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Monday, September 25, 2017

Simple Christmas

Every year, I experiment with non-traditional colors for Christmas cards. This experimentation arises from the fact that I make well over 100 Christmas cards a year, most of which are one-offs rather than multiples.

That's a lot of different designs, and doing everything up in red and green gets pretty boring after a while. 

So a black-and-white Christmas makes sense to me, at least as an experiment. You, however, might find it a bit odd. That's okay. I did, too, until I made these three cards.




If you visit my Pinterest board titled Christmas, you'll see a number of pins that have black-and-white designs for Christmas, sometimes with kraft thrown in as well. Those pins collectively inspired this set of three cards that use images from Hero Arts' Vintage Wishes set. I adore this layout of small stamped panels on a card base. There's something so satisfying for me in the minimalism of one image, one sentiment, and tons of white space.

Vintage sets like this one are always a challenge for clean-and-simple stampers like myself. They invite layers and coloring and distressing and embellishment...and can result in incredibly rich, beautiful, and nostalgic cards.  Consider this nearly black-and-white beauty I found on Pinterest. Oh, my! It's stunningly fabulous, and everything about it is perfect!

While I have no ambition to make such a layered and embellished card as Melissa's, it did occur to me that I could get more mileage from this set (and several others) if I had the dies to coordinate. So my first order of dies has been placed, and I await it with eagerness.

What are your favorite new Christmas sets this year? I've been looking but haven't bought more Christmas stamps, seeing as I have so many. But I'd love to see what you're buying. Tempt me, please!


Mercy, grace, peace, and love,
Susan

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts Vintage Wishes
paper: Papertrey white
ink: Archival black
accessories: craft foam, glue

6 comments:

  1. I really like these CAS cards, Susan. It will be fun to see what you create using the matching ties. I hadn't intended to buy any new Christmas stamps this year because I have so many also. But then I saw Creative Stamping magazine #47. It had a free stamp set from Altenew with Christmas and winter images, along with some nice sentiments. I hadn't ever purchased this magazine before, but I love this issue.

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    1. Thanks, Sheila! I've not seen that magazine and will have to check Barnes & Noble on Wednesday. Thanks for the tip.

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  2. These are fabulous Susan, love your designs 😊🌺

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  3. You did a great job on non traditional color and this is so ARTY!

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  4. the only christmas stamps I plan to buy this year is the tiny santas from mama elephant (I think they are called little santa agenda), otherwise I will use some of the many christmas stamps I already have. Black and white is a fun new way to use the detailed nostalgic stamps :)

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  5. I have this set - love your versions of Christmas- really inspiring- thank you x

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Thank you so much for taking time to comment!