Christmas card

By Spotlight

Use hot glue as a fun way to embellish cards.

Final Result

Materials

• corrugated cardboard
• 13.5cm x 26cm red textured cardstock
• 1.5cm x 13.5cm strip of striped paper
• photo
• frosty white glue sticks
• acrylic paint - dark green, red, gold
• paper adhesive
• dimensional glue
• scissors
• tweezers
• craft knife & cutting mat
• metal ruler
• hot glue gun
• paint brushes
• Dymo labeller & black Dymo tape
• heatproof craft sheet (appliqué mat)
• paper trimmer

Step 1

Working on a heatproof craft sheet, use hot glue to make four rough holly leaf shapes. Each leaf shape should be 3cm to 4cm long.

Make a few small dots of glue for the holly berries. When the leaf shapes are cool, peel them off the sheet and using a sharp pair of scissors, cut a holly leaf shape from each glue piece.

Pool two small amounts of hot glue on the work surface and sit two holly leaves into each setting them at right angles to each other.

Using tweezers hold each glue berry up to the tip of the hot glue gun to melt slightly and fix the berry to the leaf shapes.

Step 2

Using green and red acrylic paints paint the topside of the holly leaves and berries and set aside to dry.

Step 3

Trim photo 10cm x 7.5 cm in a landscape orientation.

Cut a piece of corrugated cardboard 10.5cm x 12.5 cm and mark a 2cm border.

Cut out the inside area using a craft knife.

Step 4

Peel the top layer of paper unevenly off the corrugated cardboard frame to reveal the corrugations underneath.

Paint the frame with gold acrylic paint and set aside to dry.

Step 5

Using the Dymo labeller, print a seasonal message onto black tape.

Fold the 13.5cm x 26cm cardstock in half.

Fix a strip of striped paper along the edge of the front of the card 1cm up from the bottom.

Affix the Dymo label tape to the striped paper.

Adhere the photo to the top of the card and fix the frame over the top.

Use dimensional adhesive to apply the holly accents to the top left and bottom right of the frame.

Handy Hint

Take care when using a hot glue gun as the tip of the gun gets very hot. Use tweezers to hold items when working close to the gun to protect your fingers.

Handy Hint

You can make a range of shapes using hot glue on a craft sheet. Trim the glue pieces to the final shape and paint them to make faux frosted glass-like accents for your craft projects. The benefit of using glue is that it retains some flexibility so is unlikely to break.