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

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