SPOTLIGHTED SANTA

The Christmas Crowd, found on page 10 of the Holiday Catalog, is so very adorable. I found it completely irresistible. 

So perfect for coloring with the Stampin' Blends, that was my original intent when ordering this cute set. Although I love coloring with the Blends and taking my time, not everyone is as enamored of that process as I am. Since the set is so adorable, I wanted my Stamp-In girls to experience it in some way. But I didn't want to have them spend an hour coloring the whole gang. 

To get a definite taste of the crowd without so much time consuming coloring, I decided to have the girls do a spotlighting card. In this case, just Santa's head and a portion of his body needs to be colored.

Once that portion of the crew is colored with the Stampin' Blends, the cardmaker grabs a circle punch and punches out the colored portion. A little of the other <uncolored> characters also comes along within this circle. But, that's good. That's OK. 

The punched out circle is carefully placed over the original stamped image. Doing this small amount of coloring gives the impression of even more coloring having been done. And it looks cute!

A closeup of the colored/punched portion:

Using only Stampin' Dimensionals and a few sequins, the card is almost completely flat. 

I should mention that I found this cute spotted card base -- including envelopes -- at Target. As soon as I spotted this set, I knew I had to figure out something to put against all that happiness for my next Stamp-In.

I will give you the brief tutorial on how to create a card similar to this one. Here you go:

SUPPLIES:

Target card base and envelopes

Whisper White cardstock

Real Red cardstock

Christmas Crowd stamp set (page 10, Holiday Catalog)

Retired greeting (that I love and will use forever and ever)

Memento Tuxedo Black Ink

Stampin' Blends in Santa colors

1 3/8" Circle Punch

Real Red 5/8" Grosgrain Ribbon

Red Sequins

Stampin' Dimensionals

Big Shot

Oval Dies

Paper Piercing Tool

INSTRUCTIONS:

In Memento Tuxedo Black ink, stamp the Christmas Crowd onto a piece of 3 1/4" x 5" piece of Whisper White cardstock.

Fussy cut this image, leaving even white margins around the stamping. This is an easy piece to cut out, especially by keeping the white margin.

Stamp just the area surrounding the Santa head on a scrap of Whisper White cardstock. Using the Stampin' Blends, color in the face, hat and upper part of the suit. Use a 1 3/8" Circle Punch to punch him out. Adhere him directly over the same portion of the original image. Adhere the finished crowd to a 2 5/8" x 3 1/2' oval die cut from Real Red cardstock.

If desired, use the Paper Piercing Tool to fray the ends of a 5" piece of 5/8" Real Red Grosgrain ribbon. Tape the ribbon to the back of the crowd piece so even ends of ribbon extend at the sides. Set this aside for now.

In black ink, stamp the sentiment on a strip of Whisper White cardstock that measures 1" x 4". Adhere this centered across the bottom of the card base a little raised from the bottom, so some of the cute dots show.

Use Stampin' Dimensionals on the back of the oval/ribbon piece and add it to the card overlapping the sentiment a bit.

Add an uneven number of red sequins as desired.

Spotlighted

Smiles.