Santa's Helper - Part 2: The Presents

 Welcome back! I'm going to cover the second part of how to make this card today. Yesterday I covered the elf and today I'm talking about the presents.

 I used the presents on the inside and outside of the card. This is the inside of the card and the sentiment is from the Christmas Ribbon die set. The presents are fairly simple to assemble, but there many opportunities for making them different and unique, depending on the technique you use for the "wrapping."

  There are four dies in the Santa's Helper set and they fit on the Tim Holtz Sizzix Sidekick. I have the original brown one Tim released, but there is a new black Sidekick that is the exact same cutting machine, just a different color. I like that they fit in the Sidekick, because you can cut multiple presents just about anywhere. As Tim says, "Creative Convenience.'

 There are two ways to cut these presents. If you are using colored paper or patterned paper, you will want to cut two of the same present from two different colors. One for the "wrapping" and one for the "ribbons and bows." I represented the two in my samples with light and dark grey paper.

 In this you can see that I have drawn lines where the ribbons go on the presents. You will see some debossed areas on the presents that show you where they go. The presents on the bottom show where I have added the ribbons in the second color, as well as the four bows from the set.

 You can assemble them two ways. Here I attached the lid to the top of the present, and then added the ribbons. You will see that I didn't need to use the small ribbons that fit just on the lid. The long ribbons cover both.

 With this present, I attached the long ribbons to the box and smaller ribbons to the lid and then attached the lid. This gave it some dimension.  I could also have the lid tipped off this present with something coming out of it, or used just the wrapped lid as a present. You can see I have done that a couple of times on this card.

 Another present where I used the ribbons over the box and lid.

 This last present is small and has no lid.

 This is what mine looked like when they were all assembled.  I tried a little experiment on the last one by tilting the bow to see if it made the present look even more whimsical. I'm not sure I like it, but there you go. That's what experimenting is all about. LOL!

 I made my presents for this card with a different technique.  I gathered some of my background stamps that have tiny patterns for making "wrapping paper."

 Then I cut all four presents out of Distress Mixed Media Heavystock, just once.

 Then I took the present and colored it lightly with Distress Ink.

 Once I was happy with the base color on the wrapping paper, I moved on to making a pattern on the gift paper. I inked the CMS281 Stripes and Holiday with the same color as the base and then pressed the inked side of the present onto the inked portion of the background stamp.  I left the stamps on their storage cards and just laid them on my work surface facing up. I only needed to ink a small corner and that made clean up fast and easy.

 This is what it should look like when you are done.

 I left the ribbons in the die cut paper and colored them with the Distress Markers, right onto the paper. This Distress Mixed Media Heavystock is made to allow Distress products to work the way they were intended, to blend and react with water.

 Then I used my waterbrush to blend the color out to the edges before assembling.

 On this one I went bright with Mustard Seed.

 For this present I stamped both the box top and the box with CMS259 Tiles and Mosaic.

 Both of the stamps on this set have fabulous small, intricate patterns.

 I thought Mermaid Lagoon would be a great color ribbon to go with this package.

 For the third package I colored the top and package with Antique Linen.

Then I stamped the music from the CMS358 Music and Advert onto it in Pumice Stone.

 The fourth package I colored with Candied Apple.

Then made the package into polkadots using the CMS220 Dots and Floral stamp.

 Here are the finished packages with different types of bows.

 For the card, you can see that I used some box tops as skinny packages, and if I was stacking them I didn't add a bow until the top package.

These packages in Santa's sack are more examples of what you can do.

Once you get started cutting and inking, before you know it you have a nice pile of "wrapped" packages all ready for delivery.

My last post on this card will be coming soon. It will discuss the Cauldron die, and decorative snow sewing.

Thanks for stopping by for step 2!
Tami

I am an affiliate with Simon Says Stamp and Scrapbook.com so the links below send you to one of those stores depending on which logo you choose.  If you wish to purchase something from either store and use one of my links below, I get a small percentage of your order, at no additional cost to you. This helps me to defray the costs of this blog and the ideas and tutorials I post here, and your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Santa's Helper - Part 1: The Elf

This is a delightfully fun die set from the Tim Holtz and Sizzix Chapter 3 release called Santa's Helper. There is a lot going on with this card and so I decided to break the tutorial for it into a couple of blog posts. Moving forward, this is the direction I want to take with my tutorials for the more involved cards and projects. I think it will be easier to blog for me and easier for readers to digest. I hope you agree.

So, keeping that in mind, I'm just focusing on how I made the elf on my card in this post.

The elf die in the Santa's Helper die set is a silhouette. I wanted him to be multi colored so I cut him out of three colors. My sample is inked Distressed Watercolor Cardstock, but to show how I did this technique I'm just using three colors of cardstock.

Start by cutting out the silhouette three times.

 Then you want to trim two of the silhouettes into parts.

1. Number 1 is the base and needs to have skin tones of your choice for the legs, hands, neck and face.
2. Number 2 is the clothing and should be the color you want the shoes, hat, shirt and pants. Trim off the legs, hands, face and neck as shown below. 
3. Number 3 should be the color you want the trimmings on the elf outfit: the pom pom, hat brim, collar, cuffs, and hem of shirt.

 To cut Number 2 into parts. I used my snips and just cut along where there was the suggestion of the hat brim, shirt and pant cuffs and the top of the shoes.

 Then I attached them to the base or piece number one as seen above.

 Then cut Number 3 into pieces. Using the suggested edges of the hat brim and pom pom, trim those off.

 The cuffs are actually two squares for the two arms, but I just cut one wide cuff on my card elf. You can do it either way, but I decided after I made the card that I like the two squares better.

 Carefully cut the bottom trim area for the shirt and the collar at the top.

 Adhere the number 3 trim pieces on top of the number two clothing pieces as shown above.

And there you have your cute little dressed elf ready to help Santa load all the presents into the sleigh.

I was thinking that if you make enough elves, that you could make a whole workshop in full production.  That would be really fun!
Thanks for bearing with me through the first blog in my new blog format, and stay tuned for tomorrow's post which will cover how to make all the adorable little packages.
Tami

I am an affiliate with Simon Says Stamp and Scrapbook.com so the links below send you to one of those stores depending on which logo you choose.  If you wish to purchase something from either store and use one of my links below, I get a small percentage of your order, at no additional cost to you. This helps me to defray the costs of this blog and the ideas and tutorials I post here, and your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Ghost Town - Tim Holtz Sizzix Chapter 3

This spooky little Ghost Town is a fabulous die set from Tim Holtz and Sizzix as part of the Chapter 3 release. I spent quite a bit of time trying to come up with a card idea worthy of its spookiness. Unfortunately I wasn't happy with anything I came up with on my own. Then I saw in my youtube notifications that Jennifer McGuire had posted a new card tutorial. So I headed over to see what kind of genius thing she had thought up and low and behold, her Split Card Design tutorial was just what I needed. I thought it would be just the thing to showcase these Ghost Town dies. I put a link to her video tutorial at the end of this post, but for now, let's go ahead and talk about how I applied her technique to this card.

Starting with the houses and trees, I wanted them to look old and weathered, so I did the following process on all the houses and trees that I used on this card.

I cut the trees and houses from a heavy black cardstock. Then I put a layer of clear Distress Crackle Paint.

Once it was dry it looked shiny and that wasn't the look I wanted. I could have used Distress Crayons on it at this point but I wanted to try something else.

I sprayed the crackle paint with Pumice Stone Distress Oxide Spray.

Then I rubbed it in with my finger to make sure it went down into the cracks.

I let it dry a little bit and then wiped off the excess.

As you can see it weathered the houses quickly and easily. If desired you can add some additional color with Peeled Paint and Walnut Stain Distress Oxide Sprays.

Now to make the card. For the Split Card you need to separate "split" sections either on the top and bottom or on both of the sides.

 This card has a split top and a bottom. The split pieces are not to connect together by themselves. The die cuts are what connects them. You need two pieces to make the top and two for the bottom.

To make the top of the split, I cut two pieces. One of them will need to be longer as it will be scored 1/2"-1" to be folded under the inside of the card. Jennifer McGuire will explain this in her video tutorial. She had dies that cut some cloud shapes for the upper part of her cards.

I didn't have that but I did have some fantastic bat dies from the new Bat Crazy set. I figured out that if I used the inside of the bat wings that I could make some crazy looking clouds with them. The two different types of bat wings make two different styles of clouds.

 I attached the shorter piece of cloud paper at the fold where the longer piece that had been scored.

Then I had to cut the bottom part of the split, so I used the longer bat wing to make some abstract looking hills.

Again I cut a longer and a shorter piece so there are layers. They need to line up at the bottom.

Here is how I positioned the bat wing to cut one side of the hills, then I moved it to the other wing and other side for a second cut.

Once I got them cut, I adhered them together and then did some messy sewing across the bottom

You have to attach the splits together, so to start, you have to put the scored piece on the top split behind the inside of the card. 

 Since you are going to be seeing the inside of the card through the split, I tried to make it look like the night sky. It is black smooth cardstock that has been sprayed with several colors of Distress Oxide Sprays in Peacock Feathers and Wilted Violet, with a little bit of Picket Fence Distress Spray Stain thrown in.

I added a few smaller bats from the Bat Crazy set, and cut the sentiment out of the new Handmade steel rule alphabet. I made sure the sentiment was behind the upper and lower splits. I only wanted the night sky and the bats to show through behind the ghost town.

To put this together, you attach the flap at the top of the cloud portion of the split, behind the top of the night sky piece. Then attach the entire night sky/inside piece to a piece that will be the very back of the card. This hides the flap at the top and gives the card a little strength.
Lay the bottom split even with the bottom of the card, hold it in place with something, and then use the pieces of the ghost town to attach them together.

Only put glue on the back of the houses where they will touch the top and bottom of the card split.You do not want any adhesive on the back of the card  that is in the split because you don't want it to stick. You want it to open.

Use foam dots to give the bottom house a little dimension.

Once this is all dry, flip the card open and cut all of the die cuts again and adhere them to the back of any of the die cut pieces. Line these all up and adhere them to the back of the split pieces and to the house.

Here is the video I watched from Jennifer McGuire on Split Card Design that gave me the inspiration to figure out how to make this work with these Chapter 3 dies. Once you see this video, my instructions above will hopefully make a lot more sense.
 Thank you Jennifer for always sharing your creative genius! I loved this card idea so much that I made several split cards with the dies from this release.

Thanks to my readers for making it this far. I hope you give this split card design a try. It's fun and a little addicting once you get the basic design format mastered.
Tami

I am an affiliate with Simon Says Stamp and Scrapbook.com so the links below send you to one of those stores depending on which logo you choose.  If you wish to purchase something from either store and use one of my links below, I get a small percentage of your order, at no additional cost to you. This helps me to defray the costs of this blog and the ideas and tutorials I post here, and your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!