Jolly Old Santa

Good morning!  Where has the summer gone?  It seems like school just ended and now we're getting ready for school to start in a couple of weeks which means the holiday season will soon be hear.  I really enjoy participating in the Stamping 411 challenges and this one definately had me thinking.

Since my holiday mini preorder arrived last week I've been looking forward to spending some time playing.  I decided to use the Jolly Old Saint Nick stamp set for this challenge, the santa is oh so cute!  The card base is Baja Breeze and I used the little snowflake stamp to create a snowy background.  For my circle element I cut out a large snowlake with my Big Shot and the White Shimmery paper.  I stamped the Santa with Basic Black ink and then colored him in with various Stampin' Write Markers before matting him on a piece of Garden Green Cardstock.  I added a pice of the new Candy Cane Christmas DSP (love this paper and this design reminds me on candy canes).

The ribbon element is a piece of 3/8" Real Red Taffeta ribbon wrapped around the corner and then I tied a bow with the same ribbon and attached it with a Glue dot.  The greeting is stamped with Early Espress in on Real Red and punched with the Oval punch.  I used dimensionals to help it "pop."

I love how festive this card turned out, it makes me want to cuttle up with hot cocoa (if it wasn't 94 degrees outside). 

I have a bonus today.  When I had all the paper sitting on my desk it was just screaming for me to try out the new Candy Wrapper Bigz die.  I used real red for the wrapper and then used another piece of the striped DSP to wrap around the center.  I used 2 pieces of 3/8" Whisper White Taffeta ribbon to tie around the ends (it's not required to hold the box shut I just liked it.  The stamp is from the new Tags Till Christmas set and is puched out of Baja Breeze cardstock with the 1 1/4" square punch and them mounted on a piece of Wild Wasabi cardstock cut with the scallop square punch.  YUMMY!

I hope you are as excited as I am for the new mini catalog and all the great projects we can make.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Diana