I have a lovely pink poinsettia on my desk, and it’s inspired me to make a variety of Christmas cards with pink poinsettias. Life here has been much busier than usual. We no longer eat in restaurants, but we are seeing friends here and in their homes since we’re all vaccinated and boosted. It’s so much better than last year, even with the Omicron variant hanging over our heads. And it’s making the holiday much more fun that it was a year ago. Nonetheless, Instagram and blogging have fallen by the wayside for the last week. But now that I know this card has safely arrived in my friend’s hands, I can share it here on the blog. 

This card was made specifically for a blogging friend who loves all things pink. It was another one of the cards I put together with dies that had been cut last year, but not used. The poinsettia is from Papertrey Ink’s “Modern Gift Card” set which I layered onto a lighter pink circle die cut with Simon Says’ “Stitched Circle” die and a gold circle frame from the Ellen Hutson “Essentials: Circles” dies. 

The sentiment is from a new Christmas set by Penny Black, ” Happy & Bright,” and it’s my favorite new sentiment set. I’ve used it over and over, both on the fronts of cards as well as the inside sentiments.

I’m entering this in two challenges: The Flower Challenge (a fave that I’ve neglected for far too long,) and Addicted to Stamping and More, a newer challenge for me.

I’m a fan of women’s collegiate basketball, and have been following the Connecticut Huskies for over 25 years now. There was a televised game Friday night, and I decided I’d like to make a card while I listened and occasionally watched the game. It wasn’t a nail biter, so it was easy to craft and just listen.

I keep a list of current challenges on my Notes app, and looked through to see if I could find a couple of challenges that might work well together. I started with the Color Throwdown Challenge: silver, pink, and white. Then I saw Cécile’s sketch on Freshly Made Sketches and knew I could use some of my previously die cut poinsettias for the card. This morning I discovered that the new Flower Challenge: Christmas certainly fits the bill as well.

Just recently, I took a pile of poinsettias I had die cut last year from Papertrey Ink’s “Modern Gift Card” dies and colored and assembled them. The starting point for the card were the white and pink poinsettias, and for the Color Throwdown Challenge, choosing a card base was easy—it had to be silver. 

To match the sketch, I pulled out an already die cut circle, and added two silver glittery holly leaves cut from a new Simon Says die set, ” Christmas Foliage.”

I used some silver gems from Paper Studio for the centers of the flowers. The sentiment was embossed in silver on a narrow strip of black cardstock with a sentiment from Avery Elle’s 
“Seasonal Simple Sentiments.”

I love when everything comes together so nicely. It doesn’t often happen, but I’m quite fond of the sketch and happy with the card!

Over the weekend I sat down with a pile of designs I had die cut last year and some ephemera from my scrapbooking days to see how many Christmas cards I could make. I ended up with ten, some of which I’ll share soon. Today I want to share one of my favorites that was such a challenge to photograph. It’s a beautiful gold snowflake that came in a package of ephemera with a kit, perhaps one of the Christmas Journal kits. I used several of the pieces from that kit on my cards, but this one won me over with its simplicity. 

So I’m entering it in the Time Out Challenge where the inspiration quote focuses on simplicity as well as the CAS on Friday Challenge where the theme is “Winter.” 

Here’s the card. I have no idea who manufactured the snowflake. The beautiful sentiment from Penny Black’s “Happy & Bright” was gold embossed on a cream card.

The challenge was to photograph the card so that you could see the shine to the snowflake. After multiple tries, I finally leaned it on an angle. It’s actually much brighter in the photograph than in real life but there didn’t see to be any middle ground.

It turned out that the challenge in posting the card was much greater than the creating the card for the challenges!

There’s a great Color Throwdown Challenge now:  navy, gold, and white. I knew right away that I’d love working with that combination, and I did. Photographing that navy, however, proved to be more of a challenge than I expected. Here’s a mini slimline card that could be a Christmas card or a winter birthday card.

I chose a Concord & 9th Midnight cardstock for the card base and layered two snowflakes, one gold and one white die cut from My Favorite Things “Stylish Snowflakes.”

The sentiment, from Penny Black, is a new one I picked up at Ellen Hutson’s birthday sale called “When Snow Falls.” I expect to use it frequently for birthdays in January and February. Lots of fun “snow” sentiments but some lovely ones referencing winter as well.

Along with the Color Throwdown Challenge, I’m entering this in the My Favorite Things Slimline Challenge which asks for mini slimlines this time around. They’re becoming a favorite of mine, so I may be back with some more since the challenge runs until mid-December.