Today is release day for Spellbinders and they have so many really great Holiday items arriving! I was excited to receive a few products from Spellbinders early to play with before their official release date. The first one I received was from their Holiday Hugs collection by Stampendous. There are three super cute options to choose from, Santa Hugs, Snowman Hugs and Gnome Hugs each with coordinating stamp sets that you can mix and match.
I received the Gnome Hugs Etched Die set and the Holiday Hugs Sentiments Clear Stamp Set to try out and made some fun gnome cards for the holidays! There are two Gnomes included in the 16 piece die set – one large and one small. The big guy has “hugging” arms that you can fold over to hold things if you’d like which is a feature I didn’t use on today’s cards but want to try on future cards. I think he’d be really cute holding onto a post card (you can make one using the stamp set I have) or the heart die included in the set. There are also several other items included in the set like a stocking, a horse toy and several snowflakes. These could be used on their own to create some super cute cards as well.
For my first project I die cut both the large and small gnome in coordinating colors of Spellbinders Color Essentials Cardstock – Crimson and Blue Spruce. To make “gloves” for the larger Gnome, I cut just the ends of his arms from Graphite Color Essentials Cardstock before adding the little white cuffs.
For the background I made a simple scene by doing just a tiny bit of ink blending onto some Glacier cardstock and then just hand cut a snowy hillside out of white. I then stamped my sentiment from the Holiday Hugs Sentiments that says “Sending you BIG HUGS & Warm Wishes” which I think goes well with the Gnomes little hugging arms! I then placed my two little Gnomies on the card and added some of the die cut snowflakes cut from some silver glitter cardstock from my stash. I added Gems from the Silver Mix Color Essentials Gems to my snowflake centers for a bit of sparkle and even added a touch of Stickles to the white poof on the tip small Gnomes hat. This makes a simple but cute card to add to your holiday card collection.
For my second card I wanted to see if I could turn the bigger of the two gnomes into a little Santa and I think he turned out so cute! I cut both the body and hat from Crimson Color Essentials Cardstock and used the same technique and Graphite Cardstock for his gloves and also his boots. For the white brim of his Santa hat I cut a second hat from white and trimmed along the etched die lines to separate the cuff from the rest of the hat. For the belt I just cut two small scraps of graphite and tucked them up under his beard.
To make the post cards I used the super cute postcard/letter building stamps from the Holiday Hugs Sentiments Clear Stamp Set and made two small post cards to hold my sentiment and tuck under the edge of Santa’s hat. (There is also a Gnome Hugs Sentiments Clear Stamp Set that specifically coordinates with the Gnome die set.)
As a final touch I added gems from the Red Color Essentials Gems set as berries on the holly stamped on the post card and a couple on Santa’s little belly as well. The patterned paper background I pulled from my stash of 6×6 holiday paper.
There are so many ideas you could use with these dies – using patterned paper for their clothes, or Copic coloring or water coloring on them. You could make the tiny gnome a Santa as well or put a bunch of the little guys on a single card in a little group. I have a list!
Thanks for stopping by to check out my projects and good luck with your own card making projects using these super cute dies from Spellbinders.
Talk soon,
Shellie
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