Snowman and Vellum Christmas Card

This fun card features a cheery snowman with a stylish "Merry Christmas" background. It makes use of the really popular Quickutz Snowman die, but you could use your favourite die in his place to create your own look.

Materials and Tools

• Square White Card Blank
• Merry Christmas Rubber Stamp
• Quickutz Snowman
• Narrow Silver Ribbon
• Merry Christmas Vellum Paper
• Black Ink Pad
• Paper and Card (Blues)
• Silver Brads
• Mini-mounting Pads and Glue
• Knife, steel edged ruler and Scissors

Instructions

1. Cut out the Quickutz snowman using your Quickutz tool and a good selection of card. Here we used a glitter card for his body and some blue Bazzill Basics card for his scarf. To get a little extra definition on the scarf, and around the edge of the snowman, ink up the edges using a blue ink pad. To do this, just gently slide the edge of the shape over the surface of the ink pad.

2. Cut out a rectangle of light blue card that is just big enough for the snowman to fit onto and glue him down. Next cut out another rectangle of silver miri card that is 0.5cm (1/4") bigger than the first rectangle all the way around. Finally cut out a rectangle of Prussian Blue pearlescent card out that is 0.5cm bigger again. Glue each rectangle into the middle of the next one until you have a neat double border around the snowman, acting as a frame. To complete this topper, push a silver brad through each corner as shown in the picture.

3. The next step is to create the background for the card. Start by cutting out a piece of the "Merry Christmas" vellum that is big enough to cover about 3/4 of the card (you may find it easier to cut this slightly too big and them trim it to size once it is stuck to the card). We have added a slight blue tint to the vellum by rubbing a little blue chalk onto the back of the vellum sheet at this stage - try using different colours to see the effect it creates. Glue the vellum onto the card using a glue stick (you can get away without using any glue if you like, as it will be held in place by the brads and ribbon, but it can make it a bit fiddly). Once you are happy with the position, glue some silver ribbon along the top edge to cover up the join. Adding another line of ribbon just above the first one gives an even better look.

4. You are now ready to stamp the wording "Christmas" onto the card. Before you do this though, it is a good idea to position the topper over the card where you want it, to help you get the wording in the right place. Ink up the stamp and add the wording to the card. It is well worth doing a couple of practice runs on this, using a piece of scrap paper, to make sure you have the ink and pressure right, as there is nothing more annoying the smudging things at this stage.

5. You can now attach the topper to the card. We have used a mini-mounting pad in each corner and one in the middle of the topper to help raise this from the rest of the card. The only thing left to do is to add a few extra brads as a finishing touch. We have placed one in each of the bottom corners and a little row of them in the top left.

This design copyright (c) 2007 by Kathy Black.