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Here Comes Sportsy Santa!

December 05, 2023

Greetings everyone! It's me again, Jessie Scott (@chevy.scott on IG), Guest Designing for Gerda Steiner Designs!

Today I'm sharing this super fun interactive card using Sportsy Santa. To make this interactive element, I used the (sadly) retired My Favorite Things Launch Party dies, but the newer Lawn Fawn Swish n' Pop will give you a similar effect if you have this die.

I colored my Santa with my OLO Markers and added stripes with a fine liner pen to give the snowboard a peppermint look. I added the goggles and gave it a look of glass adding some white gel pen accents.

I assembled my interactive onto a 4" x 5-1/4" navy piece or cardstock according to the assembly video and tried out my Santa to be sure I could hide him behind a slope of snow. Looks like it will work! I added another piece of glitter paper on top to give a dimension to the slopes of snow. Before I glue everything down, I wanted to spritz up the background a little!

With an interactive image dragging across the background you don't want embossing folders or pastes that create something for the image to catch on. Using ink and a stencil or some light splattering is the way to go. I have been wanting to practice fine splatters since I just got some new fan brushes so that's what I did for this card for a snow effect. I watered down some white acrylic paint and tapped off the goops on a test sheet before getting this awesome fine mist of snow. (I covered the mechanism and test Santa with scrap paper) The real Santa gets adhered to the acetate piece with a foam dot and the excess acetate is trimmed off.

I am adhering the slightly smaller than A2 panel to a bright red card base. You want to keep the adhesive away from the moving parts and so using double-sided tape can be best to keep liquid glue from seeping into spots you don't want. I also had added a couple stopping strips of paper to control where the mechanism can move left to right for Santa. I learned this trick from Jennifer McGuire, peel off only enough of the tape release paper to make a pull piece. Fold each over so it will be accessible from outside the edge of the card when you place it down. I had to put some on the inside too, but I just bowed the card a little during placement so only the corners stuck a little while I got it straight. Pull the tabs when you're good and straight!

Don't forget to make your mark on the back of the card base! I have a nice one my mom ordered me on Amazon a while back, but I always add one of my snarky stamps from Technique Tuesday's
It's A Masterpiece Stamp Set.

Now we are ready to assemble! I have a foam piece guiding the pull tab below but we need to keep the entire path for Santa clear. This left only the small piece on the slope at the end of his track. I don't show it here, but I do the pull tab trick on the foam tape along the bottom here too.

Almost done!

I added the "Pull" from the Pear Blossom Press stamp set for interactives.

For the sentiment I chose the "Happy Holidays." I wanted it to be in gold glitter embossing powder, but I think it smooshed too much somehow and with the glitter it was hard to read. Never fear! Fine Liner to the rescue!

It was more work, but I love how it turned out with some black outline to make it pop from the red.

I used a hexagon punch to make the perfect flag end for the sentiment and it will get adhered to the snow piece with double-sided tape since its glitter.

Even with the sentiment, all put together I thought it needed a little more. So I grabbed some presents and the tree I had out already from Season's Tweetings and it was perfect to add a little decoration in the snow.