Dapper Nutcrackers

Hello Crafters! I have been having fun creating high impact Holiday cards with the new Big Mouth Nutcracker Die Set. Today I will be showing you how I added texture to our Nutcracker clothing and what I did when I didn't have any skin colored cardstock. Per usual, I have several examples to share with you today.

I started this project by pulling all the cardstock I wanted to use. I used Hero Arts Pine, Shamrock, Cherry and Cranberry, Pitch Black, Deluxe White, Charcoal, and Spellbinders Chiffon. I also used some Silver and Gold scraps. But I didn't have any Skin toned paper so I made my own with Cocoa and Coffee liquid watercolors. I did a wet on wet technique on Luxe White watercolor paper trimmed down to A2 panels.

While my water color panels dried, I started on the clothing. I used cling stamps on each panel of red and green cardstock. I went with a tone on tone look using Cranberry and Pine inks. The cling stamps I used are Abstract Poinsettia, Snowflake Mosaic, Seaside Stripe, and the City Center. Then I die cut the jacket, hat, shoulder pads, and hat rim from the stamped panels. I did make sure that my jacket and hat was evenly centered on the paper and did some light ink blending on the edges of the clothing pieces. I also die cut all the other pieces of the nutcracker 4 times. When I assembly line produce cards, I like to do them similar but not exact copies so I did Charcoal and Pitch Black for hair on two Nutcrackers but most of the other facial feature were all done the same. I also die cut the jacket and hat embellishments from silver and gold.

Now I was ready to assemble the panels! I use Precision glue to adhere everything down. I like to layout my four watercolor panels and then give every panel a jacket, a hat, hair, and the clothing embellishments. Basically, everything but the facial features since those are all exactly the same. Then I stack them up and start gluing.

I start with the jacket and hat and then add hair because it gives me an idea of where the face will go. I lined up the bottom row of teeth with the bottom of his hair line but you really can't go wrong. I also didn't want to mess with lining up teeth so I used the negative piece from the teeth to glue them down. That is why they are spaced out a bit more. In the end this was faster and I think it still looks good. They are Nutcrackers, they are whimsical! The have dapper clothing and gaps in their teeth!

I glued all the pieces on, including the silver and gold embellishments and that was it! Four fun Holiday cards complete! I hope you all are having as much fun as I am with this Big Mouth Nutcracker die. I can't wait to see what themed Nutcrackers you all create!