September Christmas card: Watercolor lights

September has been a challenging month for me. I'm anxious about basically everything, I'm tired and on edge, and I just haven't been feeling very creative. I get excited about the idea of card making; I look forward to having days off work so I can sit in my craft space and make a bunch of cards. But when those days come, I get stuck, nothing seems to work, and I'm just not into it.

So for my September Christmas cards, I made literally one card. Here it is:

Supplies:
Paper: Watercolor paper (Strathmore), Real Red card stock (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Watercolor paints (Beam Paints), Stardust glitter Gelly Roll pen (Sakura), ultra fine point black permanent marker (Sharpie)

One beautiful afternoon last week, I gathered up some basic painting supplies and decided I was going to watercolor in the back yard. (Actually, now that I think about it, it was the first day of autumn, but the weather felt like summer, and I was painting something wintery. Funny!) The first thing I wanted to try was painting a string of lights. I chose a few bright colors from my palette and painted three oblong bulb shapes for each color. (I need more practice to make them the same shape!) I tried to space them out across the paper and have them pointing different directions, and I also left a little white spot on each one for a highlight or reflection.

I set aside the paper to do some other watercolor painting (some successful, some not), and once the paint was dry I used an ultra fine point permanent marker to draw a base on each bulb and then the loopy string connecting them all. To make it into a card I trimmed the panel just a bit and adhered it to a red card base. This card is about 4-1/2" x 6", so it's larger than the traditional A2-size card. Maybe the bigger size makes up for it being the only one.

I debated for a long time whether I should add anything else to the card. Maybe a little stamped sentiment tucked into an open space? Or a large die-cut word across the middle? Some sequins? I finally settled on using a sparkly gel pen to draw a few tiny lines at the end of each bulb to make it look like they are shining. I'm not sure I'm in love with that detail, but it's done.

And there you have my one and only Christmas card for September. I really only need to make a few more cards to be set for this year, so I'm not too concerned. I'm doing an online card-making event next week, and I think we'll be making a few holiday cards then, so that will probably be enough for me.

Thanks for stopping by!