Santas Surprise Card Front TopperCompleted by Pamela Horton The whispering Platypus

Thank you, Michelle, for this delightfully cheeky, happy, Santa jumping out of a box. This has to be every little ones joy, on opening this image, on the front of their Christmas card. I have made it even cheekier, by making part of the insert upside down. I know that this is not for everyone, but some children just love happy cheeky things.

I printed the sheet supplied 3 times, onto 200gsm card, and used one copy as the main backing sheet, and one copy for the decoupage. Using the second copy, I very carefully cut away the outer frame, by making the entry in the lower left hand corner with a diagonal cut using tiny scissors, and used my craft knife to complete the process. This gave me the frame for the insert which I set aside to use later. I then used the smaller image, and coloured the edges with a green permanent pen. I used the step by step method, and tiny padded squares to attach the smaller elements. Before I attached this to the main topper with Padded D.S. tape, I coloured the edges of the main topper with the green pen. I made a yellow backing sheet, which complemented the ribbons at the bottom of the box. I cut this at 12x 12cm and coloured the edges with the green pen before attaching the glitter gold peel off strips around the edges about 2mm in, from the green coloured edges. I used padded tape to attach the completed topper to the front of this yellow backing sheet. The next topper, I made myself, by using the word program on my computer. I used the green colour for the fonts, and wrote Merry Christmas in different fonts at font size 11, and then used copy and paste to make as many rows as filled the page. I altered the margins to have a straight left hand and the smallest margin possible. Then I altered the colour choice to red, and clicked on a few of the Merry Christmas words. I cut this at13.5 x 12.75cm and attached the yellow backing sheet with padded D.S. tape. I made a white card, which measures, 27 x 13cm, and used power tape to attach the completed topper. I used the green pen to colour the edges of the card front.

For the insert, I used a copy of the backing sheet, I had made, and cut it at 13x 12.5cm and attached it, using D.S. tape, upside down on the lower half of the inside of the card, and coloured the edges of the card with the green pen. From the third copy of the sheet provided, I cut out a section of the Santa to use in the middle of this lower half. I then altered the font size to 22, and printed off a green copy of the sentiments, I cut it at, 13 x 12.5, and attached it with D.S. tape to the top half of the inside of the card. I then used the frame that I had originally cut and set aside, to attach using D.S. tape, to the centre of this top half of the inside of the card. I love this design and will use it many times, so thank you Michelle

Pamela Horton