Sparkles Monthly Challenge ~ Use Your Favourite Christmas Colours

Hello All – Back again with the December edition of Sparkles Monthly Challenge and this time we’d like to see you use your favourite Christmas colours.

We have two sponsors again this month, first up is a bundle of digi stamps from DeeDee’s Designs

And we also have a stamp set from

My favourite colours for Christmas cards are red and turquoise, but oddly enough, you won’t find anything in this colour scheme in my house at any time of the year, and I’m very traditional when it comes to my Christmas decorations too.  But I do love this combo, especially on a card.

I used a LOTV stamp called Squirrel Snack, I got it last Christmas but this is it’s first outing!  I coloured it with Prisma pencils and added Stickles Crystal Glitter to the snowbank, coloured the sock, blue spruce branches, hair bow and stripey mitts with a Sakura Gelly Roll glitter pen; and finally, added Glossy Accents to her glasses.  That all shows up better in the next photo.

The papers are offcuts of digi papers, the stamping card is from GinaK, the blue backing card is from the scrap box and everything was edged with Tim Holtz ink in Festive Berries.

The die is Memory Box and it was also cut out of scrap card.  The sentiment was free with a UK card magazine eons ago, it was stamped in Versmagic Red Magic ink and cut out.  The little bow came form a package of stationery and there is one tiny red gem on the sentiment to make it look like a tag.

So, only 10 days til the big day, are you ready??!

Crafty Hazel’s Mid-Month Reminder – December

So, here we are, the last mid month reminder for this year for Crafty Hazel’s Christmas Extra Challenge, and also my last post for Hazel as a DT member.  I’ve had a brilliant year playing with the fantastic images from Bugaboo and proved to myself that I can colour in digi images printed on an inkjet printer with Prismacolor pencils and blending fluid.

Anyway, mid December, and I hope you’re over the panic and making things for the box for next year now. No?  Well, better crack on then!  As always we’re generously sponsored by Jodi at Bugaboo Stamps.

I chose the funny Make It Snappy – Merry Christmoose for this card.  It’s easy to colour, very funny and co-ordinates with lots of different papers.  It’s a great choice for quick cards or a production run of cards.

The paper is old school DCWV, the snowflake was in an old pack of embellishments from Michaels from years ago and the blue backing card came out of the scrapbox.  I coloured the image with Prisma pencils and covered the Christmas lights with Glossy Accents.  After this pic was taken I also covered the eyes too because they just look so crazy and goggle-eyed.  I wish I’d thought of doing that before I took the pic!

Sparkles Christmas Challenge ~ Use Die Cuts

Morning All – Well, December is finally here and we have the last challenge of the year at Sparkles Christmas and it’s sure to be a popular one.  Before we get to my project there’s some housekeeping to be done, as always, the winners and Top3 of our last challenge have been posted at the blog; and we have two fantastic sponsors again for this month:

A $10 voucher from Di

And a wonderful stamp set from

I used a lot of freebies on my project this month.  Both the embossing folder and the Partridge In A Pear Tree die were free with UK craft magazines.  The Joy text die is from Memory Box.

Another very flat project from me, it’s a pity that we have to think about such things really.  The pale blue is Bazzil card and I have to say I was very impressed with the way the free folder embossed, the detail is really good.  The Partridge die was cut out twice and offset, and again the quality is much higher than I was expecting, the gold cut is particularly impressive as it’s on thicker mirri card.

This is our last challenge now until the New Year so I hope you’ve been playing along with us, and other challenges, to get all your cards made in time.  Getting them written and in the post though is something that we can’t help you with, lol, and I could do with a bit of help in that direction too! Chin, chin.