First This Year!

First Christmas card this year! Despite my resolve to refrain from buying any Christmas related 'stuff' (in the craft line anyway) I felt I just had to have the Santa die used on this card.  It is handy in that it is a two die set which includes a shaped backing layer thus making it easier to do the required paper piecing and layering. It has turned out to be a bit more fiddly than I envisaged but guess it doesn't take any longer than carefully colouring a stamped image.  The Santa cuts out in one piece apart from the two belt pieces and buckle so I actually cut it three times (red, white and black) before doing a bit of scissor snipping to get the details cut out from the right colours.  I didn't think it was worth cutting a yellow layer just to get the tiny buckle so just popped a tiny scrap of yellow card behind the red layer.  Once I had all the 'bits' I glued the main red layer onto the white backing layer before adding the black and white details - the face is part of the beard area and was coloured with a flesh coloured pen.  There are actually three Santas of varying sizes in the set so six dies in all.  A square of backing paper from my stash, two die cut circles and a sentiment - the large circle was randomly stamped with snowflakes.

I'm not a great fan of batch making but I think I might make a small batch of similar cards to pop into a pack with some envelopes - possibly another suitable tombola prize?  I have plenty of bits and pieces of Christmas papers about so they will be 'the same but different' - varying colours of the backgrounds. Onward and upwards now to make the rest of the batch!

Santa Die - from Tonic - actually a trio of Santas in varying sizes
Background - paper from Stampin' Up (not this year's design)
Greeting - from file on computer, not sure of the source (had it ages)
Circles - Sizzix dies with stitched detail
Snowflake - very old wood mounted stamp with no name