Blog Hop Details

Welcome!  If you've been visiting my blog for the past few days, you'll have seen the Watercooler Blog Hop and the projects I submitted.  This week I'll be showcasing the items I made in more detail.

Today we'll look at this one:

I love this card!  But it took me quite a while to make, mainly because I didn't have any idea what I was doing when I started.  LOL

I had been playing with my Detailed Santa Thinlits Dies but each card looked kinda the same.  I made several cutting the Santa out in Whisper White, and then I tried one using Basic Black.  That started my creative juices flowing.

So for this card, I cut my Santa with  Whisper White, and then I cut scraps of Blushing Bride and Real Red for the face and hat.  This took me two tries--hint--after cutting, lift the die with all the pieces intact and place it on your Die Brush pad (if you don't have one of these, you NEED one!) and vigorously brush over the die.  Carefully lift the thinlit and leave the pieces of paper on your pad--these are what you need to fill in the blanks, and if you move them around too much, you won't know which ones go where.  Ask me how I know...

I carefully placed my pieces in the cut out spaces--they fit really nicely.  Then I picked up the whole piece and adhered it to a Window Sheet.

Now for another tricky part--cutting just the right size opening in my Real Red base and my Basic Black layer. 

I started with the black, and cut a square just a tad smaller than the edges of my white frame.  Then I used that as my stencil and cut the red card stock slightly larger (the white one is sandwiched between them, so you won't see the red, but it gives it more stability).  Oh, and do you see that Cucumber Crush strip along the top?  That's a decorative edge die that comes in the set (there are two different ones); I cut it just out of the black layer, and placed two thin strips of Cucumber Crush behind it, leaving the center open so you see the red card base through the little circle.

After all that work I panicked when I thought about heat-embossing my sentiment from Greetings From Santa on the bottom of the black layer, but my Stamp-a-ma-Jig made it easy!  Whew!

For my inside, I laid another Santa cut out on the Whisper White card stock for placement, and inked my Naughty or Nice stamp using Real Red and Cucumber Crush (and Basic Black) Stampin' Write Markers.

A few black stars (also a die in the set), and I was ready for my blog hop!

This is not a card to mass produce, but it sure is a special one for a special boy or girl!

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