Jingle Belles "Banish the Blues" challenge

The current challenge @ Jingle Bells is to create a Christmas card without using the color blue.  This was a perfect challenge to use my new WPlus9 wreath stamp set and my favorite Christmas color combination of red and green. 

 

I haven't done much layered stamping, but using the Misti stamping tool made it much easier than I thought!  I stamped the wreath in four layers, with two shades of green, kraft for the branches and red for the berries.  I outlined the edges of the cut out circle with an embossing pen, then embossed with gold embossing powder. 

 

It's a pretty simple card, but I really like the classic look.  Thanks for the challenge, Jingle Belles!

Warm holiday wishes - Nordic style

This card was inspired by the Very Trendy Holiday class from Catherine Pooler @ Stamp Nation.  I used the Fair Isle Background stamp set from WPlus9 Designs for the background, and an older stamp (unknown mfgr) for the sentiment. 

 

I really love that background stamp set and can see this one being used on a lot of winter & Christmas scrapbook pages and cards. 

I'm entering this in the current challenge (no patterned paper)  @ Christmas Cards All Year Round and at Holly Jolly Christmas (tic tac toe challenge - I used rhinestones, ribbon and die cut tags)

A Pocketful of Thanks!

My friend Leslie is the Guest Designer this week over at the Mod Squad Challenge Blog, so I wanted to play along with her challenge.  The challenge is to use hand cutting on your project - no diecuts allowed.  Here's my card for the challenge:

 

I used stamps from WPlus9 on this card, stamping the flowers and sentiment directly on the white cardstock.  The jeans pocket was stamped on white cardstock, and then I cut around the image and mounted it with some foam tape.  The flowers were inked with Butter Bar ink from Hero Arts, and then I inked around the edges of the flower stamp with Pale Tomato ink from Hero arts, to get the shaded effect on the flowers.

 

I'm also entering this in the Sentimental Sundays "Flowery Springtime" challenge