My Favorite Things | Sparkling Lights Modern Christmas Card. Video tutorial by Yana Smakula #MFTstamps #christmascard #cardmaking

My Favorite Things | Sparkling Lights Modern Christmas Card. Video

Hello, friends! The other week I started to pull out our Christmas decor and decorate our apartment. Nothing major, just a faux poinsettia here, some LED lights there and so on. The lights I have in my home have actually inspired me to try and create a “lights only” Christmas card. So today I have a video tutorial to share showing how to create a beautiful modern looking Christmas card with lots of gorgeous sparkling lights featuring Party Lights stamp set by My Favorite Things.

My Favorite Things | Sparkling Lights Modern Christmas Card. Video tutorial by Yana Smakula #MFTstamps #christmascard #cardmaking

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VIDEO TUTORIAL

Watch the video below or on my Youtube channel.

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CARD DETAILS

I started to work on my card by placing the 3 strings of lights stamps onto a panel of teal cardstock. I wanted to heat emboss those in Brass embossing powder so I treated the panel with anti-static powder, spreading the powder evenly on the paper and next inked the stamps up with clear embossing ink. I planned to stamp these images twice to cover the entire card front, you can also overlap them to give them a tangled look. The light strings are long enough to be stamped on a landscape card and because these are 3 separate images you can easily customize your backgrounds and make them your own.

My Favorite Things | Sparkling Lights Modern Christmas Card. Video tutorial by Yana Smakula #MFTstamps #christmascard #cardmaking

I’ve covered the panel with Brass embossing powder and heat set it to melt it. Next, I repeated the process and completed my background with these fun strings of lights. The light bulb images are separate in this stamp set allowing you to stamp them in different ink colors. You also have a die to cut the light bulbs out from various colors of cardstock which gives you a lot more options and flexibility when using this stamp set. I personally love sets that well designed and well thought out such as this one – it’s always a pleasure to use them for my card making.

My Favorite Things | Sparkling Lights Modern Christmas Card. Video tutorial by Yana Smakula #MFTstamps #christmascard #cardmaking

With my background ready I added some ink blending. This darkened the edges of the cardstock but kept the center light creating a glowing illusion. It is a particularly fabulous trick for Christmas cards as it somehow adds a lot of warms to them.

My Favorite Things | Sparkling Lights Modern Christmas Card. Video tutorial by Yana Smakula #MFTstamps #christmascard #cardmaking

I used dark blue ink for the ink blending and also some black just barely around the edges. If you don’t have colored cardstock like the one I am using here you can also heat emboss the light strings on white and simply ink blend the background using various colors of ink. I find it much easier to start with colored cardstock of the color that I like as this way I have to do significantly less ink blending.

I used the light bulb dies included in this set and die cut a bunch of colorful bulbs from glitter paper in various colors. I picked white, gold and red for my card, but I also tried using teal glitter paper and magenta just for fun to see how that would look.

My Favorite Things | Sparkling Lights Modern Christmas Card. Video tutorial by Yana Smakula #MFTstamps #christmascard #cardmaking

I used my handy Crystal Katana tool to position all of the lights on the background. I tried to alternate colors to avoid having too many red or too many white lights. That seemed to have worked really well. Next, I used a bit of glue and adhered each onto the background.

While the glue was drying I heat embossed sentiment for this card using a message from the Bitty Holiday Wishes stamp set. I heat embossed it in the same Brass embossing powder on white cardstock.

My Favorite Things | Sparkling Lights Modern Christmas Card. Video tutorial by Yana Smakula #MFTstamps #christmascard #cardmaking

Next, to add some glossy shine to each of the lights I added a generous coat of Nuvo Drops in Morning Dew. You can use any other similar product for this, such as Glossy Accents for example. I set the background aside to dry overnight and that finished my card! I had a blast making this custom Christmas lights background and I am looking forward to creating additional backgrounds like this in the future.

Have fun stamping!

SUPPLIES

I’m listing the products I used below. Click on the link to go directly to the product. Where available I use compensated affiliate links which means if you make a purchase I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you so much for your support!

My Favorite Things Party Lights Clear Stamps and Dies
My Favorite Things Party Lights Clear Stamps and Dies
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My Favorite Things Bitty Holiday Wishes Clear Stamps
My Favorite Things Bitty Holiday Wishes Clear Stamps
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Hero Arts Hero Hues Premium Cardstock Adriatic
Hero Arts Hero Hues Premium Cardstock Adriatic
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Neenah 110 Lb Solar White Cardstock
Neenah 110 Lb Solar White Cardstock
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Simon Says Stamp Cardstock Gold Glitter
Simon Says Stamp Cardstock Gold Glitter
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Simon Says Stamp Cardstock White Glitter
Simon Says Stamp Cardstock White Glitter
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Simon Says Stamp Cardstock Crimson Glitter
Simon Says Stamp Cardstock Crimson Glitter
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Hero Arts Navy Ink Pad
Hero Arts Navy Ink Pad
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Mini Misti Stamping Tool
Mini Misti Stamping Tool
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Nuvo - Clear Mark Embossing Pad
Nuvo – Clear Mark Embossing Pad
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Hero Arts Black Ink Pad
Hero Arts Black Ink Pad
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Hero Arts Heat Embossing Gun
Hero Arts Heat Embossing Gun
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EK Success Powder Tool Applicator
EK Success Powder Tool Applicator
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Hero Arts Brass Embossing Powder
Hero Arts Brass Embossing Powder
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FSJ Bloom Palette Paint Palette (2 Pack)
FSJ Bloom Palette Paint Palette (2 Pack)
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Ranger Mini Round Ink Blending Tools
Ranger Mini Round Ink Blending Tools
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Spellbinders Circle Replacement Foam
Spellbinders Circle Replacement Foam
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Spellbinders Deep Sea Die Cutting Machine
Spellbinders Deep Sea Die Cutting Machine
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Tonic Morning Dew Nuvo Crystal Drops
Tonic Morning Dew Nuvo Crystal Drops
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Crystal Ninja Crystal Katana Pick Up Tool
Crystal Ninja Crystal Katana Pick Up Tool
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Simon Says Stamp Craft Tacky Glue
Simon Says Stamp Craft Tacky Glue
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White Foam Squares
White Foam Squares
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Scor-Tape 1/8 Inch Crafting Tape
Scor-Tape 1/8 Inch Crafting Tape
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Journey Craft Glue
Journey Craft Glue
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2 Comments

    1. WOW !! This is stunning, love the colour combination you went with after trying various options. Don’t know if I would have the patience for all those bulbs if we tried to do a bunch of this card though x

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