So every week I plan on posting these challenge cards on Tuesday mornings, and somehow it doesn’t get done till Wednesday afternoon.  Go figure.

Anyway, I have some fun holiday cards completed in the vain hopes of actually completing the vast number of christmas cards I need to send to my ever expanding list of friends and family.  The problem with five plus moves over the past so many years is you collect friends from all over the world that you don’t want to lose from your life.  The yearly holiday card is one of the few ways I have to make sure I keep in touch with people.

My first card is actually not a christmas card, but a thanksgiving card, but I feel it may find its way into my card stash for the holidays anyway, I am that fond of it. This week Friday Mashup! was asking us to mash up both a sketch and a theme.  The sketch was the cool diagonal split one with a circle and the theme was a thankful theme.

I didn’t want to do anything too thanksgivingy (yes I know that is not a real word) cause I knew the holiday would have come and gone, so I tried for a winter theme.  As soon as I saw the frozen leaves from this old paper from my stash I knew I had exactly the direction I wanted to go.  I cut the paper on a diagonal and roughed up the edges to give it a frayed feeling.  The wood grain image came from My Favorites Things Wood You Be Mine? stamp pack.  The leaves were left over from a project I did in one of the classes at the school I volunteer at.  I’m sure they won’t look great after being shoved into an envelope, but I love how they look here.

Next we have one the holiday challenges I am extremely fond of cause they encourage us to make Christmas cards year round trying to avoid the made dash here in the weeks leading up to xmas.  This week (or three weeks as the case may actually be) Jingle Belles ask for a very open theme.  As long as it was a christmas card and we tried to pull out our holiday left overs (or left over scrapes) we were free to do as we pleased.

I pulled out some left over holiday paper from my scrape box and started there.  Both the diagonal paper and the font paper are old pages that have been living in my scrape box for possibly years upon years. I also had the black and white ribbon in my scrape ribbon container, and in hind sight I wish I hadn’t.  I don’t think it works in the end.  The circle was a left over I had not used, so I inked it up and added the sentiment.  The presents were also left over from another project and had already been colored with my Spectrum Noir markers.  The only ‘new’ item on the card was my little elf friend from My Favorite Things Elf girl stamp pack who I colored in with my Prismacolor colored pencils.  And frankly I love how her shadows came out in her cloths.

Next we have a great sketch from Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge.  They also used a great diagonal cut through the card, and here I decided to use it as two separate pages.

I loved the idea of a floral, but I don’t have a floral punch and am still hoping Santa brings me a die cutting machine this year.  The handful of floral stamps I have are not seasonal at all so that was out too.  But when I saw this sweet little girl from Penny Black Mimi’s Christmas stamp pack, I no longer wanted a floral image.  I mean trees are floral right?  (I know, the answer is no, but trees are plants)  I colored in the stamp with my Derwent watercolor pencils. (Side note, the pencils are a total cyber Monday score.  Ordered

them off of amazon for a pretty good discount in the morning, and was coloring with them shortly after my crew of children when to bed that night.  Three cheers for FREE same day shipping.)  I added some sparkle and shin from different glitter dispenser things and stamped on my sentiment (also doused with glitter).  I think she’s sweet and I’m loving my new watercolor pencils.  (side note: I’ve had a 12 pack of off name brand watercolor pencils since college.  I’ve always liked how they work, especially on small detailed projects.  I just have always wished I had more color choices and a more quality brand for years.  I’ve been holding out to get a new bigger set for a while, and I just could not pass up the sale of the Derwent.)

Finally we have Can You Case It challenge that gave us an inspiration picture this week.  They weren’t looking for colors or a theme, just an inspiration off the beautiful bobbles in the picture.  However, the colors were what got my cognitive juices flowing.

I grabbed my Recollections Merry Christmas stamp pack, and pulled the two images out.  Yes, I know an ice skating polar bear and a somewhat plain reindeer don’t really go together, but I knew I could pull the colors from the inspiration picture into these two little friendly guy.  I colored them in with my Derwent watercolor pencils (see side notes above). Then I took my old (and frankly crusty) pot of gold india ink and highlighted the antlers, skates and bells with gold and cut out the images freehand.  I cut down a piece of white card stock and mounted it on glittery gold paper.  Then I got stuck.  The images just weren’t looking good floating in a sea of white.  I pulled out the tree stamp from the same stamp pack and

knew it would look good between my friendly little guys, but DID NOT want a green tree throwing off my color scheme.  Throwing caution to the wind, I stamped out the tree and colored in the star, ornaments, and tree trunk with my Derwent and realized the tree was going to work being left white.  I added some more gold highlights to the presents and garland and called it a day.  I love how simple this card is, and yet it works.