Sometimes you need a quick and easy Christmas card that looks like you put a lot of time into it. 

Often, there is so much to do in our day-to-day lives that it leaves little time left for crafting. And if you don’t start in on making cards early, that can leave you with even less time. So let’s talk about tips to make it easier and quicker to create some pretty Christmas cards your friends and family will still “oooh and ahhh” over. 

Compartmentalizing comes from Tim Holtz. But I’ll take it one step further for easy and quick: Design one card you want to make for everyone. That will make chunking out the different types of tasks even easier. One day you can spend making inky backgrounds, another day you can spend die cutting, and then another day you can spend assembling. 

Patterned paper and their matching journaling cards from a collection can make crafting very easy. Collections and kits are designed to work together so you don’t have to worry about taking time to mix and match items. This is one of the tips that I used for this card. I used two sets of patterned paper—a green on green pattern and an evergreen bough pattern for the base and matte of the card. Then I also used a journaling card with an image of a snow globe.

To still get that “wow factor” there are some quick details you can utilize. For example, distress the edge of your background paper. I did this with my evergreen bough paper, using the Sizzix Surfaces Multi-Tool.  If you do any fussy cutting, make sure it is for simple shapes, such as a simple wooden wreath, like in this card (I cut the pattern off that was outside of this wooden wreath that circles the snow globe image.) Another quick detail that always brings the wow factor is glitter. Add Ranger’s Glossy Accents where you want just a kiss of glitter and sprinkle it on, tapping off the excess.

Using simple die cuts that don’t require layering can add an intricate touch without all the work. One of my favorites for this technique are leaf and greenery dies, like these evergreen and leaf sprigs from Sizzix’s Festive Foliage die set. Remember, it is absolutely okay to use a one or two dies from a set and not use the rest, pairing them with patterned papers instead. And when you keep it this simple, you might even have time to shape your leaves a little bit with your fingers or a shaping kit! 

Finally, add quick dimension with the use of foam adhesive. You don’t have to worry about ink blending or shading with ink (thought that is totally okay—I did that with the greenery die cuts in this card) or any other technique that adds dimension when you use double-sided foam adhesive. Simply peel, stick, peel and stick to your project! I used foam adhesive to pop the snow globe up from the base of the card. 

I hope these tips help you quickly create a handful of Christmas cards for this year, no matter how busy you are. Until next time, happy crafting

Adrienne

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