January Christmas cards: Believe

We've had plenty of snow and cold weather in my neck of the woods over the last few weeks, so it wasn't too hard to get in the mood for making this month's Christmas cards, And, to be honest, we still had up all our Christmas decorations when I was making these cards. We're finally getting everything put away this weekend. We like to decorate for Christmas around the middle of December and then leave everything up for a good chunk of January to bring a little light and joy to the dark winter.

But, back to the cards. Earlier in the month, I came across a card maker on Instagram who created a monthly Christmas card challenge. Each month has a specific theme (e.g., snowflakes, stars), technique (e.g., one layer, watercolor), or type of product (e.g., background stamp, stencil) to focus on for that month's card(s). For January, the theme was Santa, and here is my design:

I don't have a Santa image that I wanted to use, so I decided to focus on Santa's hat instead. The hat and brim are punched from glossy card stock, and I glued a tiny white pom pom on the end for texture. I loved the shiny red (which doesn't really come through in the picture), so I also used metallic striped vellum for a background layer and a few red sequins for embellishment.

To contrast the shine I used Crumb Cake card stock for the layer behind the hat and for the card base. (These are note card size, 3-1/2" x 5", so they are smaller than the usual A2 size.) I embossed "believe" with white embossing powder.

I made 11 of this card design, so I'm off to a good start for this year's Christmas cards. I don't know that I'll use the challenge every month, but it's nice to have a starting point if I need some inspiration.

Thanks for stopping by!