A Jolly Santa Christmas Card with Specialty Cardstock

Santa is here, and he's bringing some serious holiday cheer! 🎅 The November My Monthly Hero Kit: Jolly Holiday features the adorable Big Santa Die Set, and we're giving this jolly fellow the spotlight he deserves with a festive 5" x 7" Christmas card. With his rosy cheeks, happy little smile, and shiny red suit, this Santa is ready to spread some Christmas magic!

The best part? This card is surprisingly simple to create! The secret is in the paper. By combining different finishes of Spellbinders Treasured Cardstock, we've added beautiful shine, texture, and dimension to each piece of Santa's outfit. A few thoughtful details make this cheerful design extra special.

PROJECT SNAPSHOT

The Big Santa Die Set is one of the stars of November's My Monthly Hero Kit, and it's easy to see why! His oversized design makes an adorable focal point for holiday cards, and all the individual die-cut pieces come together to create one very jolly Santa.

You can absolutely use individual pieces of Santa on a standard A2-sized card. His sweet face, oversized beard, or festive hat would be adorable on their own. But for this project, we went BIG with a 5" x 7" card to show off the entire Santa!

Just imagine the smile on someone's face when they open their envelope and find this big, happy fellow waiting inside!

What really makes this Santa shine is the cardstock! Every piece of Santa was die cut using Spellbinders Treasured Cardstock, a collection of specialty paper packs featuring beautiful finishes that add something extra to your handmade projects.

Each assorted pack includes five different finishes in one coordinating color family, with three sheets of each finish for a total of 15 sheets. The assortment includes glitter, matte metallic, brushed metallic, pearl metallic, and mirror metallic finishes, giving you plenty of ways to play with color, shine, and texture.

The collection features gorgeous color families including gold, silver, rose gold, white, red, and blue, along with additional specialty shades.

For this card, we mixed and matched finishes to give each part of Santa its own special look.

Here's What We Used for Santa:

• Gold Assorted Pack – Matte Metallic: Santa's shiny gold belt buckle.

• Antique White Assorted Pack – Matte Metallic: His oversized beard, mustache, and eyebrows. This soft finish gives his facial features a beautiful, subtle sheen.

• Antique White Assorted Pack – Brushed Metallic: The trim on Santa's coat and hat, adding a lovely contrast to the other white pieces.

• Ruby Assorted Pack – Pearl Metallic: Santa's bright red coat and hat. The pearlescent finish catches the light beautifully!

• Onyx Assorted Pack – Mirror Metallic: His boots, mittens, belt, and eyes. The glossy black finish adds just the right amount of contrast and shine.

• Rose Gold Assorted Pack – Matte Metallic & Pearl Metallic: Santa's face, nose, and mouth, giving him a warm, rosy complexion.

One of our favorite things about these specialty papers is how beautifully the different finishes work together. The soft sheen of his beard contrasts with the glossy black belt, while the pearl red suit has a gorgeous glow. Even the tiny gold buckle catches the light!

Photos really don't do these papers justice. It's difficult to capture all the different finishes and their beautiful reflective qualities in a photograph. In person, the combination of textures adds so much interest and dimension to this simple design.

And that's what makes Treasured Cardstock so much fun! You don't need complicated techniques or lots of embellishments to create something special. Sometimes the paper does all the work!

With Santa all dressed up and ready to go, we wanted a background that would complement his shiny suit without competing for attention.

We started with a piece of Chiffon ColorWheel Cardstock, a soft pink that pairs beautifully with Santa's classic red outfit. Then we added a little snowy magic using White Acrylic Speckle Ink.

Here's how to create the background:

• Start with Chiffon cardstock cut to fit your 5" x 7" card front.

• Splatter White Acrylic Speckle Ink across the cardstock using a fan paintbrush. A fan brush works especially well for covering larger backgrounds with a nice scattering of speckles.

• Allow the ink to dry completely. The speckles create a slightly raised texture that looks like tiny falling snowflakes.

• Round the corners of your card panel for a soft, finished look.

The white speckles are subtle, but they add just enough texture and interest to the background. We love how they complement the different finishes of Santa's cardstock!

No Santa card would be complete without a cheerful "Ho Ho Ho!"

For the finishing touch, we used the Ho Ho Ho Cover Plate Die, included in the November My Monthly Super Hero Kit, to add little red letters around Santa.

Rather than using the entire cover plate design, we used individual letters to create three playful "HO" greetings around our jolly fellow. It's a fun way to stretch your dies and add a little extra holiday cheer!

This project is a wonderful reminder that a simple card can still make a big impression! The Big Santa Die Set brings all the personality, while the beautiful Treasured Cardstock finishes add the shine.

Here are a few more ideas to try with your own Big Santa:

• Mix up the finishes! Try glitter cardstock for Santa's hat or mirror metallic for his belt buckle.

• Change his expression. Experiment with the different eye options to give Santa a whole new personality.

• Make a mini Santa. Use his face and beard as the focal point of an A2-sized card.

• Add a greeting to his beard. Pair Santa with a sentiment from the Christmas Cheer Stamp & Cut set, also included in November's My Monthly Hero Kit.

• Try a different color palette. Santa would be adorable in pink, blue, or even a sparkly white suit!

We hope this jolly Santa inspires you to pull out your favorite specialty papers and have a little fun mixing textures and finishes. Sometimes it's those tiny details that make a handmade card feel extra magical!