Woody Merry Christmas

This week's challenge at Christmas Card Throwdown is to use red, green, & brown on a holiday card. I have had this "Christmas" stamp from Recollections of a woody car carrying a tree (discontinued) literally for years & had never inked it up. I decided this was the perfect opportunity to use it.

I began by stamping the image onto a scrap of Canson XL watercolor paper. I painted it with my watercolors, using a gold watercolor from the Fine-Tec Pearlescent Colors to paint the baubles on the wreath & garland. After it had dried, I used my craft knife to cut out the windows, and then fussy cut around the outside of the image with my scissors. I used a black brush-tip marker to "paint" all the exposed edges of the watercolor paper, just to make everything look more seamless. When I had finished all that, I just kind of looked at it & wondered where to go from there.

My first instinct was a snow globe shaker card, but because of the length of the car, it would have been a massive snow globe, unless I made it oval-shaped, which I wasn't too keen on. I also toyed with the idea of stamping some pine branches onto my card front & "hanging" the car from them, as if it were a Christmas ornament. I finally decided to stop overthinking it & just make a traditional shaker card (minus the snow globe element).

I found a piece of burgundy patterned paper in my scrap stash that was big enough to use as a panel on my 6-1/2 x 5-1/4" card. I cut that panel to 1/16" smaller than my card base on each side, & used a "Nesting Ovals Die" from Waffle Flower to cut the center window. I cut a piece of white cardstock the same size, & die cut a window with the next smaller oval die, so it would create a mat around my shaker window. Then I adhered those panels together.

I cut a piece of kraft cardstock slightly smaller than my burgundy & white panels, & adhered my image to that. To create "snow," I used a Ranger Distress Embossing Dabber to pounce embossing ink through the "Falling Snow Splatter" stencil from Simon Says Stamp onto my panel & car. I sprinkled on Hero Arts White Sparkle embossing powder & melted that with my heat gun. To further enhance the snowy scene, I applied ink with the Embossing Dabber to the car tires & area under the car & heat embossed with the same powder.

I used double-sided tape to adhere a piece of Grafix Dura-Lar acetate to the back of my window panel. Before adding my foam tape, I went ahead & stamped the greeting, from Hero Arts' "Holiday Cardinal" set, with StazOn Cotton White ink onto the acetate. Then I added 2 layers of foam tape all around the edges with diagonal pieces of tape in the corners closer to the oval window. I removed the backing paper from the foam tape, & poured in some clear seed beads, being careful not to let the panel "jump" & send any beads flying. Finally, I adhered a second piece of acetate to the foam tape to seal in the beads. (This was a trick I learned from Nina-Marie Trapani, to provide less friction to anything inside the shaker.)

To adhere my image panel behind my shaker, I added double-sided tape to the back piece of acetate on my shaker panel. I peeled back part of the liner paper on each strip to expose only some of the adhesive. (I got that trick from Julie Ebersole.) Then I carefully positioned the window over the image panel so the car was centered side-to-side within the window & not directly behind the greeting. I pressed the panel down so the exposed adhesive stuck to the corners of the image panel, & then carefully pulled back the remainder of the liner paper. I made sure everything stuck securely. I added a 6-1/2 x 5-1/4" kraft panel to my white card base, & finally adhered my shaker panel to the card front with tacky glue. This way I can make sure it will NOT fall off!

I'm also entering this card in the following challenges:

Allsorts Challenge #834: "Traditional Christmas Colors"
Little Red Wagon Challenge #829: "Captain's Log" (painted woodgrain pattern on the Woody car panels)
613 Avenue Create October 2025 Challenge: "Anything Goes" (not playing the optional twist)
Die Cut Divas October Challenge: "Anything Goes"
The Paper Funday October Challenge #81: "Anything Goes" (not playing the optional twist)
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: "Get Ready for Christmas"