Merry Monday #268 {The coolest person I know}

Welcome to this week's Merry Monday Christmas Challenge! It's a fun one, so I hope you get a chance to join us this week! It is always fun to see the gallery full of your fabulous creations! Deanne has challenged us to use a Santa hat on our cards this week!

I have a few Santa images and he is wearing a hat in all of them, but I decided that this cute little penguin from SugarPea Design's Eskimo Kisses would be the perfect fit for the challenge! I just love that he's got that big hat covering his face, which really does draw the focus to the hat.

Because this image is so small, I needed to enhance its presence. I toyed around with the idea of using multiple of the same image, but in the end, chose to put this little guy or gal into a snow globe. I did add a tiny candycane to his "hand" or flipper/fin/wing? LOL! What does a penguin even have??? LOL! I wanted a touch more red and the candy cane is the perfect accessory! I stamped, colored and die cut the candy cane and penguin using the coordinating Sugar Cut. I also added some Wink of Stella over the entire image and then some Nuvo Glaze over the top of the penguin's body, beak and feet as well as the candy cane. 

While those were drying, I got to work executing my snowglobe. I thought the lid die cut from the Coffee Card Gift card holder looked like it would make a great base for the globe and I was right! I just needed to find a good size circle Nestabilities Die. I die cut the base out of silver glitter cardstock. I really like using a detail like glitter paper, because it packs a punch without any extra work. Before I die cut the circle, I used a leafy frame die from Papertrey Ink to dry emboss some detail around the green panel. I am so sorry, but I cannot remember the name of the die. After that was done, I die cut the circle from the center of the green piece. I grabbed a scrap piece of white cardstock to quickly blend some Broken China distress ozide ink in a circle. Once that was done, I spritzed it with shimmer spray and stamped a few snowflakes from the Eskimo Kisses stamp set in white. I had originally planned to make this a shaker card, but in the end, I just wasn't up to the fuss. Because I felt like I was sacrificing a "wow" factor for the recipient, I decided to add some fake snow instead. I really like the effect it has and I will probably be using it again soon. 

The snow is glued down using Mono Multi Liquid Glue. I also added some white Nuvo Drops here and there to accentuate the snowglobe feel. The sentiment is heat embossed in white onto a vellum strip and then stretched across the top of the globe. The penguin is so small, I felt like the sentiment needed to help  fill up the space. I also wanted to give it a "glassy" feel without making it a shaker card. I adhered the green panel onto a black A2 cardbase using foam strips and then tied some black baker's twine in a bow and added a red jingle bell. I thought the trio of red looked nice. Thanks for fluttering by!