Card Making Tutorial: Hybrid Christmas Cards

This brief tutorial will show you how i created two Christmas Cards using digital scrapbooking and paper scrapbooking supplies. I wanted to create these cards for a card making challenge so I needed to follow a specific design pattern as one of challenges was a template challenge. A pretty basic template at that.
 
Because I wanted my Christmas cards to follow a very limited design and space I started by scanning the main card design into Photoshop. The basic card design is pretty simple consisting of two papers one for the card and one pearlescent paper to accent my card design.
 

Scanning The Card

 
I assembled my card the way i wanted it to appear. I will use this scan to plan my design and make sure all the sizes and positioning are correct. I create a custom setting on my setting for 6 x 6 card. I set the exact dimensions to 6.25 x 6.25 to allow a little bleed and give myself some extra room to work.
 
I make sure to create a tight crop around my card to avoid scanning uneccesary space. At 300 dpi and 6 x 6 my file size is 10.05 MB. The extra space will make the file larger and cause more of a drain on your resources.
 

Opening Your Card In Photoshop

Once I’ve scanned in card I go to File> New> and create a new 6 inch by 6 inch document at 300 dpi.
 

I drag my scanned image into this document and work on my Christmas card design from there. When I’m done my design layout looks like this:
 

To save my image I turn of my card’s background layers and apply a light shade grey to print against. This will give just enough definition between the with to allow me cut my shape out properly. Yet it’s not so color intense and won’t be a drain printer ink. Another option if you are trying to save on ink is to simply add a stroke to out where you should cut.
 
Here is my image as i will print it:

Creating My Christmas Cards

 
Once all the printing is done all that’s left is to carefully cut out my image and assemble card. As the template for this challenge was very simple I wanted to also keep my design simple. So all that’s need My 6 x 12 card folded in half. A sheet of pearlescent paper to add a bit of glimmer. It is the holidays after all. And few very simple elements.
 
I used Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive to set my papers and design cut out. To avoid curling or warping I weighted the cards beneath a wooden block. But use anything that is weighty and flat. A hot glue gun was used to affix the elements.

My Completed Christmas Cards

 
These turned out lovely I think. These colors were compliments of the card challenge. Not something I would have ever chosen myself and it took me a while to get comfortable with them but in the end I do like the results. I created two versions of the card since I printed two copies in case of error. Luckily there were no errors.
 
6 x 6 Folded
 

6 x 6 Folded
 

 
These cards were created for the challenges:
 
Simon Says Stamp Sketch Challenge 284

Festive Friday Colour Challenge

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