HEY FRIENDS! I love making Christmas cards. Actually, I started creating cards so that I could send them out during the holidays. So while I make the occasional birthday or thinking of you card, I really get into making holiday cards. Since Christmas in July is a thing, I decided to get a head start on my cards for this year. Our favorite companies will probably start releasing their 2024 Christmas releases soon, but I decided to shop my stash for now and see if I could give new life to an older stamp set with this Christmas postage collage card.

I’ve linked all supplies with compensated affiliate links used where possible at no cost to you.

You may have noticed that I’ve not posted much this year. I’ve been destashing my studio and updated my inventory, but I pretty much stopped coloring. I’ve also been doing a lot of — well, soul searching is too melodramatic — but a lot of thinking and rethinking about the way that I color. To be honest, I was ready to call it quits. I realized that I’ve plateaued in my coloring skills. I made pleasing cards, but when I looked back at earlier work, my technique, style, artistic eye — whatever you want to call it — just hasn’t expanded much despite all that coloring. So it was time to rethink my approach to coloring. More about that below.

Today’s Project

Featured Supplies

Here are the stamps used from top to bottom as shown on the card:

1. * Anita Jeram Sneaky Mice by Colorado Craft Company [ 3C ]
2. * Anita Jeram Mice Ornaments by Colorado Craft Company [ 3C ]
3. Anita Jeram Kittens & Mittens by Colorado Craft Company [ 3C ]
4. * Anita Jeram Christmas Hats by Colorado Craft Company [ 3C ]
5. * Anita Jeram Mice Ornaments by Colorado Craft Company [ 3C ]
6. Anita Jeram Flurries of Fun by Colorado Craft Company [ 3C ]

I promise that I’ll get back to the card, but first I have to talk about paper.

So about that Soul Searching …

Now, you know I’ve been a Hammermill girl for a few years now, but I’ve been slowly moving away from Hammermill towards better quality paper for my Copic coloring. I got hooked on Hammermill because I wanted a really white cardstock that didn’t clash with my card bases. And while I prefer X-Press It Blending Card, it looked terrible against white card bases. Hammermill was smooth, a nice shade of white, and relatively inexpensive — the cardmaker’s trifecta!

SO WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

I realized that I’ve changed my blending technique to adapt to the paper rather than using a paper that supported good technique and worked best with the ink. Hammermill grabs some colors before the ink has a chance to blend so some marker combinations (red and brown especially) created harsh lines that wouldn’t completely blend. Plus I’ve developed some bad coloring habits — scrubbing the paper to force a blend, using too much ink, putting too much pressure on the nib to lay down the ink — all of which I’ll need to unlearn so that I can move my coloring skills forward. And worse of all, I was accepting substandard blending because that’s all the paper could sustain.

Bless me Father, for I have sinned …

Good art comes from using good quality art supplies. As cardmakers, we’ll spend a fortune on markers, colored pencils, stamps, dies, etc. and then cut corners on the substrate (i.e. paper) that we use to create our art. I knew that the paper was the one place that artists should never skimp, but somehow I lost that concept along the way.

Let’s be honest — Hammermill is better suited for the printer than a Copic marker. And we all started using it because some influencer told us it was nearly as good as X-Press It without the annoying gray undertone. I’m flinging a few rocks here, but rest assured that I’m flinging them at myself as well. I’ve been part of the problem. Mea culpa.

And now?

I’ve been taking the online Color Wonk workshops for intermediate colorers offered by Amy Shulke of Vanilla Arts and watched her videos where she tests various papers “recommended” for Copic markers. And recommended is in quotes because as you’ll see from Amy’s testing, some papers shouldn’t even be on the list. Here are a few of Amy’s recent YouTube videos on the topic:

• Strathmore Bristol: The Best Marker Paper Ever?
• X-Press It Blending Card: Too Expensive or Worth it?
• Ohuhu Bleed-Proof Marker Pad: Truth, Lies, & Omissions
• Copic Marker Q&A: Best and Worst Papers for Alcohol Markers

Amy has strong opinions — did you watch that Ohuhu video? — but I trust her judgement, primarily because she is not sponsored by any company. In this craft, there are too many so-called influencers who post reviews of their NEW FAVORITE PRODUCT that they use for their sponsored video, but you never see it in any of their later projects. If it’s so good, why aren’t they still using it? Amy has her own tried and true tools that she uses repeatedly and she tests them extensively before she recommends them to anyone else.

And the Answer Is?

I’ve been testing several papers and while the jury is still out, I am leaning strongly towards Strathmore Smooth Bristol. Amy recommends the Series 300, but I like the Series 500 better. It’s more expensive than Series 300, but the plate surface is smoother and I find it easier to work with. I started today’s card by coloring the stocking with that red combination (R37, R39, R56 plus B34 as underpaint) and immediately the angels started to sing. Staining inks that blended and no feathering outside the stamped lines. My preferred cardstock is still X-Press It, but when I need a whiter cardstock, I’ll be reaching for Bristol.

My supply of Hammermill is weeping, but I’ll use it for foiling and ink blending so it still has a place in my studio for now.

OK – Let’s get back to the card!

I’m sure you’ve seen the multitude of cards created with the Waffle Flower Postage die and related stencils. I have the stencils as well and if you watch this space, you’ll see some cards that I plan for future posts. But I have a lot of Colorado Craft Company stamp sets, some of which I bought and others that were sent to me once I started coloring for them (thank you 3C!). So I did a bit of mixing and matching across several stamp sets to get image that where the right size for the allotted spaces on the die cut panel.

I started by trimming a piece of Strathmore Series 500 Bristol Board using the Waffle Flower Postage die. I used my Tonic Retractable Craft Pick to clean out any bits left in the die cut and die. Then I looked through my stamps to find images that would fit inside the blocks (see supply list for selected stamp sets). The top image from Sneaky Mice is longer than the allotted space so I used some 1 inch Mint Tape to mask off the adjacent block.

The images and backgrounds were colored with Copic markers (see list below). I did use underpainting with most of the combinations, leaning heavily on Amy’s Vanilla Undercover swatches to select markers. These are the combinations that I used:

 I added YG21 to the green combination for the crickets to brighten them up a bit. I also used a few Prismacolor pencils in Indigo Blue (PC 901), French Gray 50% (PC 1072), and a Derwent Lightfast Pencil in Purple to add a little more depth and detail.

For the card base, I created a top folding A2 card base from Neenah Classic Crest cardstock. I used the Waffle Flower Postage Collage stencil with Distress Inks in Lumberjack Plaid and Mowed Lawn to create the diagonal border directly on the card base. I stamped one of the sentiments from the Christmas Hats stamp set on a scrap of Neenah. Finally I assembled the layers as shown.

That’s all for today (that’s enough, right?)!

Supplies

COPICS: Colors marked with an asterick (*) indicate markers used for underpainting.
R37, R39, R59, *B34 (reds); YG03, YG17, *B34 (greens); W0, W1, W3, *R00, *BG90 (warm grays); C00, C1, C3, *R000 (cool grays); Y35 (gold); B60, BG70 (backgrounds)

PRISMACOLOR: Indigo Blue (PC 901); French Gray 50% (PC 1072); Parma Violet (PC 1008)

[Compensated affiliate links used when possible. In addition, as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Items marked with an asterisk (*) were provided by a store or the manufacturer. All other items were personally purchased.]