Rushed for time and want to make quick, but beautiful holiday cards? The Waffle Flower Christmas Tree Panel is the perfect die for you! This clean and simple design is a great background for any holiday or winter themed sentiments or critters. Depending on how you want to finish the card, these cards can be mass produced easily for your whole holiday card recipient list. I think background dies in general are great products to have in your stash because they can quickly add interest and detail to your card with one pass through your die cutting machine! Here, I made two versions using this die – both simple and easily reproducible, though the second card took a touch more time.
Silver trees. For my first card, on an A2 sized panel, I die cut the panel on my Sizzix Big Shot machine (most die cutting machines will work) using the Tree Panel Die. I did not have to use a shim, and one pass cut through Neenah 110lb cardstock easily.
Pro tip: Keep your scraps! If you recall from my very first blog post, I made a second card using the scraps from the first. The positive pieces from the tree panel die are so cute! All of the tiny trees can be colored in a variety of mediums and used in a variety of ways from shaker cards/tags to accent elements on other holiday themed projects. I saved all the leftover pieces in a bowl.
Next, I cut an A2 sized panel of silver glitter cardstock, glued it to my die cut panel, and then adhered it to my card base. You could have added extra dimension here by popping up the silver panel or the die cut panel, but I decided to keep this card simple and flat. Seriously, your card is basically done at this point – piece of pie.
For my sentiment, I cut scraps of blue cardstock and glued them to a scrap of white cardstock. I silver heat embossed the sentiment from the Festive Silhouettes stamp by masking off the bottom layer of the stamp. I just wanted it to read ‘happy holiday wishes.’ for a little extra interest, I stamped a few snowflakes from the Oversized Merry set with Versamark ink on the sentiment. I backed the sentiment with foam tape, and boom – done! Though it is hard to capture in the photos, the shine from the silver glitter paper is so pretty and festive! This card took about 15-20 minutes from start to finish including clean up. I am a slow poke while crafting so you could probably get this done much faster if you prep your elements ahead of time.
Rainbow trees. For my second card, I dug around in my scrap stash and cut strips of cardstock in rainbow colors. Instead of backing the die cut panel with silver glitter cardstock, I backed each row of trees in a different color cardstock in rainbow order. I also added Wink of Stella to each tree for some sparkle. For the sentiment, I cut the word ‘happy’ from the SSS ready printed sentiment strips. There are multiple versions of this product, including a holiday themed set. Using already printed sentiments can also help speed up cardmaking. I die cut ‘holidays’ three times to stack for dimension. Don’t forget to cover the white edges from your die cuts – take a black marker and go over the edges for a finished look.
If you liked these cards, stay tuned! I made a few more that I will share in the next couple days using the same tree panel die. If you’re inspired by my design, please tag me on IG so I can see what you create. Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!
.Tiffany.
ink.therapy.designs 