say the word!

this fortnight at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ we are celebrating fab fonts, lovely lettering and all things terrifically typographic with a prompt we're calling, "text me". so what does that mean in terms of your design? well, it's a pretty fab chance to break out your oversized alphabet stickers, your big honkin' sentiment stamps, your text papers --or book paper?!-- to make a holiday card with the emphasis* on the words!

alphabet stamps: freckled fawn; journal card: pebbles; red/pink solid(ish) paper: basic grey; black glossy cardstock: ranger; border strips: echo park, crate paper; cardstock tree stickers: echo park; tiny enamel dots (recolored from pink to red with a copic marker): eyelet outlet; ink: colorbox; red pen: flair; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, sewing machine

once again this year, i'm making a concerted effort to reduce my hilariously large post office tab by making more rectangular, standard-sized cards which aren't too lumpy. once again this year, i expect to fail as often as not by not being able to resist adding flowers with gorgeous gem brads and/or making huuuuuuuuuuge oversized greetings and/or preferring the beautiful symmetry of square cards. but i'm making the effort, when all things are equal, to make design decisions that lean towards smaller and flatter, whenever it's possible to do so and still love my cards. and this week i did really well, woohoo! one of the things that keeps me interested is adding my own spin, so instead of using one of the many lovely text papers in my stash, i hand-stamped the background using my current favorite alphabet set:

i also added texture to the printed holly berries with some sweet little enamel dots from eyelet outlet, and bumped up the fun factor with machine stitching all around the perimeter. (a move which coincidentally guarantees my cardstock border sticker strips will still be firmly attached when the holidays roll around!) ;)

i used the current retro sketch (#201) to guide my layout:

stephanie has a gorgeous card to show you, as well, won't you hop over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and check it out right now?

*yes of course you can use images, too, but we'd like to see more than an ordinary smallish sentiment on your card to qualify; let's just say the words should be "prominent" ok?!