Top Tips Tuesday

I thought I would share with you some of my top tips for last minute mass production of those all important Christmas cards which we all seem to be making to get into the post as Christmas sneaks up on us at an alarming pace!

This is a card that lends itself to mass production, firstly all the circles were die cut at once, using the circle framelits makes it quick and easy to get a perfect circle, and if you wanted to layer up a scalloped circle behind then there are several different sizes in the set which make it really easy.  I have to say that those circle dies were a great investment as they cover most sizes that you would need to cut.

To make stamping the images easier I turned to my stamparatus, by using one of the pieces that I had cut the circles from (so the waste card) I created myself a jig for the stamparatus, this meant that instead of trying to hold down a circle with a magnet and not get it in the way of the stamping, or trying to judge the distance around the image to stamp first and then cut, I simply reinserted the circle into its hole and stamped, getting a perfectly centered image each time.  This technique works for any die cut shape and speeds mass production up massively.

As I wanted my image to look like it was in a snow globe and we don't carry a snow globe stamp set, I used one of my label punches and simply cut it in half to make the wooden base of the snow globe. I embossed the card base with the softly falling textured impressions embossing folder for some texture.

A bit of coloring with blends (which as our blends color beautifully, I did in front of the TV to sneak some more crafting into important catch up TV time - had to catch up on the bake off!) and some shading and dazzling diamonds glitter and they were done.

I hope that I've given you some ideas to get those last minute cards done and dusted?  and if I find a way to slow down time, I'll be sure to let you know!

Jx