Santa Swaps

Hello, Crafters.

My oh my, what a frustrating day it was yesterday! Everything went well with all the jobs I needed to do and I was happy with the card I'd designed for Sunday's video.

I set up my videoing equipment and turned the camcorder on. I was horrified to see that my battery was only about 50% charged despite having been on charge overnight.

I took the battery out and put it back on charge. Within about 30 seconds, the red light turned green indicating it was fully charged. This wasn't making sense!

I plugged the charger into another socket and tried again! This time the red light stayed red. 

I carried on with other jobs I needed to do for about half an hour, then tried the battery back in the camcorder. The display told me I had over 3 hours recording time. 

I thought great, more than enough time. I had three false starts that lasted no more than a couple of minutes - which often happens - and then I was off. 

It all went well and five minutes before the end, the battery died! I was not best pleased! 
 
Fortunately, hubby arrived home about twenty minutes later and he set my camcorder up to use mains electric! This time it was plain sailing!

Today's card is the result of two more Telford swaps!  

Photograph 6: this swap was made by Di Dembrey. I love the clean simplicity of this fun card and I love the cotton wool trim for Father Christmas's hat.

Photograph 7: this swap was made by Paula Goodeve. It's another clean, simple card

When I looked at these two swaps I knew I wanted to do Father Christmas with very textured fur on his hat and the cable knit background.

I started my card with a base of Real Red Cardstock (CS), with a layer of Whisper White CS and a top layer of Real Red CS. I lightly sprayed this CS with water and then ran it my Big Shot with the Cable Knit Dynamic Embossing Folder.   Using Tombow, I adhered the three layers together.

This card also gave me a chance to use the fabulous Stitched Shapes Framelits - they are gorgeous! - to mount my Father Christmas on. 

The first step to create Father Christmas was to use Basic Black Archival Ink and stamp his face from the Jolly Friends Stamp Set onto a piece of Whisper White CS. I cut his face out by hand making sure I cut his ears off, too! 

While I had the black ink pad open I stamped the fur trim and the bobble for his hat onto a piece of Whisper White CS. I punched them out using the Jolly Hat Builder Punch.

I also punched two out of plain Whisper White, because I wasn't sure which one would look best. I covered all four pieces with a very good layering of glue from the Fine-Tip Glue Pen. Then I sprinkled them all with the White Mica Flakes.  I decided I like the non-stamped fur trims best and glued them to the Real Red hat I had stamped onto a piece of Whisper White CS. The hat was from the Jolly Friends Stamp Set.

I used one of the gorgeous new Stitched Shapes Framelits Dies to die cut a circle to mount Father Christmas's head on using Dimensionals. I adhered this to the card front using Glue Dots

Using Real Red Ink, I stamped the Ho Ho Ho from the Oh, What Fun Stamp Set onto a piece of Whisper White  CS. I punched it out using the Classic Label Punch and adhered it to the card front using Dimensionals.

The final two touches were to paint Father Christmas's red hat with Clear Wink of Stella Glitter Pen, and his face with the retired Blush Blossom Marker Pen!

Don't forget I'm at the Gingham Goose Craft Fair today in the Hayes Village Hall. If you're in the area, do pop in and say hello!

I hope you have a great weekend. Until tomorrow, happy crafting.

JanB.