Hello, hello!!

I think the Sweater Season bundle Concord & 9th released this past November might just be one of my favorites 😍. When I saw it, I knew it would make the cutest Christmas cards— I mean come on?! Build your own Christmas sweaters (which can be ‘ugly’) and hats?! Love it! Today’s post ended up turning into three cards, but originally I intended to just make it a ‘one color palette, two ways’ type of situation with the sweater cards, but then I fell in love with those winter hats and I just had to make a card with them. Did I maybe go overboard on sequins too? Potentially. But do I like what I made? Yup!!

One Color Palette, Two Ways

What originally inspired me with these cards was stumbling upon this color palette on Pinterest. It jump started my brain a bit and I tweaked a few of the colors, but I came up with the palette of: Briar Rose, Ballet Slipper, Ivory (SSS), Stardust, and Fern (TSM). These colors are sooo beautiful together, and they all have a sort of cool undertone about them that makes them play well together. With my colors figured out, I started die cutting sweaters and accessories out of each color, then got to assembling. I did decide to pull in Matcha (TSM) for a little bit of a lighter green on some of the sweaters as well.

I had so much fun putting these cute sweaters together! The first one is cut out of Ballet Slipper and has Ivory and Briar Rose zig zags. The second one is Briar Rose and has a snowflake and collar cut out of Ivory. The third one is cut out of Stardust with knit details stamped in white pigment ink, Ivory cuffs and collar, and a Matcha tree. Lastly, the green sweater is die cut out of Matcha and has cuffs, a neckline, and the tree stripe cut out of Fern cardstock. I absolutely love these sweaters!

For the background on the card, I decided to dry emboss an Ivory piece of cardstock cut to 3.75 x 5-inches using the knit stencil from the Stay Cozy Stencil Pack. To define the knit texture a bit more, I pulled out Antique Linen Distress Ink, lined the stencil back up, then inked over it. This really helps to define and pull the texture out a bit more, and I really like how it looks on this card. I popped this ivory panel up on some 3M foam tape and matted it on a piece of Pebble cardstock. Pebble is a great neutral to pull into this color scheme, and doing so allowing the rest of the card and those colors to pop. I think if I pulled any of the other colors in the color palette as the mat that things would have leaned too heavily to that color, if that makes sense.

At this point I knew I wanted to use the ‘warm wishes this holiday season’ sentiment, so I white heat embossed it on black cardstock. I arrangement my sweaters around it, then popped them up on some thin foam squares. If this card wasn’t going through the mail, I would have went with thicker foam squares, but I think the thin squares still bring enough dimension and separation. After popping my greeting on the card front, I decided a little bit more was needed on this card, so I pulled out some sequins I had lying around. These were from C9 Summer Camp from a few years ago, but the Neutral Sequin Assortment they have now would get you pretty close to this look!

If you told me I had to choose my favorite sweaters out of these two cards, I don’t think I could. I mean, they’re all just so dang cute! I decided to make all the sweaters on this card Ivory and have my other colors be the pop of color on them. The first one has a neckline and cuffs cut out of Briar Rose, as well as zig zags out of Ballet Slipper and Briar Rose. The second has a neckline and cuffs cut out of Fern, the tree stripe cut out of Matcha, and two rows of stamping in Fern ink. The third sweater is so dang cute with a neckline and cuffs cut out of Matcha, and ‘ho’s cut out of Briar Rose, Stardust, and Fern. For the last sweater, I stamped the knit pattern, two rows of dashes, and a row of snowflakes in Stardust ink, and added a neckline and cuffs in Stardust cardstock. I love how cozy this sweater is!

I decided to use the same sentiment as the previous card, so I heat embossed it on black cardstock and cut it down. I didn’t want to have a matted look to this card, but instead a one-layer card front, so I decided to add some texture to it with the Snowfall card front die. I went back and forth for a while on what color my card front should be, but in the end, I decided on my Neenah index weight cardstock. It’s a super bright white, but the weight is very low on it so it’s what I usually build up my die cuts with. I chose this because C9 white cardstock didn’t give me enough contrast from the ivory sweaters, but I thought there was enough using the index weight. Just like the last card, I popped the sweaters up on foam squares (thick this time since I had no other foam on the card), and then I finishied the card off by adding maybe a few too many sequins haha.

Hats Galore!

Okay, but do you not love these happy colors?!? This color palette was once again inspired by a pin on Pinterest, and I absolutely love it! This palette could work for any occasion, but it’s so fun for Christmas. It includes Poppy, Sweet Pea, Carnation, Sunflower, Aqua Sky, Oceanside, and Blueberry. I die cut all three hat styles, the cuffs of the hats, and the pom poms out of each color, then got to assembling. I played around with color combos on each hat, then glued them together once I was happy. I tried to include each style of hat on each row, but if I didn’t, I worked to make it where two of the same style weren’t next to each other. At this point, I decided I wanted more details on the hats, so I cut the zig zags, loopy stripe, tree stripe, snowflake, and stars out of white cardstock. I love how much of a pop this white detail adds on the hats!

Since I liked how those details were looking, I decided to add some stamped details to the hats that didn’t get die cut details. I stamped two dash stripes and a snowflake stripe in white pigment ink on the Sunflower hat in the first row, but after it dried, I didn’t think it was a white enough impression, so I went over it with my white gel pen. I stamped the knit pattern on the Oceanside hat next to it in Oceanside ink for some tone-on-tone love. The two Carnation hats have diamonds stamped in Sweet Pea ink, and plusses stamped in Sunflower ink, respectively. I love all the little details on these hats!

I decided to arrange them in a grid pattern, but before doing so, I prepped my card base. I had an A2-sized piece of C9 white cardstock that I cut a 3.75 x 5-inch rectangle out of with my Waffle Flower A2 Layers dies so I had a frame and a panel. I glued the frame piece down to my top folding notecard, then put some 3M foam tape on the back of my 3.75 x 5-inch panel and popped in place where it was cut out. You could totally just pop a rectangle of that size on a white card base, but for some reason I did it this way today haha. I lined my hats up, and with the help of some Press’n’Seal, added some thin foam squares to the back of them and stuck them down all at the same time. For a sentiment, I decided to stamp ‘tis the season to be freezin’ in black ink on the card front. Just like the other two cards, I thought some sparkle was needed here, so I pulled out my sequins. I honestly hate embellishing grid arranged cards and I truly didn’t know an arrangment that worked/felt balanced, even after 20 minutes of fussing, so I just decided to add a sequin on each side of a hat. Is it kind of weird? Maybe? But I feel okay with it and I like all the sparkle it adds.

So that’s it for today! Three cards using the Sweater Season bundle, and I’m not sure I could pick a favorite card. Maybe, just maybe, it’s the last one. But I don’t know haha! I hope you liked these cards, and I hope to catch you tomorrow with more Christmas content!

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