Relax! This doesn’t have to be a mountainous chore. Let’s take a look at some quick and easy card ideas, and a few tools to help you out.
Consider buying pre-folded cards with some sort of a border on them. Then all you have to do is stamp and color your image.
I find that the fastest coloring medium is watercolors, because they don’t require precise and detailed application.
For real convenience use a Niji Waterbrush. This nifty brush has a handle that also serves as a reservoir to hold your water. The water is disbursed into the tip in just the right amount.
Bring your pre-stamped images, a small watercolor palette, and a Niji brush along where ever you go. This allows you to take advantage of spare moments to make progress on your cards.
The Happy Holidays card below is an example of how stamping a background slanted on a card and adding an embellishment can be very effective. The slanted placement makes positioning easy and speeds up the process.
To draw the border I used a gold pencil. I normally like the gilded effect of gold markers, but they have a tendency to run and make a mess. A pencil allows better control.
When making layered cards I recommend stamping your image first and then do the trimming. That way you don’t have to worry about positioning. For a more interesting look, tear one edge of the panel. Or tear out the entire image for really fast going!
 |
 |
Nothing dresses up a card like a piece of pretty paper! The Toile Turkey card is so simple, but the feathery edge of the mulberry paper brings it alive. So does the marbled paper on the Menorah card, and the trimmed bottom left corner adds elegance.
 |
 |
I am a big fan of rainbow ink pads for fast and colorful cards. I really like a technique I found in Suze Weinberg’s book The Art of Rubber Stamping, which involves tearing a piece of paper to use as a mask.
On the Hanukkah card below I embossed the wording to make it stand out, but the ink (Brilliance) could have been left to air dry or been heat set, if I’d wanted to skip the embossing step. 
Sometimes these simple cards can seem a bit plain and a little bit of glitter is called for. Glitter glue is more convenient and less messy than loose glitter.
The key to getting your holiday cards done quickly and efficiently is the assembly line approach. Complete all cards one step at the time and run the pieces through a Xyron. You can do the assembly while on the phone or watching TV.
