Jolly Old Saint Nick – Stamped Smiles

Hello there friends! I hope that you enjoyed Thanksgiving Day for those of you that celebrate. It’s difficult not being able to celebrate the holiday in the usual way with sitting at the table with family and I really miss them all so much and look forward to being able to hug them tightly in the future. I did have a nice dinner with hubby and we stuffed ourselves, also enjoyed spending time with each other.

After Thanksgiving comes the “Black Friday” shopping which I don’t go out and do in the department stores anyway let alone during this time, but I do enjoy taking advantage of deals online! Did you shop any sales or plan to this weekend?

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Today I have a Christmas card that I’ve made for a very special individual with Down Syndrome. He has a very weakened immune system and is unable to go out and visit Santa like he usually does (6 times at least each year)! Santa is his friend and he doesn’t understand why he can’t see him and thinks he’s been “bad” this year.😥 Although he is an adult in age, he doesn’t understand with his mental handicap and his mother has asked if people would help in sending a Christmas card to him. Of course THIS is the reason I love making cards! CLICK HERE to read about the article in the newspaper if you’d like to send one to him too. Here’s the card I made for Danny:

**Edited to add Danny’s mailing address as I’ve been contacted about some not being able to access the link to the newspaper article:

Danny Moreland
2701 N. Prospect Road
Peoria, IL 61603
USA

I was trying to go through all of my stamps that had a Santa and the first one that came to my mind was this older Stampin’ Up! stamp set called “Jolly Old Saint Nick” and it’s one of my favorite images for a Santa! I love how he’s got that “wink” going!

I colored him up with Copic markers and cut it out with a stitched round rectangle die and then layered it over a piece of red mirror cardstock that was cut with a rounder punch. For the design of this card, I’ve used a current sketch challenge (see below this post). I found some festive papers in my stash and cut the strips that I rounded the corners on with the punch as well. For the middle strip, I used some more of the red mirror cardstock and ran it through a brick embossing folder before attaching it to the other pieces. I layered them over a white A2 sized side folding card base that I also rounded the corners on as well.

For the sentiment, which also came from the same stamp set, I heat embossed it with Brutus Monroe Christmas Eve EP over a piece of white cardstock and cut it out with a banner die and cut off the edge of the card.

Here’s a closer look at Santa and how I’ve colored him in. I couldn’t resist giving him white highlights on his cheeks with a gel pen. You can see the beautiful mirror effect with that embossed middle strip as well as the pretty sparkle in the sentiment from that EP I mentioned above.

And of course I wanted to make the outside envelope that it’s getting mailed in just as fun! I took a diagonal striped stencil and inked it up with red ink along the bottom on both sides. I also had a fun “Postal Christmas” stamp set (unknown) and stamped a few of those all over the envelope in red and green inks. I sure hope that he enjoys this card and helps to bring a smile to let him know that Santa KNOWS he’s been good!😉

I had also told you in a previous post that I was still working on projects from the Whimsy Stamps Virtual Workshop that I participated in during October…well I’ve just been slowly enjoying completing them as I go and I saved the Christmas projects for last for this reason! LOL! I’m getting closer to finishing up all of those projects! (Only 3-4 left to do I think!) For now…here’s some Christmas projects from the retreat:

This was for kit 8. What’s fun about this card is that there is an action wobbler behind the pile of treats she’s holding! I had fun coloring her up and I couldn’t stop playing with the wobbler! LOL! PS: This is a good reminder for the {Cupcake Inspirations} challenge too!😋😉

This was for kit 13. I slightly changed up the card, but not much. I actually made a shaker with the jar and put some acetate behind it and then I also added a tag and silver ribbon at the top of the jar. I paper pieced the fairy’s gift box instead of coloring the strips too. I love the colors in this one!

This slimline card was for kit 17. All of the dies were actually really fun to color and arrange to create a scene with. I didn’t change things up too much with this one other than covering the bottom snow with glitter and then adding a sentiment onto the bottom of the frame. I splattered the sky with white paint instead of using a white gel pen.

And this fun bookmark was for kit 18. The ink blended colors were similar to the above card, but I colored in the letters with a white pencil and then used a gel pen to trace around the letters. I white heat embossed some snowflakes and added doodles with gel pens as well as pearl drops. I also added some tinsel ribbon to go along with the twine given. I might use this as a tag…not sure yet.

That was a rather long post! I’m a bit behind and trying to catch up with my projects, posting right now. I hope that you’ve enjoyed my projects today and have been inspired to get some festive projects going! I’ll be back very soon with another project and challenge reminder soon!

Challenges for Santa card only: