After the triumphant creation of the Holly Shaker Card, I decided it was time to get on and make another one.
This time I chose the Hanging Stockings Card, which is super-cute. I also had a helper in Little C, who got to do the colouring in. You’ll see that later.
Here are the bits required for this card.
When it came to cutting the Merry Christmas stamp in half I decided to use my trusty craft knife. I’m sure it would have been fine with scissors, but I thought it was easier to be precise with the knife.
I also used my ruler as before to measure the card. It wasn’t quite a perfect rectangle, but it was close enough! I rather wished I had my old set square from school to get the perfect right angle!
Anyway, never mind, I cut out the card and stamped it as instructed.
Time for more stamping! This time, the stockings.
Finally, it was Little C’s turn to help out. She had the very important job of colouring in the stocking stamps.
Colouring completed!
The instructions suggested using traditionally festive red and green, but we thought it would be more fun to add some extra colours.
My job was the cutting out. This was surprisingly fiddly!
Then I cut and taped on the string. I tried to stick closely to how it was arranged in the sample photograph, as clearly it’s designed so all the stockings fit without covering up the Merry Christmas stamp.
Little C was back on the case choosing the order the stockings should hang.
Those tiny clothes pegs are really rather fiddly to use! You can see one I managed to break at the top. Then they needed to be glued to the stockings, which was similarly fiddly. I was very grateful for the incredibly needle nozzle of the glue bottle!
But all the fiddling was totally worth it. It was starting to take proper shape!
More cutting, this time green card backing layer.
Again, it wasn’t a perfect rectangle, but at least you could see some border! There was double-sided tape to stick the white top card on to the green backing.
Then I needed to stick both layers onto the actual blank card.
Success!
OK, I managed to stick it on slightly wonky, mainly because it wasn’t a perfect rectangle. The tape is very sticky, once it’s stuck, it’s stuck.
But I don’t care, I think it looks amazing!
Little C agrees! I couldn’t have done it without her.
So here are my thoughts about my second attempt at making a card.
Once again, I think this is fantastic! While there were definitely a few tricky moments (and I really need to learn to cut a straight line) I’m incredibly proud of the final result.
It was an incredibly enjoyable process; easy enough to not get dispirited but difficult enough to make me really concentrate!
The instructions are excellent, very clear, and at no point was I puzzled about what to do next.
As for the previous card, I used my own ruler (and I might look into getting a set square too!) and craft knife. However these were things I already had, and are by no means essential. OK,the ruler is essential, but who doesn’t have one of those?
This washing line design is a concept that could be applied to lots of occasions. Perhaps tiny clothes for a new baby, or presents for a birthday? There are plenty of pegs and string left over!
A specially fun part of this was that Little C could help me out. While this is definitely not a box for children, you can find the odd thing for a small child to help out with, and I definitely think that arty/crafty teenagers would be able to handle this themselves.
If you’d like to have a go at making cards but have felt slightly intimidated at what it might require (I have!) then do try this subscription. It’s wonderful. Oh, and great gift for your crafty pals!
