The Stamp Market Holly Jolly

I picked up these Holly Jolly stamps and dies from The Stamp Market during their recent sale and thought this would be a good way to get going on my Christmas cards.

I started by mocking up the card using a scrap piece of paper, actually this required several pieces of paper before I got a configuration I liked.  Since the stamp set has a large sentiment that matches the die cut sentiment, I stamped that in black first so I could figure out placement for the greens.  Here's what my mock up looks like.

Once I had the basic placement down, I picked out my ink colors.  I decided to go with two ink families:  Minty Mint, Sweet Leaf, and Just Green and then Firefly Grass Field, and Mountain Pine, all from Altenew. The berries were stamped with Altenew Ruby Red for both color groups.

I stamped from the lightest color to the darkest, creating one finished panel first.  Once that final panel was done, I used it as my guide, and with the help of my MISTI was able to quickly finish off the rest of the panels.

Then it was time for the die cut sentiments.  I created one card each using just the basic die cut sentiment. 

I loved the look of the finished cards, but decided to step things up a bit, using the thin line sentiment from the Stamp set to add emphasis to the sentiment.

Because the die is solid and you can't see through it, you can't stamp and then die cut the sentiment.  Solution?  My Tim Holtz Tonic Stamping Platform.  Yes, I own multiple stamping platforms, but I use them for different purposes.  I tend to use the Tonic platform for my rubber stamps, so I thought it would work perfectly for this application.  I die cut the sentiment, but left everything in place on my cutting plate.  Then I just placed the entire cutting plate into the platform, which works on the Tonic since the bottom is open.  

I lined the stamp up over the die cut piece, and inked, so easy.

For the cards with the pink die cut sentiment I used Ruby Red for the stamped sentiment, and for the red die cut sentiment I used Grapevine. 

When adhering my sentiments, to make placement easier, I started with the O in jolly because I knew it sat right around the bottom cluster of berries.  Once that was adhered, I placed the negative cut over top, using that to align the rest of the sentiment.

These were definitely on the fussier side in terms of mass production, but I really like the results and it's great to have knocked out a bunch of cards for my Christmas card pile.