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

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