Paper holidays

November 22, 2021

I started planning out these little holiday scenes long before many people were thinking about the holidays. There were still heat waves to contend with and not a single leaf had started to turn. I wanted some fresh imagery for using on blogs or social media and doing it all in advance with paper meant that I didn't have to wait for the weather to change to get started.

Here's a quick recap of how I did it so you can use these to make your own holiday cards, add it to a shadow box, or make other sweet gifts for someone this holiday season!

First off, I decided on the scenes I wanted and colors within my brand to use: I wanted to use light blue, purple, and grey to create scenes with a holiday village, trees, gifts, bows, snow, and ornaments. I picked out a 12x12 inch sheets of cardstock in all the colors I wanted and started to design everything. I designed all of the shapes in Silhouette Studio knowing that I would use my Cameo 4 to cut all of the shapes. My favorite tool in Silhouette Studio is the Make button: I can layer up a few shapes like rectangles to create snowflakes or bows and converge them into one outline.

After finally designing all of the pieces, I grouped as many as possible into that 12x12 sheet so that I could get the most out of every page. I cut them and separated them into each theme.

Some designs required further construction. For the gifts, I folded the bows to be 3D and glued them all together. Similarly, for the bows, I wrapped the ends of each strip and clustered them together.

Finally, I set up a tripod and light to be able to create flat lays. I also used this set up for some stop motion animation. Using a remote shutter will help create those images without moving the camera. I also use masking tape to make sure that my set up stays in the correct place.