A Christmas Challenge

I have come across a couple of blogs lately that have Christmas challenges, now you might think that it is too early to be doing Christmas cards in February.  I thought the same until I realised that if I made a card or two a week I would have all my Christmas cards finished ready to post by the end of November.  As well as making the cards I am addressing the envelopes and putting the card inside that way there is an even better chance that the people on my Christmas mailing list will actually see a card this year - many missed out last year because Christmas crept up on me all too fast.

This is my first entry in the Merry Monday Challenge, and I thought it was a good way to feature the DSP from this year's catalogue.  I also left it a bit late to enter the challenge so wanted a nice quick card with not too much stamping, and that I achieved nicely!  The stamped sentiment is from Four the Holidays, and I have blinged the card up a bit with a Red Glimmer Paper ornament punched with the ornament punch.  I took this photo and decided it needed something else to give it a bit of a lift, so ...

I added a small bow from the 1/8" Old Olive ribbon which I attached with a Glue Dot, and I may add a couple of rhinestones on the DSP ornaments.  Now to write the envelope and tick the first name off my Christmas Card List!!!

I am going to try and join in each week with this challenge and get my Christmas Card stack built up over the year ... wish me luck!

Happy Stamping

I'm Feeling Blue - In A Good Way!

The colour combo on Hand Stamped Sentiments this week just caught my eye and I knew I had to do an entry, I still can't believe that there was a time that I didn't like Not Quite Navy or Baja Breeze!!! Now I love them and  put together with Crumb Cake and Marina Mist - yummy.  The layout is from Crazy 4 Challenges, and I liked the simplicity of this one, allowing the stamped image to really stand out on the card.

This is the first time I have inked up any of the images from the Sale-A-Bration set you can earn for FREE - Elementary Elegance.  I think it goes really well with the Extreme Elements set and so I used that for the gold crown in the centre of the image, as well as to stamp the back ground of the main card and the two strips of card behind the main image.  The sentiment is also from Elementary Elegance and I just love the script they have used on this set, the sentiment does fit inside the main image but I wanted to stick with the layout and am happy with the result.

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Stamping

Every Moment

I just love the picture for Friday Mashup this week, isn't he just a cutie?  Sadly I didn't have any penguins to add to my layout so I just did the spotlighting technique on my card.  The sketch came from Freshly Made Sketches challenge - I have to say these are two of my favourite challenge sites and it was nice to be able to do a card that fit with both two weeks in a row!

I haven't inked up my Every Moment stamp set in a while, but knew I wanted to do so for this card.  I was initially going to use the little bird stamp from the set, but changed my mind and used him on another card I will put up later in the week. I love masking and layering the flowers in this set, I keep the masks stuck to the top of the stamp set container because they are fiddly to cut out, but well worth it don't you think?  I used Daffodil Delight and Wild Wasabi, not a combo I use often, in fact I don't use these colours often at all but the did fit with this card.  I added a little Vellum butterfly with some pearls - I have only just recently purchased the card stock weight Vellum and am really happy with it for projects like this as it is more robust.

Happy Stamping