Quick, Simple, and Impressive Christmas Cards with Gelatos

So there I was. December 15. And not one Christmas card in the mail. 

Every. Year.

Sigh... someday I'll get better about procraftinating. Anywho, on this particular day, I wrote out my what turned out to be measly stack of Christmas cards and then panicked. Because it was December 15. And I needed a whole lot more.

BEHOLD! The 5-minute Christmas card.

Seriously - I did 12 of these cards and it took me roughly an hour. But the thing is... I still think they are kinda impressive-looking. 

This card started out for two reasons. Number one, STAMPlorations wants me to remind you that we have a reeeeeeeeeallllly cool challenge. If you've uploaded a holiday card to your blog (any holiday) come link it up at STAMPlorations too for another chance to win. OR if you are looking for a sketch inspiration, you can just use that instead. 

As you can see, I did not choose to use the sketch, but went with the theme instead. We've got really great prizes, and you can use ANY stamp so get over there already!

The second reason for this card, though, was a genius blog post written by the uber-talented Miss Jenn Shurkus.

As a mixed media inclined card maker, I have a tendency to layer and fuss and layer some more, then cry, then layer again and VIOLA! Finished. Jenn said something in her post that really stuck out to me - Clear the clutter from your desk and only give yourself a small amount of product to work with. 

So this card had very minimal products - cardstock, 5 sticks of gelatos, glue, and the HOLIDAY SKETCHES: Christmas Candles stamp set.


Now gelatos are reallllllly good for making impressive cards in an easy way. Here's how I did mine. 

Step one: Stamp your stuff

Easy enough - right?

Step two: Scribble on your Gelatos

The trick to gelatos, I think, is scribbling them on in a small, circular fashion. It seems to help them blend better. I also have found that either gessoing your paper OR using Copic cardstock helps the gelatos to blend soooooo much better. Don't worry about getting things perfect... The end result is going to be a little impressionistic and that's great! Just scribble away, and have fun. 

Step three: Smudge to blend

Ooooooo! As you can see, colors are going outside the line, there's reds in the yellow, there's reds in the gray, there's green in the red. That's Ok! The end result looks fab anyway! 

So now I have a smallish stack of Christmas cards and can feel a little better about myself. :) 

I'm going to send this card over to the following challenges:

Craft Stamper Magazine - Take a Technique (and stamping)

Fashionable Stamping Challenge - Make your own background 

Color Throwdown - Any Christmas Card, any colors

Artistic Stamping - Christmas Creation

Thanks for popping by! Be sure to stop by the STAMPlorations blog to check out what the rest of the designers made!