Red and Green Ten-Dot Christmas Card

A simple Christmas card using a ten-dot design - two offset rows with ten half-inch circles. (Or nine plus two halves, to be precise.) Created for Operation Write Home's World Cardmaking Day "Holiday Cards" blog hop. I love making cards that can help our troops connect with their family and friends across many miles.

For a holiday theme, I drew little loops and stripes on three of the dots to look like Christmas tree ornaments. I colored all the dots with red, green, and gold Copic markers. Then I added shiny domed stickers on top of the "ornaments", a red marker stripe below the sentiment, and a red ribbon bow. I made some with a deep green card base (above) and some with red (below). For all the details, scroll to the end of the post.

To continue hopping with Operation Write Home, click on the blog hop badge below!

Card details:

• The dots are colored with Copic markers G14, G17, R29, R59, and Y26.
  
• My card stock is Neenah solar white, layered on Paper Source spruce (deep green: top card) and PaperTrey Ink pure poppy (red: bottom card).
  
• I used Seongsook's helpful ribbon trick for my bow knot.
• My shiny clear EK Success epoxy dome stickers came from PaperTrey Ink (72 for $3). The diameter is just a bit over 1/2". Press down hard to adhere them, or they won't look really clear. They are very mailable - flexible, and less than 1/16" thick. Not to be confused with "bottle cap" tops, which are (in my experience) larger, thicker, more rigid, and pricier.
• The Merry Christmas sentiment is computer-printed in dark green with "Lucida Handwriting" font (expanded spacing).
• The ten-dot pattern can be hand-drawn with a plastic circles template (1/2") and a black 0.3 Copic multiliner. But it needs careful spacing and "perfect" circles to look nice. After a few times of drawing it, I made a PowerPoint file that prints my (uncolored) circles. Much easier.
• For a few more of my cards based on this pattern, you can click on the ten-dot label, below or in the labels list on the right of my blog.

Created for Operation Write Home, "supporting our nation's armed forces by sending blank handmade greeting cards to write home on, as well as cards of gratitude to encourage them." (24)