2 Beautiful Stenciled Pinecone Holiday Cards

Hi friends, Norine back with you today with a couple of winter-y holiday cards to share! They are non-traditional cards in terms of color and theme, but still evocative of a peaceful winter scene.  My favorite kind of holiday card to make! Let's jump in!

I used the Classic Pine Stencil Sets A & B to make these cards, stenciling with Altenew inks onto white cardstock.

For my first card, I stenciled over an entire A2-sized cardstock panel, using Mocha and Espresso ink from the Coffee Break color family. For the pine needles, I used a base of Olive ink from the Tropical Forest family, with some Evergreen from the Green Fields color family and Mountain Pine (obviously, right?) from the Green Valley color family.

I tried a thing I've been seeing more of, especially during the recent Daily Marker 30-day coloring challenge, where you stamp with ink colors, adding some shading with darker ink in a very basic way, and then going back with colored pencils to add more shadow and detailing to the inked images.  You can see where I've added extra depth to the shadows of the pine cones on this card with darker brown pencil coloring, and you can also see that I didn't take a lot of time to do it, just using a streaky, scribble coloring technique. (Editing of this photo makes the pencil coloring stand out more than IRL.)

I wanted to emphasize the “frosty winter scene” that I had in my mind with this pine cone stencil set, so I mixed up some embossing paste and added a little white acrylic paint (to keep the paste from drying back to a dull cream color) and applied it to the tips of the pine cones to make it look like a fresh, light-n-fluffy, snowfall!  After smearing the paste mix with a plastic palette knife, onto the tips of the pine cones, I removed the stencil and sprinkled some white glitter over the top while it was still wet. I set it aside to dry before finishing the card a few hours later.

For the sentiment, I stamped on vellum paper with embossing ink and heat embossed with gold embossing powder.  I used a sentiment from the Winter Wishes stamp set, and once embossed, tore the top and bottom edges of the vellum strip. I found that the busy background made it difficult to easily read the sentiment so I used a narrower strip of white cardstock and placed it behind the embossed sentiment.

Then, I trimmed the card panel slightly smaller than my A2-sized card base and matted it with some dark brown cardstock. Finally, I added some clear confetti dots to add to the sparkle and glitter of the “snow”!

My second card uses the same Classic Pine Cone stencil set and ink colors as listed above, but this time I masked off the additional pine cones and spruce boughs, focusing on a single cluster of pine cones and the surrounding green branches.

I added extra depth and dimension with layers of inks, so I didn't feel the need to add more with colored pencils.  I added the snow puffs with the same combo of embossing paste and white acrylic paint, but this time, when I lifted the stencil, I used the tip of the palette knife to spread the paste into a single blanket of snow before sprinkling the glitter overtop.

I added a strip of green patterned paper to the left side of the card panel and wrapped it twice with some thin jute cord before tying a bow. The final addition to this card is a few more clear sparkle sequins.

Thank you for stopping by today! I hope you were inspired by this quick and easy technique for making some last-minute holiday cards!

~SUPPLY LIST~

Classic Pine Stencil Bundle [ ALTN ] Winter Wishes Stamp Set [ ALTN ] Classic Crest Solar White (25… [ ALTN ] Olive Crisp Dye Ink [ ALTN ] Evergreen Crisp Dye Ink [ ALTN ] Mountain Pine Crisp Dye Ink [ ALTN ] Green Valley Oval Set [ ALTN ] Vellum Translucent Paper (25 sheets/set) [ ALTN ] Embossing Ink [ ALTN ] Antique Gold Crisp Embossing Powder [ ALTN ] Mocha Crisp Dye Ink [ ALTN ] Espresso Crisp Dye Ink [ ALTN ] Coffee Break Oval Set [ ALTN ] Tropical Forest Oval Set [ ALTN ] Green Valley Mini Cube Set [ ALTN ] Embossing Paste [ ALTN ]