Holly and Joy
by Janet Katz

It was hard to decide where to start with the new Poppystamps  Holiday Release. There are so many fantastic and flexible dies to choose from, as well as one great stamp set. I finally settled on something simple, the humble Layered Holly Branch die set. I used two colors of green cardstock, a light and a dark. I ran the single die through with each color and it gave me two branches and two sets of leaf accents. There are seven items that come out of the die: a branch with leaves and six “accent” leaf halves (I don’t know what to call these). It’s easy to see which accents belong to which leaves because they have the exact same etched pattern as the leaf they belong to.

 

 

I cut two branches and accents out of the light green and two out of the dark green. I assembled the branches with liquid glue and adhered three onto my 4″ x 5.25″ kraft cardstock panel. I had a fourth branch that I cut up so I could use it on the corners in small amounts. There are no holly berries that come with this die, so I used the holly leaf and berry die that comes with the Cabin Snowglobe Pop Up Easel die. I cut out 11 berries (the die cuts 3 at a time) and glued them in place to provide a nice red accent all over.

 

Next, I used the new Joy Freestyle Script die set with red for the shadow, and white cardstock for the word. I assembled the two pieces and them popped them up with foam adhesive on my panel.

 

 

I used scissors and cleanly cut off all the holly branches that were hanging off my panel. Finally, I popped the panel up off a kraft card base with foam adhesive.

 

I’m sure I’ll be making some flashier Christmas cards in the near future, but I liked starting with simple. If you make handmade cards at this time of year, will they be complicated or simple?