The adorable penguin in the Spellbinders Snow Done Die and Stamp combo set* has really had it. She's tired, and as much as she loves the holidays, she's done. That's the sentiment embodied in this cute die set that includes an exhausted penguin, a floating iceberg, a wine glass, a spilled drink, and a water line. Along with this are three cute sentiment stamps to match the mood. 

I decided that the penguin could be a Polaroid snapshot. I created a frame by simply cutting a rectangle and then die cutting a square from the top center. 

While all my solid colored cardstock comes from the Spellbinders ColorWheel cardstock selection, I did do some ink blending on a few pieces. My penguin is made from the Anchor cardstock color and I ink blended lightly with black ink. I especially love the Fairy Tale cardstock background, where I ink blended with some Taylored Expressions Lavender Glaze ink. The polka dotted background paper behind the Polaroid is from an old My Favorite Things 6 x6" pad of background paper. 

And all the iridescent snow and snowflakes come from a bottle of "glitter" (it's more like confetti) from Michael's called Specialty Polyester Glitter White Iridescent Snowflakes by Recollections. They carry it online and in the store, and have for years. 

If you shop from the highlighted product links above, I may receive a small commission at no cost to you. It is much appreciated and helps fund my crafting. Also, any item first marked with an asterisk * was provided by an online store. Otherwise, I bought my supplies. 

Tiny stamps, like the 30 in the Here Comes Santa Claus stamp set* from Simon Says Stamp’s Joy For You release, cry out to be on tags. So I didn’t want to disappoint, and I made some tags.

For every tag, I used the Simon Says Stamp Rounded Tags nested die set. I used a piece of heavy vellum for my largest tag, stamping the sentiment in the top middle with Versamark ink. Then, I stamped my little people about half an inch above the bottom of the tag. Then, I carefully scribbled on the bottom of the tag with an embossing ink pen, like Ranger’s Letter It Clear Pens, to make the snowy ground. I poured on my Brutus Monroe Alabaster ultra fine embossing powder and heat set it all. Now I needed a background. I took a piece of Spellbinders Indigo ColorWheel Cardstock and die cut it to make the identical shaped tag. I used Art Impressions Snowflake Dies and die cut several snowflakes from white cardstock. I glued them to the indigo cardstock and then put the vellum tag on top of it, only connecting the two with twine.

The rest of my tags used Neenah Smooth Desert Storm 80lb cardstock. I stamped with inks including VersaFine Clair Nocturne ink, VersaFine Clair Pinecone ink, Concord & 9th Pistachio ink, and Concord & 9th Eucalyptus ink. I used my Gelly Roll pens to dot on some snowflakes. Finally, I attached twine I found in my stash to finish these off. Very simple tags for when you are in a hurry.

The first time I saw the Here Comes Santa Claus stamp set* from Simon Says Stamp’s Joy For You release, I immediately thought “what an ideal stamp set for Waffle Flower’s Postage Collage die set.” These 30 tiny stamps could not be better suited to create little vignettes inside each postage square.

I started by die cutting heavy white cardstock with that same Postage Collage die. Next, I wanted to do a very simple sky and ground image in each square. I literally traced the edge of a masking tape roll on a piece of scrap paper, hand cut it to get a big circle, and used that as my stencil to make my snowy hills.

Before ink blending my sky, I laid down one of the Waffle Flower Postage Collage Stencils (it has the individual blocks on it) and then held my handcut circle down on top of that. I used my Waffle Flower Shader 1+ blending brushes and ink blended Concord & 9th Lakefront ink in each square to get my 6 skies. Then, using my MISTI and VersaFine Clair Nocturne ink, I stamped my little scenes into each square (so fun!). I also stamped my sentiment in one of the squares as it fit so well there.

I wanted to see snow, so I used Sakura Classic White Gelly Roll Medium Point Pens in sizes 05 and 08 and carefully dotted on snow where I wanted it.

To finish out the postage look and feel, I did 2 more things. I stenciled the striped border using another two stencils from the same set of Waffle Flower Postage Collage Stencils. I used the same Lakefront ink and then a shade from Stampin’ Up! called Berry Burst. An ideal substitute for this color would be Altenew’s Magenta ink.

I also heat embossed two Waffle Flower Postage Collage stamps onto Spellbinders Mulberry ColorWheel cardstock. The embossing powder is Brutus Monroe’s Alabaster ultra fine embossing powder. I die cut the little stamped images (from Postage Collage Stamps) using dies from Postage Collage and Postage Collage Blocks dies.

I sandwiched a piece of Spellbinders Blue Spruce ColorWheel cardstock between my stamped panel and my back A2 striped panel. I used thin foam adhesive under the postage panel.

I was really happy with how this turned out.

I stamped on each star, using my MISTI, using Concord & 9th Rainforest ink, Altenew Dark Night ink, and Altenew Plum ink. Then I carefully ink blended around the edges of each star with the same ink using my Waffle Flower Shader 1+ blending brushes.

I took a small piece of my leftover Vanilla Malt cardstock and dry embossed it with the Simon Says Stamp Tiny Tufts Embossing Folder. I cut it to be about 1.5” x 5.25”. I took another small piece and stamped the Many Blessings sentiment with the Dark Night ink. I took a small scrap of navy blue cardstock and cut both it and the sentiment into rhomboid shapes and glued them together.

I took my cardbase and cut off about 1” of the top flap. Then I glued on a strip (about 1/4”) of matte gold cardstock on the edge of that. Again, I’ve had mine awhile, but it seems identical to the Simon Says Stamp Matte Gold Cardstock. I also glued my dry embossed strip of cardstock to the back flap, so it showed at the front.

Next, based on an arrangement I had figured out before I started stamping, I adhered all the stars onto the cut front flap using Simon Says Stamp Black Foam Adhesive Squares. I trimmed down the stars on every edge (not easy on the right side since they were not hanging off the edge). I glued down the sentiment onto my largest star.

Finally, I added some Pinkfresh Studio Metallic Pearls in Matte Gold. I love matte gold at Christmas.

If you shop from the highlighted product links above, I may receive a small commission at no cost to you. It is much appreciated and helps fund my crafting. Also, any item first marked with an asterisk * was provided by an online store. Otherwise, I bought my supplies.

I cut my front A2 panel from the Cranberry cardstock, and also die cut a 3.5” square.

I lined up where my big square would sit on my A2 panel and stamped my “Here Comes Santa Claus” sentiment below that in Versamark ink. I heat embossed that with the Gold Rush embossing powder.

Next, I stamped 9 images from the stamp set (which has a whopping 30 images on it) onto a piece of Cranberry cardstock using Versamark embossing ink. I applied the Gold Rush embossing powder and embossed with my heat gun. I did 4-5 images at a time like this.

Next, using the smallest square die (1 inch square) from the
Simon Says Stamp Artful Palette die set, I die cut all 9 images.

The hard part was getting the grid with the 9 squares adhered to the 3.5” square just right. I tried all sorts of ways that were way too tedious. Finally, I just measured where my 1” square center image would go on my big square and marked where the edges of the small square would land. Next, using foam adhesive and liquid glue to give me some wiggle time, I adhered that center square. Then I just eyeballed about 1/16” and used a T-square to line up all my other small squares and adhered them.

I also used foam adhesive to adhere my big square to my A2 panel with the gold embossed sentiment. I decided to skip any embellishments and just let the imagery and the colors shine. I have a brief video on this on my Instagram reels.

If you shop from the highlighted product links above, I may receive a small commission at no cost to you. It is much appreciated and helps fund my crafting. Also, any item first marked with an asterisk * was provided by an online store. Otherwise, I bought my supplies. 

Christmas time can be joyous and wonderful, and also exhausting, especially for moms. Moms often end up being the chief planner, cook, maid, gift buyer, decorator, hostess, and peace maker during the holiday season. Spellbinders new Merry Mayhem collection reflects this kind of exhaustion that many of us feel, sometimes before December has even begun. 

I used the Snow Done die set along with the Joy-ish stamp set to make a simple shaker card. All my cardstock is from Spellbinders ColorWheel cardstock pack of 48. 

I doubled the foam tape I used behind my front panel, die cut using Essential Arches die set, to make room for the thickness of my penguin and iceberg die cuts as well as my sequin mix.