Letterpress | Christmas cards

Christmas is just over a month away - have you thought about your holiday cards? We've invited Anabelle O'Malley to share some Letterpress card ideas!

With the holidays just around the corner, I thought I'd pull out my letterpress plates and design some Christmas cards.

My cards are usually quite detailed and embellished, but I found that the letterpress designs really became the focus of my cards. Let me show you what I did.

My first card used the gifts background plate. For some reason, this design reminds me of the ride 'Small World' at Disney. Fun, bright colors immediately came to mind. I pulled out my Gelatos (watercolors would work as well!) and colored stripes down the front of the letterpress paper. I used my water brush to paint them.

You could wait until the paper dries overnight, but I was impatient and used my heat gun to dry it. I set it under some books to flatten then ran it through my Letterpress machine using black ink.

I trimmed the design and matted it on some blue Tim and Beck paper. Then, I tied the sheer ribbon around the panel and mounted it onto the card using foam adhesive.

Here is my finished card. I love the contrast of the watercolored pastel colors and the black ink. I think it gives the card a festive look, even though it uses non-traditional colors.

My next card is one that could easily be reproduced in larger quantities. I pulled out one of my favorite plates - the buck head. Ever since I saw this design, I thought of reindeers! I knew Rudolph would make an appearance on this card.

Since I would be letterpressing the design right onto my card, and not cutting and trimming it to place on something else, centering the design was important. Here is what I did. I placed my card on the platform. Then, I laid the plate on top of it, right where I wanted it to be. I added a piece of two sided tape to the plate an closed the lid on top of it. The plate stuck to the lid in the exact position I needed it to be.

Next, I decided to use the Happy Holidays sentiment on my card. I wanted to add it to vellum, which would give my card a softer feeling. The first time I ran just the vellum through my machine. It didn't work too well. So, I placed a piece of letterpress paper on my platform then placed the vellum on top of it, offering some cushioning. This did the trick. I used gold ink for this.

I trimmed the sentiment and adhered it below the buck head. Then, to make Rudolph come to life, I added a red gem nose and a festive gold bow. I used the premade Studio Calico fabric bow, but you could easily create your own from gold ribbon or glitter cardstock.

Supplies : Letterpress platform - Lifestyle Crafts; Letterpress plates - Magical Presents, Deer by Hello Forever, Magical Sentiments; cards - A2 folded white card pack; Letterpress ink - Black & Gold

I hope these couple of cards have given you an idea on how you can use the Studio Calico letterpress plates to create your own holiday cards. Thanks so much for stopping by today! -Anabelle O'Malley