Happy Christmas To All

Hi there everybody.  I know the Christmas celebrations are well on their way by now, and due to my business before Christmas I am late in showing the last few cards which haven't appeared here.  Apart from this card for my DH, there are just a few hybrid cards and one I sent overseas which haven't been shown, and hopefully as the week progresses these will make an appearance.  In case you are wondering what the hybrid cards are all about, they were some which I made with toppers from cards which were sent to us, and I thought might be good to use with some things of my own making, to recycle rather than waste.  This card though is new from beginning to end.

I did ponder a bit before making this card, as having been so busy this month this was quite last minute and the mojo has been suffering a bit, but I have this Sweet Dixie die which I got from The Range and I thought it deserved an outing, so I cut if from a snippet of white card and coloured it with my Distress Inks, and mixed the black for the base with silver Perfect Pearls, and for the candle and flame colours, Mustard Seed and Festive Berries with Gold Perfect Pearls.  This doesn't really show in the photo but has given it a lovely shimmer.  I also used Festive Berries for the poinsettia, and Mowed Lawn and Pine Needles for the foliage.   I backed both the poinsettia and the candle with a piece of card so I could fill them in with the colour.

I then found another snippet of white card and cut it with a stitched die from The Works and embossed with a Marianne Snowflakes Embossing Folder, and I then edged it with Mustard Seed DI applied with a blending tool, and also added some of the Gold Perfect Pearls.

For the background I used a Cuttlebug Holly Ribbons EF and inked up the inside of the front with Pine Needles DI using a roller, and then spritzed it with a little water and pressed the card on to it with the folder open flat and rubbed the back over for about ten seconds before lifting, this gives the ink time to sink in well, and when dry I blended some more of the same ink on to it using a blending tool.

I decided that I would use a white 7" x 5" base card and I used some gold mirri as the first layer, die cut with a pierced edge rectangle die from Crealies, unfortunately this doesn't seem to be available at the moment, and I then cut the inked layer with the next size of die and adhered these to the base card.  I then mounted the topper and added the coloured image using Pinflair Glue Gel for a bit of dimension, and then the gold sentiment to finish.

I was hoping that DH would not think the image too feminine, and he did say he liked it, but I wasn't totally convinced..lol, but in his defence it is a bit different from the type of card I usually make for him.

Anyway, thank you for taking a look and I hope that all of you are having a good Christmas and my thoughts are also with those who are not having the best of times at the moment for whatever reason.  I also look forward to visiting all my blogging friends throughout 2018, and seeing all the wonderful creativity there is to be had in this great community of ours, and long may it last. 

I am entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Weeks 313/314 where we use our snippets of card and paper etc.
Happy Little Stampers December Watercolour Challenge - Anything Goes, but using the twist which is Christmas.
Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge - No. 365 Anything Goes as long as it's Christmas.
Happy Little Stampers December Anything Goes with Dies Challenge.