Happy post Thanksgiving everyone.  I hope for those of you here in the states that celebrate, that your day was filled with friends, family and fun.  Our certainly was.  And for those all over the world, may your day and days to come be filled with the same.

This year’s Thanksgiving maybe one of our most relaxing Thanksgivings in eleven years of marriage.  We had friends that were more like family here at the house, and despite there being nine children between the ages of four and ten, and seven adults, the day was surprisingly calm.  We all however at too much.  Anyway, I digress.

So I find myself behind despite having had a little time to do what I please and the schedule at the stand still.  It is hard to sit down and work when the kids are all snuggly on the couch watching a movie.  I just find myself gravitating to the sticky warmth that are my offspring.

I have also been knocking out a bunch of canvases, and I have found I have enough canvases that I am working on another one while the paint dries.  I have certainly missed several challenge deadlines, and that is fine, but I am still bummed.  I really do get a kick out of seeing what I can come up with both good and bad with someone else’s guide line.  The good news was that most of the challenges I really like to dive into took the holiday week off.  However, I have had a serious stand still in my christmas card progression.  So back to work.

While I was away snuggling in the warm of my children, I missed, that two of my cards were picked at spotlight cards on two different challenges.  I have gone ahead and put the badges up in my post Friday Morning Challenges if you want to see the cards.

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So one of the deadlines I missed this week while digesting turkey was Sweet Sunday Sketch card challenge.  However, they are one of the few groups that leave the ability to link up after the fact.  And I really liked this card, so I just couldn’t help myself.  And they sketch they used was super cool and detailed.  I always when there are lots of layers to a sketch, so how could I resist.

I remember when I was a kid getting in what felt like millions of Christmas cards every year.  I sure it wasn’t that many, seeing as my parents don’t really have that big of a social circle, but it always felt like our house was bursting over with Christmas Cards.  And my favorite were always the ones that looked like they came out of another time and place.  Cards that looked aged with time and love.  So that is what I have tried to do here.  I don’t think I quite got what I was going to for, but I was close.  It does feel like it dropped in from days gone by.

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Always Playing With Paper had the perfect challenge this week.  They asked for a Christmas card.  Otherwise they gave free reigns to the card maker to design as they choose.  I however was motivated by the festive colors in the inspiration picture so I went with it.

I have been wanting to try this technique I have been seeing around the web for a while and this card seemed like the perfect chance to try it.  I stamped this wreath image from Inkadinkado Evergreen Holiday stamp pack in Archival jet black ink.  Then I took my Distress Stamps in festive berries and pine needles and re-inked the image.  I spritzed the image with a little water and then re-stamped and let the color run a little.  I put on the sentiment, and realized the card was just too white.  So I took my tea dye Distress Ink and blended the edges with some color to take away the crisp white.  I also took the festive berries and blended color onto the edges of the base card.  I think this card also had a look of the days of old, and kind of
wish I had left the gems off of it in hind sight.  I do love how the distress ink bleed around the wreath giving the images a crisp image and yet a soft look at the same time.

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Now comes my weekly struggle and wonderful personal challenge with Freshly Made Sketches.  This is the group that really wants to see clean and simple cards and the sketch is certainly that.  Clean and simple.  The challenge is always making things interesting and staying within the guidelines.  And, why you ask, do I keep coming back to a challenge group that I find difficult and at times frustrating?  Well, it is simple.  The difficulty and frustration I feel is mine thing and not their fault, firstly, and secondly, it makes me better.  Doing what is hard always makes me better in the end.  And working clean and simple for me is hard.  And working clean and simple teaches me more than doing what I love most, making a mess.

Anyway, I still do not have the ability to punch out or die cut a snow flake (dropping major hints to the hubby for a die cutting machine for xmas), so the snow flake image was completely out.  When I found this little image of the angle from Paper Smooches A Blessed Christmas stamp pack, I found exactly what I was looking for.  She had all the angels and sharp edges that eluded to a snowflake feel, and I could cut her out by hand.  I colored her in with my Spectrum Noir markers, and added gold india ink to her wings, halo, and horn.  I added a scrape of glitter paper, the sentiment, the sequins, and called it a day.  And I knew I wanted to keep things white with the background, cause it is so hard for me to keep things white.  In fact it is so hard to keep things white, that I rubbed white wink of stella glitter all over the white.  (Yes, I failed to keep it simple, but the card does sparkle.)  But I like her, white back ground and all.

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Finally today, I have a simple little card from ‘Tis the Season.  They have provided us with a sketch this week.  I think they were looking for a picture in the small box, and clearly a sentiment under it, but I was feeling a little ornery, so I inverted it.

I have a thousand and one old 12×12 pieces of holiday paper from ten years ago when I was making all my babies scrapbooks.  I have made a promise to myself that I can’t have anymore paper until I kill my current stock, so I forced myself into the holiday paper bin and pulled this simple gift page.  As soon as I saw the simple little presents on the paper, I knew I just had to use my sentiment stamp from Funny Bones.  A couple of strips of glittery paper and a stamped image of a gift colored in with my Spectrum Noir markers and I have a simple little card that made me smile.  My husband even teased me and said that it must be my Christmas card since I always tell him if he doesn’t know what to get me I’ll just by my own present.  (Somehow he always comes up with the perfect gift.  I think it is because he loves me.)

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Well, that’s three more cards down, and I think I am back on track with things so I don’t have that feeling that I am behind.  Nice to know I can take a few days off and be right back on schedule.