Vintage Silver and Gold Christmas stuff is my favorite so when I saw this vintage Santa I felt like I really needed to give him a vintage metallic card.
It's actually a really easy look to create with the amazing background stamps Tim designs. This card features my favorite from this release,
Sparkles CMS324 background stamp and the Santa from
Christmas Classic CMS322
To make the background you need the following supplies:
Stamping Platform, a background stamp (I used Sparkles CMS324),
Metallic Kraft Stock, Ground Espresso Archival Ink,
Ranger Super Fine Silver EPJ37415, a heat tool and Distress Crayons.
Place a piece of silver Metallic Kraft Stock in the stamping platform and stamp the sparkles background with Ground Espresso Archival Ink.
Pretty amazing how detailed this stamp is!
Remove the paper, and cover with Ranger Silver Super Fine Detail embossing powder. You need fine detail so it melts into a smooth finish and it maintains as much of the stamped detail as possible. Also there will be a few areas where you might get a little clump of embossing powder. I left that because I liked the imperfection of it.
Using the Ranger Heat Tool, heat emboss the powder. The heat not only embosses, but it crinkles the metallic color in the kraft stock and it gives it a really cool vintagey aged look. I love it!
Can you see the added crinkles?
The last step is to use one of the brown and the Black Soot Distress Crayons and scribble some of the crayon around the edges.
Then rub it around with your fingers trying to get it into the crevices.
With a very lightly wet finger, just the tiniest little bit of moisture, rub it into the background again. This smooths out the crayon color.
Then go over the whole thing with a dry cloth, lightly rubbing away a little more or less in areas so the color isn't too uniform.
Do this twice in two places on a piece of silver Metallic Kraft Stock.
Four of my must-have die cuts are the stitched dies -
Stitched Rectangles,
Stitched Squares,
Stitched Circles, and
Stitched Ovals. Two of these sets, the ovals and the rectangles both have a few border dies in the sets.
To make this card I used the largest rectangle, second largest square, and the small scalloped border die from the ovals set. I also added a small tag from the
Tag Framelits die set.
Cut four of the scalloped borders. Trim one or two scallops off the ends as needed to fit onto the card base. To form the corner, cut one scallop's edges straight back. Use that one piece to cover a corner, as seen in the photo. Do that four times so you cover each corner.
To make the window border, put the square die inside the rectangle die and cut the window and the outside border at the same time. I use decor tape to hold the dies in place when I'm cutting them.
Pop the window border up with foam, dimensional adhesive or bits of chipboard. Whatever you have on hand.
Before stamping Santa, you want to age some Distress Mixed Media Heavystock. Blend some Antique Linen and Frayed Burlap Distress Inks on to the Heavystock, then spritz with some water and dry. Stamp the Santa image onto the background with Ground Espresso Archival Ink. I used the Stamping Platform so that if it didn't stamp as dark as I wanted I could stamp it again. Cut the piece slightly larger than the square opening and adhere to the back of the frame, centering the Santa behind the window. Attach the image and frame to the card base.
You will have some left over aged Heavystock so cut a small tag from the Tags Framelits die set and stamp a sentiment on it. I used a sentiment from the
Watercolor Trees CMS317 set. Such a nice font. It's difficult to see, but I did stamp some postage pieces from the
Holiday Postmarks CMS323 in Antique Linen on the tag for a tiny detail.
Age some metallic ribbon from the
Ideaology Metallic Trimmings by applying some Frayed Burlap Distress Ink and then wetting and drying. Tie a fluffy bow.
I wanted to add some metallic Christmas greenery, so I made some. This is a technique I learned from one of Tim's tutorials. You need the
Festive TH029 stencil, some texture paste, silver
Metallic Kraft Stock, and silver embossing powder.
Spread some of the texture paste through the parts of the stencil you want to use. Repeat on different areas of the Metallic Kraft Stock. Cover texture paste with silver embossing powder and then set aside to dry while you work on other parts of the card.
Once it is dry, heat emboss until the powder is shiny. Then give it a bit of an antique look by rubbing some Distress Crayons over it.
Fussy cut the shapes out, ink the edges and then adhere them into place. For this card I just used the holly leaves and then added some of the bells from the
Ideaology Jingle Brads as holly berries.
Although there are a lot of steps to this card, it really isn't difficult to make, it just takes a little patience to get out all the supplies and then take it step by step.
Have fun with this technique and I hope to see some Vintage Tin cards soon!
Another thing you might have heard of is the Teal Pumpkin Project.
It is when a house that has alternative Halloween goodies to offer that
are not candy/sugar/food related, posts a teal pumpkin in the window,
on the door, or has an actual teal pumpkin on the porch to signify that
for those kiddos who need or would prefer a non food item you have them
available. I thought these book marks might be a fun thing to have for
them to choose or they could be part of a goodie bag that you give to
special children in your family or neighborhood, maybe paired with a
book, toy, etc. 
