightly watered down white acrylic paint. The white splatter looks so great on the deep red and green cardstock! After that dried, I adhered the stamped image on the edge and added the chipboard word with Joy written in red glitter. I placed a small poinsettia 3D sticker on the O and added a matching star. You can choose to use any large word stamped and/or cut out of cardstock. If you want a chunkier look, you can cut 3 or more layers of the cut word shape and glue them together to get a faux chipboard thickness. 

I proceeded to complete the green card in a very similar way. I chose to use the same pine tree designer paper and the thin gold glitter washi again but used glittered red washi tape in place of the copper foil tape.

I splattered this one with acrylic paint and added the stamped floral image and the chipboard word with Noel written in red glitter. Again, I placed a small 3D poinsettia sticker over the O and added a glittered and jeweled holly to the top of the N.

I really enjoyed making these cards. If you a traditionalist like me, you need to check out the beautiful red, green and white discount cardstock at the store. They are the absolutely perfect holiday colors, and they are on sale this month. Check them out!

So what are you making for the holidays? Whether it be cards, scrapbook pages, or holiday decor items, you will like the weight, color, and texture of DCS Discount Cardstock. I should also mention that it cuts very well in both steel dies or in cutting machines. You really can’t ask more out of cardstock. Happy holiday crafting y’all!