Sweet Christmas Wishes

I have a Christmas card to share with you which I made using a fabulous Saturated Canary image. This is from the Little Darlings rubber stamp range and the image is called Candy Canes. I've seen this image coloured up several time in red and I do really love it, but I wanted to go for a soft palette, so I've gone for soft pinks and browns. The candy stripe got lost a little when I added the glossy accents over top for dimension and shine, which is a shame, as it was a nice contrast before this. But I think you still get it's white and pink stripe (right?).

I took the above shot in full sun and it has bleached out some of the detail in the image, so have included an 'indoor' shot of the card below for comparison. You can see the gorgeous papers better in the shot below. The lovely pink spot paper is from an old My Mind's Eye 6x6 paper pad called Happy Day. The lovely brown stripe paper is Maja Design, from their 'It's Christmas Time' 6x6 paper pad. I love these papers, so quintessentially Swedish! My absolute fav's! Who better to buy them from than the lovely Swede who runs Live and Love Crafts? If you haven't found this fab store yet, follow the above link. Sandy will take great care of you and all your shabby chic crafting needs! :)

The divine border die you see a hint of at each side of the image is a lovely one from Joy Crafts that I purchased a while back from Cuddly Buddly. Their price was really competitive and bonus - they post to New Zealand! So I was so happy to be able to get this gorgeous die as I've seen it on so many of my fav' crafter's makes recently and I wasn't disappointed! Cut into the gorgeous bronze sheen paper I used to mat the image and papers, I was really pleased with this die. In certain lights, you can really see the sheen on the paper too, it's really sparkly and pretty. The image below shows better the pretty sheen of this lovely bronze paper.

The pretty pink satin ribbon I used was from the lovely Hobby House treats I won from Hazel France a while back. It really is such a pretty ribbon and has a darker tone on the back which you see a hint of in the ribbon loops above. The gorgeous lace I bought a long while back and I can't recall where from, but it's a really pretty guipure lace and similar ones can be found at Wild Orchid Crafts.

I created my swirls of snow around the image using a lovely Christmas tree stamp from Lili of the Valley. The postmark was from their Grunge Christmas Postmarks set. I added a little stickles here and there for sparkle, but essentially that is pretty much the recipe! All the paper edges were distressed using Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I love working with these ink pads, they really are fab for distressing papers.

Thanks for popping in on my lil' blog today. If you happened to pop in before I finished this post (I hit the publish button instead of save! Aaargh!!) I hope you get to see the finished version. I hope your Christmas card making is going faster than mine! Snatching moments here and there, but I can see I'm going to have to fall back on some of the gorgeous Lili of the Valley pre-coloured images for some quick makes. Have an awesome day. See you all again soon. Hugs, Wends x

Challenge Entries:

A Little Bit Crafty: Christmas Cheer

I Love Promarkers: #196 ~ Anything Goes

Saturated Canary Challenge: #57 ~ Distress

Crafty Calendar Challenge: All Things Christmas

Sister Act Card Challenge: #35 ~ Anything Goes

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes

Cute Card Thursday Challenge: #297 ~ Anything Goes

Totally Gorjuss Challenge: #212 ~ Snows The Way To Go

Southern Girls Challenge Blog: Embrace Your Lumps & Bumps

A Creative Romance: Vintage Style (I tried girls, but this is about as Vintage as I get!)