Going Green and Having Fun

This week, when I saw that the challenge for CraftyHazelnut was to take inspiration from the photo on the left, I immediately thought of this one (on the right). I cannot find the original photo but this is a cropped one that I did for scrapbooks I am making for each of my sons. When they were little I made three of these cheerful felt chappies and every year, in early December, as soon as the decorations came out, they hung from our fire surround (The fire was only ornamental not functional!). It wasn't until twelfth night, when the decorations came down, that the boys got to eat the sweets in the hidden pockets behind Santa's tummy. Anyway I decided to cut him out and use him as the main feature on my card.

As I am also going green this week, I looked around for some green items and something I could recycle. Years ago (in another life!) I was manager of a nursery school and I started collecting all the colourful envelope liners that came with messages from parents. I soon had a big folder full of these, and although I did use several for my original intention of doing some iris folding, the rest have been lurking at the back of a cupboard ever since. Rooting through them I found two nice green patterned pieces which were plain dark green on the reverse, and I thought I could use them. I then decided to try something that I have read about on another blog. I have tried to find the post again but without success, so this was not my idea but I cannot attribute it to anyone else right now. In the article I read, the inside of a 'soda-pop' can had been used to make a die cut reindeer. I had kept a couple of beer cans from my recent visitors so I could try this, so I used a sharp knife to remove the top and base of the can, and cut up the side, and washed it carefully. I then stuck this to a piece of card and put it through my cuttlebug with a marianne circle die. It cut well though the embossing didn't show. I felt this was considerably tougher than craft foil and I wouldn't do it too often for fear of blunting the die blades. However I was left with a pleasing metal circle which I then coloured by dabbing with lettuce, meadow and a touch of red pepper alcohol inks.

I measured this circle and used Publisher to print the photo the right size to fit over it. I decided to mat the circlular frame onto some plain green paper and then glued the Santa on top. I chose dark green from the DCWV Christmas cardstock stack to make an A6 base card, and covered the front with the two green envelope liners, leaving a small border all around. I was looking for some ribbon to cover the join when I found this strip of green fabric leaves. In a mad moment, I then cut the length I needed and trimmed the sides of each rounded leaf to make it look like holly! I cut two swirls with a marianne die from the dark green reverse of the envelopes and glued them behind the top of the Santa circle, letting the lower swirls curl over the frame, and covering the sets of three leaves with tiny, punched holly leaves. Finally I used red perfect pearls to add berries to the holly swirl and ribbon. Here is the finished card.

Sometimes it is easiest to make a quick card for challenges without putting too much time and effort in to them, but this was fun to make and I enjoyed being a bit inventive, and trying something new. I am entering this card for

Bah! Humbug Challenge 18; Going Green - Recycling or Shades of Green, and CraftyHazelnuts Christmas Challenge 19: Inspiration from a photograph.