Must Be Santa

Santa Claus is one of my favorite people (and yes he is real!).  I love his spirit of giving and his jolliness.  The happiness he brings to both children and adults is amazing and reminds me of the joy the birth of Christ brought to the world.  In our home, I have lots of nativities as I have told you.  I also have lots of Santa's.  My favorite one does not actually belong to me.  It was given to my youngest daughter, Kaitlyn, by my brother.  It is a stuffed Santa that sits about 3 feet tall and is so soft you just want to hug it all the time.  He joined out family when Kaitlyn was about 5 years old.  When my brother passed away last year, we were devastated.   I remember unpacking the Christmas decorations and finding the stuffed Santa.  While it did bring tears to my eyes, it was a wonderful memory of my brother.  It happened the same way this year.  Once again, Santa brought happiness.

My love of Santa started for me as a little girl and continues to this day.  So it should come as no surprise to you that I am drawn to Santa stamps in the Stampin' Up! catalog as well as at hobby stores.  I will admit I have bought a few over the years.  Today, the card I want to share with you has one of the best stamps I have come across.  So let's get down to business.

 

I started with a base card of Whisper White.  I chose a piece of Garden Green to be the layer on the card.  I used my Cricut machine to cut out an oval in the center of the green, large enough for the Santa to how through.  I then stamped Santa on the center of the white base card.  I stamped the "Ho Ho Ho" using VersaMark ink and heat embossed it with white embossing powder.  I stamped the little chimney and stocking on a scrap of white card stock, colored then with colored pencils and added glitter.  Once they dried, I cut them out and adhered one to each side of the oval to complete the card front.  While the paper is from SU!, all the stamps, pencils, and glitter are not.  

 

For my Santa, I wanted to keep things simple.  After all, he is so handsome he really does not need a lot of work.  I colored him with colored pencils, as well as his hat and bell.  Now one thing you could do is add an actual jingle bell to the hat if you would like to jazz it up a little.  For the berries on the hat, I put red glitter glue on them to make them sparkle.  The hat brim has the same glitter as the chimney and stocking.  It is called Diamond Dust.  I picked it up at one of the best scrapbook stores in our little city.  Unfortunately, it went out of business a couple of years ago.  The jar of this glitter is quite large so I will be using it for years.  The only change I would make to my Santa is I would add some Dazzling Details glitter glue for SU! to highlight areas of his beard.  Not a lot mind you but enough to really give him some personality.  

I hope you have a Terrific Tuesday ahead of you.  I will be spending some quality time with my washer and dryer as once again it is laundry time.  I want to thank all of you for coming by today to visit.  Please come back tomorrow to see my totem pole!!  See you then.