Christmas Cards Day Three

Merry Christmas Eve!

It's a very exciting time in our house today because SANTA! (said in my best Buddy the Elf voice)

This year, I decided to torture my youngest son, Sam, by putting presents under the tree a week early, rather than waiting until Christmas morning. Oh, the agony! Every day, he's shaking and squeezing and trying to guess what is inside every carefully wrapped box. I told him if he's not careful, he's going to really hurt that kitten I wrapped up for him! (Just kidding...no kittens were harmed in the making of this Christmas).

Today's card features Santa.

I don't traditionally do a lot of Santa in my Christmas because a.) it's all about Jesus and b.) my sons are older now and Santa has lost some of his magic. Also, we can no longer bribe them to be good with the threat that Santa's watching.

But this Santa image from the Papertrey Ink stamp set Believe is one of my favorites. It's such a simple, classic Santa. I've had this set for a while now (cough! cough! maybe two years, cough!) and have yet to color this Santa. So the other night, I stamped him with Memories ink on watercolor paper and I watercolored that Jolly Old Elf.

I thought the Rustic Wreath die made a great frame for Santa. I've been getting a lot of mileage out of two products: Mister Huey Calico spray and PTI's Holiday Plaid papers.

{Today's Brew: Believe Stamp set and dies (PTI), Rustic Wreath die (PTI), Tiny Tags die(PTI), sentiment from Tag Its (PTI), card stock and papers (PTI), Mister Huey Calico spray, baker's twine, watercolor paper, Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors}

I'm going to fill you in on a secret. I bought this set used, and the seller told me that it was missing the bird/dove stamp. So last month, I finally bought the dies that go with this set, and here's what I did. I cut out the bird die, used a Sharpie marker, and drew the dove onto the die. Voila!

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon addressing and fancifying my envelopes. Yes, I know it's Christmas Eve and I should have done this job say, around Thanksgiving. But here I am.  I love the washi tape! I'm just hoping that it doesn't unstick itself and get mangled in some post office machinery. I used washi from Simple Stories on the kraft envelopes. I'm going to smooth them all down with my bone folder and hope for the best.

Tonight is my favorite part of Christmas: church and candles and Silent Night. Somehow, in that wonderful spiritual moment, everything else gets washed away and we are right there in the stable with that Holy Family made holy because of Immanuel, God With Us.

Merry Christmas, cafe friends!