I have no idea why I’m still making Christmas cards, I have more than enough created for this year already, all the airmail ones are already on their way, and the local ones will be written by the end of this weekend too.  But here I sit, ideas whizzing through my mind, and I can’t resist a good challenge either.  So this afternoon, after errands, and trips to the post office, decorating the tree and getting a few more decorations out around the house, calling home to the UK and a general dust and tidy up I made time to sneak off to my craft room for a while!  A couple of the challenges are looking for Clean and Simple cards, and I was in a very CAS mood! I might give this one to some good friends of ours this year, and not put it in the box for next Christmas.

I pulled out a couple of Stampendous stamps, one never used before called Poinsettia Corner and the other, a favourite sentiment called Family Season.  I stamped the Poisettia on to a small square of card and them stamped it again on to an offcut so I could could out and decoupage the flowers.  The first stamping was done in Brilliance Cottage Ivy so it’s nice and shiny.  Actually it’s incredibly shiny, but it’s not the ink, have a look at this!

After colouring the flowers with Prisma pencils, I covered them with Versmark ink and clear embossed with Tim Holtz Holographic EP, and boy, is that ever sparkly stuff!  Haven’t seen enough sparkle yet, here, here’s another pic!!

The sentiment was embossed in JoAnn Gold EP, but now that I look at these photos I fear it’s a bit wonky!  I’ll have to stamp and emboss it again and stick it over the wonky one.  I’ll edge the new bit in TH Antique Linen, like I did with the main panel, and it’ll look like it was there all the time, lol!  I really need one of those stamp positioner things.

Card Recipe:

Card: 5″ Square Blank from a UK craft fair I went to in May ~ GinaK Pure Luxury White

Stamps: Stampendous Poinsettia Corner & Family Season

Ink: Brilliance Cottage Ivy ~ Tim Holtz Antique Linen ~ Versamark

Embellies: Tim Holtz Holographic Embossing Powder ~ JoAnn Gold Embossing Powder ~ Prisma Pencils

Tools: Fiskars Corner Rounder ~ Heat Gun

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Challenges:

Papertake Weekly ~ Anything Goes with an option of CAS

Stampendous ~ CAS Christmas

Hazel’s Christmas Challenge ~ For Someone Special

Hazel’s Christmas Extra ~ Anything Goes

Sister Act Card Challenge ~ Anything Goes

Pixies Snippets Playground ~ Use Up Your Scraps

Penny Black & More @ Allsorts ~ Traditional Christmas Colours (Red, Green and Gold)

Winter Wonderland ~ Embossing

Stampin’ For The Weekend ~ Use Some Red

Stamping Sensations ~ Free And Easy

Jingle Belles ~ Wrap Up & Link Fest

Stamp And Create ~ Anything Goes

Deep Ocean ~ Santa Is Coming To Town (Anything Christmas)

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And finally, you all know that on the first day of Christmas my true love gave me a Partridge In A Pear Tree??  Well, “My True Love” obviously doesn’t live in Michigan, as this morning we had a deer in our Pear tree!  A Whitetail doe to be precise and she spent quite a long time foraging on the ground eating up all the ornamental pears that had dropped from the tree.  Then she started reaching up into the branches, seeing if the squirrels had left any tasty morsels for her.  After that she sat on the lawn, where the sun was poking through, and chewed the cud for a good twenty minutes before wandering off.

The photo is a little blurred but she wasn’t more than 15ft from the dining room window and wasn’t bothered in the slightest that we were watching her.