Card for Christmas stamping featuring cardinal image from Toile Christmas stamp set.

Are You Ready for Some Christmas Stamping?

August 31, 2019|Posted in: Creativity

It will soon be time for Christmas stamping! The Holiday Catalog goes live on September 4th and, of course, it has a great variety of wonderful holiday stamps. I know we have Halloween and Fall to get to first, but if you make your own cards its not too early to start thinking about what you’ll do for your Christmas stamping.

Today’s card is the one I made for our recent group meeting swap.

It features the new Toile Tidings suite of products. The stamp set is called Toile Christmas. Stampin’ Up! has offered cardinal images throughout the years, but this is the first one I’ve ever gotten. The bird is beautiful, but I think the coordinating dies were also a factor in my decision to get the bundle. Cutting him out gives you so many more design options.

If you like toile, that’s another reason to love this suite (there’s also a wreath stamp set and dies). There are some delightful toile patterns, plus one stripe and one plaid – all in either Garden Green or Real Red.

For the background, I picked the pattern with woodland animals. The cardinal is stamped in Memento Black ink and colored with both the light and dark Real Red Stampin’ Blends. I did not like the black blends around the beak, so I tried coloring that area with my Basic Black marker. Using the fine tip, I was able to feather in the black color. (pun intended) I’m really pleased with how that turned out!

So that is my tip of the day.

I wanted the cardinal to be the focus of the card, but didn’t want to lose all the pretty paper in the background. After trying a few options, I chose the large circle from the Stitched Shape dies. I also cut out three of the small leaf die. Those are glued on with liquid glue. The cardinal is popped up with dimensionals.

The banner image is colored with Real Read and Basic Black markers, using the brush tips. It’s a basic technique that comes in handy when you want two colors on one stamp.

All of the stamped images are grouped together over a single line of the new double-stitched ribbon. And there you have it, the start of my Christmas stamping. It’s also the only Christmas stamping I’ve done. I’m hoping to spend lots of time over the next few weeks playing with this set and others, so stay tuned for more inspiration!