Lots of little Christmas Trees!

I have been making lots of Christmas cards - trying out all sorts of different styles.  I thought I'd start posting some of them since it will be December tomorrow (how did that happen?).

In October, I wrote about some design inspiration and the Nordic red/white look (here is a LINK to that post).  I was working on a new card design and realized that it would look great in plain red and white.

Here is the basic cut of the card.  I actually started out to make a border and then began moving things around and built this pyramid of trees.  I use the circle feature for the tree to make the borders and then just continued using that element, hiding the circle contour to make the tree shape from the trees.

In this screen shot you can see how I altered the tree shape by stretching to make the trees fit the typical A2 card front.  The trees look a bit odd because there are two layers on top of one another (I had to do this in order to make the circle stay hidden when the file was closed and reopened - here is a LINK to a post explaining how to do this).

 This preview shot shows the finished file as it will cut.  I hate to waste paper so I filled the extra space with two cuts of the original border I designed.

The file will work for a 6 x 12 mat - if you have an Expression you can simply turn the mat and do a second cut on your 12 x 12 paper to get two cards and four borders.

 This is the basic card cut from lightweight red cardstock and layered over a plain white A2 card.

Adding some pen stitching will make the card more interesting (I must have been tired when I did this - it is rather uneven - I'll just call it "homespun charm"!).

The border looks nice on a simple white card - these would make useful notecards for the holidays.

I used a glue pen to dot adhesive on the solid parts of the border - you have to be careful about tape runners with all of the tiny cut outs.

I decided to try adding another paper to make some more variations of the card.  I found this paper last fall at Tuesday morning reduced to $5.99.  It has great bold graphic designs for a modern Christmas look.

I cut a piece at 8.25 x 4.25 inches to form a liner.  Since the paper is one sided there will be a nice white surface for the message inside the card.  I adhered the liner to the front of the card and left the back unattached.

I like the way the stripes fit these trees - they almost look like trees with layers of snow on the branches.  I added a dot of yellow Stickles glitter glue to the stars at the top of each tree.

I used another border for this card.  I added a layer of the same red cardstock cut to 5.25 x 4 inches and then layered another piece of the green and white striped paper cut to 5 x 3.75 inches.

Here are the two cards that used an additional paper.

These are the cards that have only red and white (the original concept).

There are many more variations possible with this simple pattern.  Adding more layers and colors will change the look.  You could also add some sentiments or additional  images (cut or stamped).

Christmas Tree A2 card and borders