Quick and Easy Card Layout

Hello Friends!  I know I've been mentioning Christmas and the need to plan out your Christmas card ideas.  I talked to a friend the other day that let me know her Christmas cards are finished.  She's very organized and planned her cards before her summer vacation and then took everything with her and got them finished.  I'll be honest, I don't think I'll ever get my cards done this soon!  But I am thinking and planning and making a card or two as possible prototypes at this time.  If you're looking for a super simple card layout that works with many different DSP prints, I've got just the card for you today.

Here's one layout with four different prints used.  The top two prints are from the new Boughs of Holly Designer Series Paper found on page 25 of the July - December Mini Catalog.  The bottom two prints are returning from last year and can be found on page 29 of that same catalog.  This was my favorite DSP last year and I used lots of it for my own personal cards.  In fact, I might have even used this layout or maybe something similar.

The card starts with your DSP print that you want to use.  If you're making multiples of the card, one piece of DSP will make you 16 cards.  So that really stretches your special DSP a long way.  The print is cut in strips that are 2 3/4" wide.  After the strips are cut, then you cut them cross-wise at 2 3/4" again.  You will have some skinny strips left over that I'll try to turn into some more lovely cards, so don't throw those strips away!

After you've cut your 2 3/4" square pieces, you need to decide on what color do you want to use to back the DSP print.  For these two prints from the returning DSP, I liked the look of Shaded Spruce.  The measurements for the Shaded Spruce cardstock are 3" x 3".  I attached the DSP squares to the cardstock pieces with adhesive.  If I were making a stack of cards, I would be doing all of these steps on the whole stack at once.  Like cut all the DSP squares, cut all the cardstock squares, attach them together, and so on.  It makes putting the cards together so much quicker than doing one full card at a time.

For these prints, I changed the green layering colors to match them better.  The poinsettia print has Garden Green behind it and the other print has Evening Evergreen to match.  As you can plainly see, two of my cards have Basic White as a base. but the other two looked nicer with Sahara Sand as the card base.  You need to remain flexible about the cardstock choices to get the best match for your DSP print.

Each card has a half sheet of cardstock folded in half for the card base.  Then there is a layer that measures 5 1/4" x 4".  These have the Christmas sentiment stamped on it with Real Red ink.  To keep things simple, the Stamparatus was used to line up the sentiment once and then stamp it multiple times.  The sentiment I chose is from the Christmas to Remember stamp set in the Annual Catalog on page 45.  I love the font and it fit so nicely across the card!  After the sentiments were stamped on the layer, they were attached to the folded card base with Dimensionals.  You could do some embossing on the layer before attaching if you wanted, but I was going for quick and easy here so no added steps.

Before attaching the DSP squares to the card front, each one of them were wrapped with either the Real Red or Garden Green Ribbon and tied into a pretty bow.  The ribbon combo is found on page 9 of the July - December Mini Catalog.  The poinsettia print looks so pretty with the green accent, and the Real Red works lovely on all the rest.  This is gorgeous ribbon to work with as it isn't stiff and hard to manipulate at all.  It ties up into soft bows so easily.  Of course, you could get fancier and use some form of gold or silver ribbon as an accent instead.

Now at this point I started looking around for bling for my cards.  I can't believe I decided to use none on these.  No matter what I tried, I ended up taking off again.  So I guess these really are quick and easy cards!  Hope you liked the idea and will give it a whirl.

Now that we've made the Christmas cards, I want you to stop and think about other pretty DSP prints that you might use for this layout.  How about some pretty florals to make birthday or anniversary cards?  Or some fun animal prints for some children's cards?  Or some masculine prints?  The ideas are pretty much endless when you start thinking outside the 3" square!

Make sure you check out the Perfect Partners dies that Stampin'Up! has brought us for the month of September.  I do love my dies, and I think you do too!  And don't forget to check out the weekly deals that are on sale this month too!  Sorry I haven't figured out how to get these things on my blog.  Please go to stampinup.com to see what's available.  Thank you!!

Happy stamping and creating,

Sharon