Christmas Cards - Creating a Sketch!

So, you have your plan, an idea of what you'd like to do, but no idea how to design it or put it together? Put the Christmas music back on, and get out a piece of paper and a pencil. Cardmakers and scrapbookers sometimes work from a sketch. A sketch takes out some of the guesswork as it shows you exactly where the elements on your project need to go. Sometimes people will follow a sketch as part of a challenge. Other sketches are provided as a means of inspiration. If you have a picture in your mind of how you want your card (or cards) to look, draw it out on your bit of paper, highlighting all the elements you want to use. If you know the colour combinations you're going to use, make a note of them on the side of your sketch.

In yesterday's post, I mentioned choosing just one or two designs for your Christmas cards so you save time when creating them. With fewer designs, you can easily set yourself up to work in a process line. Do all your cutting first, then scoring and folding, stamping, etc. By doing one job at a time, you save more time than by creating each card seperately from start to finish. Choose simple and easy to duplicate designs. If you have more than 20 cards to make, you wouldn't want any fussy cutting, or intricate colouring, as this is very time consuming. Make a sample card first, even if you don't have the right papers and cardstock. This way, you'll know what your card will look like once it's done, and you should be able to calculate how much paper, ribbon, adhesive and embellishments you'll need. Keep your sample or sketch handy when you start your process so you have something to follow.