Rudolph Days - April 2024

I was delighted when my entry into Rudolph Days Challenge in March was picked as one of the top three. And am even happier to be this month's Rudolph Days Guest Designer HERE - thank you so much Helen! 

This is my card:

I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" white card blank, side opening

- a backing piece of Tonic pearlescent 'Red Velvet' card, trimmed to a whisker under the size of the card front

- a snippet of really lovely holly patterned silver card, which I think was used by a friend to protect the Christmas card she enclosed it with - and I've saved it ever since, today is its day to take a bow!

- die cut the snippet of silver card using a die from the Taylored Expressions 'Petite Scallop Rectangle Stacklets' set, to make the main front panel. There was literally just a whisker of waste left on all four sides after the cutting was done

- used a snippet of white card and trimmed across it using a Spellbinders 'Curved Edge' with a line of stitching die

- then die cut the bottom edge and up the sides in one do using the scallop edge die I'd used on the silver background 

- glued the white piece onto the bottom of the silver panel

- glued the red layer and the silver panel onto the card front

- then came the drawn out part - die cutting the deer and all the extra bits and bobs ..... all from snippets using a Spellbinders die set called 'Magical Deer'

- the white body and head are double layered and the 'beard' plus the  piece down the centre of the face were die cut using a snippet of 'pale ivory' linen card, on the reverse smooth side

- the little cutouts on the deer's face and body were backed with snippets of red velvet card - used the same red velvet card for the cover/saddle  over the reindeer's back

- the antlers were die cut using a dark brown card snippet, which I then topped with second layers, die cut from a snippet of black velvet card

- the little hooves and nose are die cut from black velvet card and the ears and tail had a little bit of pink die cut card added

- ran away for a rest

- glued the main body with the additional pieces in place to the card front

- then used very narrow red line tape to stick the bottom part of the antlers to the back of the deer's head before adhering it to the image using glue pen for the antlers and small pieces of thin sticky pad for the actual head - to give it some dimension

- die cut a selection of red, pink and white flowers and adhered them to the deer's antlers

- final touch - added some tiny flat silver gems to the flower centres - plus one last cheeky one, right in the centre of the deer's cover/saddle

- tottered away ................ and lay down in a darkened room to recover!

This might well be the only time I ever use this die set - I just counted 32 die cut shapes, 34 if you count the double layering of the main body and head. It seemed to be never ending!

Didn't add a sentiment as it's already busy enough. Besides, reindeer in snow with a background of holly patterned paper and sparkly touches sort of points to Christmas, IMHO.

I'd also like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Christmas Kickstart Challenge #85 HERE. The theme is 'Santa and his Sidekicks' - any deer surely is one of the best known of Santa's sidekicks!

Darnell's NBUS Challenge #61 HERE. The 'Magical Deer' set of dies was having its first (and possibly last) outing here.

You have until the end of the month to enter all three challenges I've linked to in this post. Go on, you know you want to.