Julie is here with some tips and for mass producing your handmade watercolor Christmas cards! She shares how to maximize your paper for minimal waste as well as speed up the die cutting process.
TIPS:
- After determining which images you want to use, plan how you will lay them out onto the size paper you will be stamping and die cutting from. Be sure to allow enough room for placing all the dies together after stamping and coloring, so you can cut the images in one pass rather than individually. Notice how Julie was able to stamp 4 sets of images by rotating/repositioning the quarter sheet she was working on, without having to reposition the stamps. The standard size MISTI helps with this method.
- If heat-embossing images, use a detail grind embossing powder; it is far less likely to crack or chip from the pressure of die cutting.
- After choosing your color palette (Julie chose 4 colors, but ended up using only 3), paint the images using only one color at a time (Julie painted all the gumdrops green, then painted all the candy canes and lollipops red, and the ginger peeps a warm brown; this eliminated constantly changing colors/cleaning the paintbrush).
- Purple Tape is excellent for temporarily joining your dies together, allowing you to die cut multiple images at one time, repeatedly.
- After assembling the card, she realized the visual balance was off and compensated for this by adding extra visual elements (more green gumdrops, strategically placed); you could however, substitute any suitably themed embellishment.
