This week it’s all about simple and it’s all about the holidays! It’s not too early to starting thinking about your holiday card designs, if you haven’t already. The Hero Arts Web Artists will be here all week long to present some fabulously simple designs and tips to help you get a jump start on your holiday cardmaking. When it comes to the holidays, we often need to produce a large number of cards quickly, and the simplicity of this week’s designs will be perfect for that.

Today we have a trio of PINK cards to share. As you may have noticed, pink has been popping up in holiday color schemes all over the place…such fun! (If you prefer a more traditional holiday color combination, try substituting red or burgundy for the pink in today’s designs.)

First up is a sweet and simple Christmas card Web Artist Sheri Reguly whipped up in a matter of minutes. Here’s Sheri with more: “The Sparkle Clear: Merry Christmas set is perfect for those quick and easy holiday cards. There’s no need for coloring the tress, making mass producing this design a snap. Gemstones, metallic decor and a touch of ribbon complete this classic design.”

Supplies:

• Sparkle Clear: Merry Christmas
• Blossom, White Notecards
• Chalk Ink Queue - Pumpkin Patch
• VersaMark
• Silver Embossing Powder
• Red Gemstones
• Silver Metallic Decor
• Other: patterned paper (Basic Grey), ribbon (SEI), decorative edge scissors (Fiskars)

Sheri’s Tips:

• A pencil line acts as a guide for aligning the trees. It will later be covered by the patterned paper, so there’s no need to worry about making it too dark or erasing it afterwards.
• Silver embossing powder and metallic decor help add just the right amount of holiday sparkle to this design.
• A single edge trimmed using decorative scissors is a quick and easy way to add that extra touch of flair.
• By trimming 1/2″ off the bottom edge of the notecard, it allows the card to fit into the envelope relatively, despite the bulk of the bow.

Next, Kelly Rasmussen came up with a great design that would be easy to create in multiples, opting for a tone on tone look plus a couple pops of pink. Kelly says, “One of the best ways to keep holiday card making simple for me is to limit my supplies. By not having too many steps and eliminating time consuming tasks, like coloring images, I was able to make this card in under 15 minutes. And once you get the first one done, the rest of them always go much faster.”

Supplies:

• Clear Design: Holiday Sayings
• Clear Design: Decorate Your Own
• Clear Design: Winter’s Butterfly
• Green Apple Notecards
• Chalk Ink Queue -Primary Elements (Lime Pastel)
• Other: pink and white cardstock, scallop border punch, corner rounder, white gel pen, pink embroidery floss

Kelly’s Tips:

• Save a little time by using faux stitching instead of machine stitching.
• A tone on tone background is a simple way to create a big impact when creating many cards at one time.

And finally today, here is a simple yet stunning card from Barbara Hache featuring the Big Pine Bough stamp and a super creative ornament fashioned from a spiral paper clip. Brilliant! Barbara shares, “When making a large number of the same design, I like to break each card into steps. That way, I can work in 10-15 minute blocks of time and then all I’m left with is the assembly. To make a simple card special, I like to add just a bit of glitz ! The sparkle on this card is the ornament hangers that are made with gemstones.”

Supplies:

• Big Pine Bough
• Clear Design: Holiday Cheer
• Kraft, Pool, Pink Notecards
• Small Mixed Gemstones
• Memories Black Ink
• Chalk Ink Queues - Primary Elements, Pumpkin Patch
• Prisma Glitter
• Other: spiral paper clip, patterned paper (My Mind’s Eye), double sided tape (Sookwang), lace ribbon, corner rounder (EK Success)

Barbara’s Tips:

• To make the ornament I adhered the spiral paper clip to the patterned paper with double sided tape and then covered it with Prisma Glitter.
• The gemstones are perfect for hanging ornaments because they come in a strip making them easy to apply in a straight line.

So…for this week’s challenge we invite you to create a simple holiday card, using at least one Hero Arts stamp or digital element. Of course “simple” means different things to different stampers. For this challenge you can determine what it means to YOU — there is no right or wrong definition. Here are a few ideas from our team about what might encompass simplicity:

• minimal layers and embellishments
• clean/uncluttered style
• 10-15 minute completion time
• easy to mass produce

Please upload your simple holiday card creations to our Flickr group by 11:59pm PST on Sunday, November 1. All entries should be tagged with the phrase simpleholiday. By entering, you could win a shopping spree of your choice of Hero Arts products from the Hero Arts Online Store! (Shipping charges apply.) Winners will also receive a 2009 Hero Arts catalog, sent separately. The prize amounts are as follows:

• Fresh Face Winner (someone who has not yet won a contest): $50
• Digital Winner (create something using a Hero Arts Digital Kit): $50
• 1st Place: $50
• 2nd Place: $25
• 3rd Place: $15

Looking forward to a fun week with you all…happy holiday stamping!

Filed under: simpleholiday

This entry was posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 4:25 am and is filed under Motivation Mondays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.