I am back with some more of my personal holiday hop around the internet.  There are just so many fun xmas challenges going on that I can’t help but participate.

Up first is another tag from Ellen Hutson’s The Classroom 12 Days of Christmas Tags with a feminine twist.  I am still catching up, so here is Day 3 of the challenge using Foil.

Now, I am not normally a bit foil user, and frankly only have one type of foil in my house, so I pulled out my package of Tim Holtz Foil Tape sheets and added some foil to the entire surface of a Ranger Tag.  I then ran the tag through a Darice holiday embossing folder in my Big shot.  I then pulled out some shabby shutters Distress Paint, and painted in the christmas tree and used frayed burlap for the trunk.  I snagged some Ranger liquid pearls in white and filled in the garland and tree topper.  Finally I grabbed my red Stickles and added them to the ornaments.  Finally I added a small to/from sentiment in StazOn.  I added some green satin ribbon to the hole and left everything else alone.  I wish you could see how shiny this tag really ended up.

Up next is a fun card from Muse.  This week the inspiration card by Anita Bowden is so very fun.  I choose to use the sketch of this card inside my own holiday card.

I pulled out a stitched die from Paper Smooches, and created that fun ripple design from the muse card.  I then took a tree die from hampton art and die cut a tree where the butterfly was in the sketch.  I quickly colored in the die cut tree and added a red garland stamp to it from the same stamp pack.  I took out a Hero Arts sentiment and stamped out the sentiment above the sketch lines.  I used a bit of dimensional tape to the under card to pop it up and added the tree back into the empty space.  Finally I added a bunch of crystals to the card to give it just a bit of sparkle.  I kept the card really simple, but I think in the end it had the same flow as the muse card.

Finally today we have a challenge from the team over at Fusion Card Challenge.  This week I didn’t fuse my design, and instead just used that amazing inspiration photo.  There was something just so inviting and warm in that photo.

Ironically, I choose to use a winter scene, but I feel it really connected to the inspiration photo.  I started by stamping and heat embossing some My Favorite Things snowflakes and a hampton art sentiment in clear embossing powder.  Then I rubbed some stormy sky Distress ink onto the card, highlighting the snow flakes.  I trimmed the side of the card off and added some twinkling glitter paper to the side to give it that holiday feel.  Finally I added some red and gold crystals to the card just to give it a little something extra.

I’m not certain anyone else will understand how the photo really inspired this card, but to me the photo just screams staying inside and warm during the snowfall of the holidays.

That’s it for now, but I promise I will be back with more from my Holiday Hop.