Rudolph Days - October 2019

And it's another Rudolph Days challenge over at ScrappyMo's - where did the past month disappear to then? Time certainly flies these days.

Here's my offering:

I used:

- 5" x 5" square black card blank, ordered from Amazon UK and made by Craft UK Limited

- then cut an aperture in the front of the card using Clarity's 'Christmas Santa Aperture' die

- then backed the aperture with a piece of white card which was covered on one side with medium weight double sided adhesive sticky film (made by Woodware) which I place facing the front - once I removed that second layer of protective film and also protected it with the peeled of piece of waxed paper whilst I was working

- then cut the die once again, from SU's 'Real Red' card stock this time

- popped seven of the red pieces in place, as shown on the above card

- then sprinkled iridescent glitter (cheap and from a local shop but Glamour Dust would work well) over the aperture, whisking away the excess with an Avon blusher brush (bought solely for the purpose of crafting)

- next I backed the inside front panel of the card with a very slightly smaller piece of black card to neaten up the inside - using red line tape for a secure fix

- finally, added the sentiment strips using another Clarity product - wonderful stickers from the 'Clarity Christmas & Celebrations' set

- finished - or was I?

Nope, I'll never learn - I made 12 all the same and almost lost the will to live.
One of the trickiest cards to 'batch bake' for sure!

Wish you could see the sparkle, but when I turned the card to catch the light I lost the sentiment printing, sigh.

A little tip, once you add the red insert die cuts, try to 'nudge' the black outlines against the red insert to avoid a bit of white showing. A little point but worth trying to remember - she says, too late! And anyhow, who uses a magnifying glass to check out their Christmas cards?!

Edit: Thanks to Kath for a great idea - when adding inset die cut pieces to a white background with the image outline part in black - just run a black pen around the inside of the aperture you're going to fill! 

By the way, this is a direct result of seeing a blog post very recently (literally a couple of days after our Cornwall holiday) on Barbara Gray's Clarity Stamps blog - she has lots of photos of the process, which will probably make more sense than all my words.

I have to say though, I did have some issues with the die itself - Santa's face has a lot of little pieces that should drop out as waste - they did but only after I added extra shims to that part of the die and even poked a bit with a craft knife, in addition to the metal shim I was already using anyhow.

It didn't matter on the red die cuts, as the outer part of the die cut fine and the pieces I wanted to use were also bigger of course - although I still needed the metal shim for my Cuttlebug.

Just a little warning if you do decide to dive in - but not enough to put you off as it's such a fun and rather funky die.I suspect that my Cuttlebug might be a tad out in the calibration to be honest.

I got the die and the sentiments stickers on a special Clarity Stamps offer BTW. 8 A5 sheets four are black on white and four are white on black. And, half of them are for Christmas and the others are for general use - bargain!

I think they might well last me for the rest of my days :).

Merry Christmas - it's looming whether we like it or not!