Happy Kiss-mas card

Firstly, thank you all so very much for the positive comments about those embossed cards yesterday - and also for the tips and pointers about the wedding stationery. Bubbles even emailed me with some thoughts. You're all so helpful - that's what's so great about crafting and blogging :) Hetty Wainthropp had a successful trip to the wedding fayre (no hidden cameras were involved) - and this week it's 'wagons roll' on a few ideas I'd already had. Yesterday's reconnoitre (sneaked the big word in!)  did confirm some of my thoughts, which is a great relief.

On WOYWW I had the makings of today's Christmas card in a little basket, all goodies gathered together. This is the result:

It definitely works for me to pull stuff together - before even colouring an image. There seems to be less angst in the long run :)

I love this Penny Black stamp featuring two of my favourite creatures - a hedgie plus a robin, bought recently 'pre-loved' from another crafter. It's so worthwhile looking out for things, especially stamps, on the blogs you follow and of course e-Bay. Just don't dither like I sometimes do if you spot something you'd really like - else someone else will likely beat you to it!

I'll list what I used below - but this is the first time I've used one of the poinsettias I took apart and covered with Twinklets. I did show about these not so long ago, and Bev Rochester has a great tutorial on how to do them - good fun and quite therapeutic. I snipped off the green leaves layer at the back though before adding the flowers to the card - the green just clashed. And, I made two cards almost the same - just slightly changing the colouring of the hedgies scarf and the scalloped oval behind the image. Another two for the box - a few simpler ones are called for to speed things up, but I did love putting all the bits in this card together :)

I used:

- Penny Black 'Wishes for Kisses' stamp, coloured with Pro Markers, and a little dot of Opal coloured Liquid Pearls on the mistletoe berry :)

- image and backing oval cut using Nesties dies. The backing scalloped oval was cut from a Dovecraft Noel Pad

- papers on the card itself are from an Echo Park 'Seasons Greetings' paper pad, some really lovely papers in this set :)

- hard to spot but there is some dark cream broiderie-anglais ribbon, threaded with dark red seam binding, tied into a bow. I found the seam binding in a rummage box in either Hobbycraft or my local haberdashery shop - yards and yards of it for £1

- the sentiment is an Elzybells one

That's my offering on this dull and overcast Monday morning - I'm off out later to scout round HC as my first port of call for aubergine paper/card!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

My Mum's Craft Shop - All Creatures Great and Small

Scrapbook Sisters #55 - Christmas Flowers

Christmas Inspirations - Birds or flowers ( this card has both a bird and a flower - but a few other entries do too so maybe it qualifies OK)

I've just spied a new follower - Patchezzie - I can't see a blog but welcome to the Crafty Workshop! I seem to be moving towards 100 followers, and that's gonna have to be candy time to celebrate :))

Have a nice Monday!

Di
x