A Classic Santa

Happy weekend friends! I’m starting this post with a little bit of information I’d like to share about a “tool” my husband helped me make. So my last post, and this one, is a colored card using my Polychromos pencils and a blending solution called Gamsol that I use with a blending tool called a “stump”. Once I had used my blending stumps on my first Santa I needed to clean them before starting my second card. Off to the internets and Youtube I went looking for directions on how to accomplish this. There are a couple of different ways to do it, but the method I decided on was sandpaper. I found a Gamsol kit, that included a cleaning tool, from Inky Antics that was getting good reviews so I took a closer look at that one. It included a handheld tool with sandpaper on it that allowed you to clean/sharpen your blending stumps that made them look like new.
So, off to the garage I went with my husband and told him what I needed. (I am telling you, this man of mine has just about everything in his garage. He comes to my rescue all the time.) My supply list was a paint stir stick and sandpaper. Pretty easy list, eh? First he had me test out a few different grits of sandpaper to figure out which one would best with my stumps, then he had me cut the paint stick to a smaller, more manageable, handheld size. We decided the 220 grit sandpaper worked the best so he cut a piece of sandpaper to the size I would need to wrap it completely around the stir stick and then he sprayed the back of it with adhesive spray. I wrapped it around my stir stick, he drilled a hole through the handle for me so I could hang it easily for storage and it was done. I had a cleaning/sharpening tool for my blending stumps. It works like a charm!
Now on to Santa number two! My first card with this stamp, Jolly Santa from Stampendous, had a bit of a vintage feel to it. My hope for this second card was a more classic feel. I think I nailed it.
This time I stamped Santa with my Espresso Truffle ink from Memento onto white cardstock. I used my Polychromos pencils to color him and my newly cleaned blending stumps and Gamsol to blend the coloring. I did it pretty much the same way I did my first card but because it is on white cardstock versus kraft colored stock the feel is completely different.
 Here is a quick reminder of what the first vintage Santa looked like.
After I got him all colored I die cut my image with an oval using a die from Spellbinders. My oval is about 3.5 inches wide. Next I die cut a mat for my oval Santa out of Real Red cardstock from SU, using MFT’s stitched oval frames. This oval frame measures 4 inches wide.
To create my little foliage cluster I used dies from a couple of companies. The pine leaves, holly leaves and pinecones came from a Sizzix collection designed by Tim Holtz called Festive Greens and the branches with the berries came from a die set from CottageCutz called Holiday Greenery. The pine leaves are cut from Mossy Meadow and Old Olive. The holly leaves are cut from Granny Apple Green. And the pinecones are cut from Chocolate Chip. All these colors of cardstock are from SU. The berry branch was cut from white cardstock and I colored it with my Copic markers using R29 and E37. I just used my glue pen to layer and adhere these pieces together in a wonderful little grouping that is the perfect  holiday accent for any Christmas or winter card. Unfortunately, I don’t recall what company I purchased my die to cut the word Believe from, but I cut this word from Real Red cardstock as well.
The card base is cut from white cardstock, while I used a Real Red cardstock mat for the card face. On the mat I used white cardstock embossed with a Swiss Dot embossing folder and on the top of that I used a dotted, soft green patterned paper I had on hand from a company called 3 Bugs In A Rug. I love how using a dotted pattern paper on the top edge and a dotted embossing folder for the bottom made a quite cohesive front for my card. (In hindsight, I think a white embossed brick face instead of swiss dots might be kind of cool too!)
So we have covered all the major components for this card. I popped the dotted layer onto the red mat and used a thin piece of gold ribbon to set the two pieces apart from one another. I adhered the red, stitched, oval frame flat to the card face, but popped my Santa oval over that. I used a glue dot to adhere my foliage and my glue pen to adhere my Believe sentiment under Santa, with a red rhinestone to dot my letter i. I added three more rhinestones to my foliage for the holly berries and used a glossy accent medium to add a little shine and dimension to the branch berries and the berries on my stamped image.
I love how this card turned out. The same stamp, but a very different feel. Thank you for stopping in and checking out my card. I hope you enjoyed it. I’d love to hear any feedback you may have and as always, don’t hesitate to ask any questions you may have.
Happy Crafting All!
Shan