Have you ever declared that you would NEVER do something again? Well, here I am making Christmas Cards after promising never to do it again several years ago. Which only proves that if you let enough time pass, you’ll do the unthinkable again. I’m just joking, of course.

Several years ago, I did declare I wouldn’t make Christmas Cards again. This was for several reasons, first I like my cards in general to be on the WOW side and Blingy and those kinds of cards are time consuming and often complicated to make much less making them in bulk. And at the time I discovered that one recipient of my handmade Christmas Card THREW IT AWAY after Christmas. I was shocked and horrified!

I understand that not everyone shares my love of card-making or holds handmade creations in reference but to throw it away and then TELL ME. WOW! And she wasn’t trying to be mean she truly had no clue that she had revealed her faux pas.

So, I decided to make cards this year and limit them to ten people who I knew wouldn’t throw them away. It was either that or enter into contractual agreements with people in order to put them on my Christmas Card list. Joking, not joking. So armed with my list of ten I went through several card options before settling on using the Betterpress Festive Poinsettias plate and stencil bundle designed by Yana Smakula. This choice not only would produce a pretty card but also allow me to cross off another never before used tool on my list, my Betterpress System by Spellbinders.

I used the Betterpress Spruce ink and inked the Festive Poinsettias plate and printed 11 copies of the image. Next, I used the accompanying 6 stencils to color each of the 11 images. Yes, it absolutely was time consuming, but I did it like an assembly line using the same stencil on each of the images before switching to the next. The stencils are labeled 1-6 and because the first 3 stencils color different petals on the poinsettias I used them last and used each of the three on one image before switching to a new one. I started with the #5 stencil and colored each image before I decided it may be cool to take you through the process from beginning to the final-colored image. The first image below shows the image betterpressed with spruce ink and the #5 stencil used to color the branches using Gathered Twigs Distress Ink in the second picture I used stencil #6 and colored all the leaves using Mowed Lawn Distress Ink and stencil #4 to color the pinecones using Gathered Twigs and Walnut Stain Distress Ink. In the third picture I colored stencils #1-3 using Candy Apple Pink Fresh ink and Brick Simon Says Stamp ink. The fourth picture shows the image after I sprayed it with Iridescent Glitter Dust , Xmas Red Stickles on the berries, and finally Fire Engine red glitter from Art Glitter applied to Gina K., Connect Glue.