With Christmas coming in just about 10 weeks it is time to give Christmas cards some serious attention. I am a Stampin' Up! demonstrator and I bought the Detailed Santa Thinlits set and sat down today to see what others had made using this cute die set. I came across this example made by Betty at Sweet Irene's Inspirations.
Cute isn't it? I really liked the way Betty put the face color behind the face and the sparkly red hat on. On her page she tells you she cut the background pieces for the face and beard free hand and used the die for the black pieces and the red hat.
BUT, I'm a Silhouette Cameo user as well as a Stampin' UP! Demonstrator and I want to make more than one or two of these and I don't like to spend that much time cutting so here is what I did.
- I used the die to cut one image out of Basic Black card stock, scanned it as a jpeg, saved it and opened it up in my Silhouette software. (all images increase to full size if you click on them)
- Then I opened the trace window, prepared the image for tracing and traced it
- Now, I had an image to work with
- Next, I made a duplicate of the traced image so I had one that remained complete and one to work with to make the background and filler shapes I needed.
- Setting the duplicate aside, I released the compound path on the remaining image and removed the outside border. Once this was done I pulled away the black pieces and the red hat piece
- Next, I grouped the pieces that made up the face area and the pieces that made up the background for the beard without moving them so that they maintained their basic overall shape. I separated the grouped face piece from the grouped beard piece so I had room to work and used the Polygon tool to trace around the grouped images. To perfect the outline so it was as close as possible I used the Edit Points tool. In the image you'll see the outlines I created in black.
- To make the front card layer I took the original image and again removed the border. I created a rectangle 4 x 5.25 and centered the image in it with an even gap at the top and grouped it to make the layer.
Now I was ready to cut. I cut the black pieces from Basic Black, the face piece from Pink Pirouette, the hat from Real Red Glimmer Paper and the beard and hat pom pom from Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper.
Assembly is next. First, I attached the face piece because it and the beard piece overlap just a bit on the backside so it needed to go on first. I used Aleene's Quick Dry Tacky Glue put it on the back of the card layer and attached the face piece. Next I attached the pom pom backing and last the beard backing all the same way, by using glue on the backside
- This is what the piece will look like so far. I then turned it over one more time and placed glue all around the edges and on the centers and attached the layer to the card front.
- After it was attached I put glue in the openings where the red and black pieces would go and inserted them into the openings. Once those pieces were inserted I used a Project Life journaling pen to add dots for the eyes and a cotton swap with Pink Pirouette ink to add the cheek color.
- I didn't have the stamp set with the cute Ho,Ho, Ho, the Betty used so I found one in Silhouette store and cut it out of Whisper White. It is made by Simple Stories design #70171.
- I did resize it to 1.310 tall by .974 wide so it would fit on the card. Because it is a delicate piece and hard to glue I used the Xyron sticker maker to place adhesive on the back. When I used this I take a stylus, the smaller end and run it around the outside edges and around all inside openings. This makes the glue stay away from where I don't want it. Then all I have to do is peel and stick.
I stamped the Merry Christmas from the Hang Your Stockings stamp set in black and the card was complete. I hope you like it.
I can't share the complete image because it belongs to Stampin' Up! I can share the background image files though as they don't give away the actual image and if you would like them to use with your Silhouette you can private message me and I'll let you know how you can get them.
Thanks for stopping by, let me know if this post was helpful to you. I like to hear from those that read my blog.
Kate