Christmas Gifts you can do in a heartbeat...or ten

Welcome to the Third Annual Handmade Holidays blog hop!! The best crafters, designers, and makers have come together to create and share  a series of thoughtful, handmade gifts for the holidays during this 3 day blog hop.

Here is a classic handmade holiday gift. Make up a few special cards, tuck them into a gift bag with holiday flair by using a stamped image, like this Stampendous Jumbo Poinsettia stamp, in place of a traditional bow. 

A set of handmade greeting cards is always appreciated, but creating them for many gifts can be a daunting task. Here are techniques using some favorite Stampendous products to speed up the card making process.

Stampendous Jumbo Butterfly Trio

Jumbo Cling Stamps from Stampendous make a quick card with great impact. On these butterflies from the Jumbo Butterfly Trio set I stamped in Versamark Watermark ink and spread Detail White Embossing Powder over it, tapping off the excess. Before heat setting the powder, Micro Glitter is sprinkled over the image and left there to sink into the melting embossing powder. When adding Essentials in this way it's important to heat set from the back side of the paper.

 

Vibrant and glittery butterflies with Micro Glitters in Lavender, China Blue, Sunflower, and Teal are added on the butterflies after the excess embossing powder is tapped off the paper before heat setting the powder. The paint strokes are added with a dry brush dipped into DecoArt White Satin paint, another easy addition to any card for texture.

A wintry card in this gift set made with Ice Skates colored with Copic Markers and set in front of a warm swatch of Sweater Square. Makes you want a cup of hot chocolate doesn't it?

Stampendous Ice Skates and Sweater Square

The Ice Skates are livened up with light and sketchy lines of marker color and popped up with foam adhesives over the Sweater Square background stamp. The Sweater square is embossed with Aged Wine Embossing Enamel that gives the image a random gold sparkle throughout. 

Stampendous Train Postcard

Stampendous Train Postcard stamp has all the shading done for you that will speed up making a few cards.

Instead of using the entire stamped image for the paper tole technique, use a portion of the image in a clever way. The train is brought forward from the base layer by fussy cutting around it and then pulling it through a small narrow hole on the top layer and popped up on foam adhesive squares. To add Micro Glitter to small areas of the image like the trees in the background and across the top of the train, use a fine tip glue pen to draw in the glue one area at a time. Add the glitter and tap off the excess, then move on to another area with a different glitter color.

Stampendous Jumbo Leaves and Leaf Background

Another easy way to create a card is to use background stamps for a pattern paper look. 

The Jumbo oak leaf is accompanied by a bed of fallen leaves for a nice coordinated look, too. To add some interest to the card the Leaf Background stamp is used on textured paper that creates a dotted line image. The rest of the textured paper on the card gets a weathered edge attention with the Core'dinations Sand-It Gadget.

Thank you for stopping by today on the Homemade Holidays Blog Hop.

You're next stop is with Sizzix at – Eileen Hull Designs 

For a full list of the hops today jump over to the Stampendous blog and scroll down to the bottom of the post.

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Details:
Stamps:  Jumbo Poinsettia, Jumbo Butterfly Trio, Ice Skates, Sweater Square, Train Postcard, Jumbo Leaves and, Leaf Background (Stampendous)
Paper: Bazzill Basics, Core'dinations and Neenah
Ink: Versamark Watermark Ink Pad, Memento Tuxedo Black (Tsukineko), Copic Markers
Accessories: Detail White Embossing Enamel, Aged Wine Embossing Enamel (Stampendous), Micro Glitters (Lavender, China Blue, Sunflower, Teal, Silver, Gold  Stampendous), Ribbons (May Arts), Cotton White Satin paint (Deco Art), Sand-It Gadget (Core-dinations), foam adhesive squares (Scrapbook Adhesives), Quickie Glue pen (Sakura)