Sweet Christmas Wishes for Outlawz Festive Fridays

 Happy Fri-YAY, blogging friends! I hope you are all doing well. Today I'm sharing my first DT make for Outlawz Festive Fridays Challenges! The new challenge opens today and runs until Thursday, August 5th. This challenge gives you themes to choose from and you can enter a different project as many times as you like. The themes this time are: Birthday, Get Well, Christmas and Anything Goes. 

I chose to make a Christmas card using digital images from our challenge sponsor, Bugaboo Stamps. You may have heard the sad and sudden news that Bugaboo closed their shop and challenge blog. 😧 I am hopeful that this is a temporary situation. At any rate, I own several hundred Bugaboo images, so I chose 3 from my files with candy canes: Candy Cane Cow, Candy Cane Stocking and Candy Cane Elf. I chose these images because they remind me of a scene in a story I was read as a very young child called Madeline's Christmas. It wasn't even a book (then). It was inside a McCall's magazine in the Christmas issue of my first Christmas in 1956, and my parents kept it and read it to me every year until I could read it myself. By the time our daughter was born in 1988, it had been published as a book, so my parents bought it and gave it to her...and the tradition continued! I love little treasured memories like that! 🎅

 

This was planned to be such a simple card. Just color the images and cut / layer the paper as per the sketch. Ha! I got the bright idea to use Kraft and emboss it with my Snowflake folder, then run a white ink pad across the raised snowflakes (top photo above). Well, that didn't look good enough for me, so I gathered every white pen, paint, ink pad and crayon I owned and went down a rabbit hole trying to get those snowflakes to stand out! I finally was very pleased to get the results I was after! Thought I would show you, in the bottom photo above, the card front before I covered it up with images and embellishments. 😄

I started the card construction with a Recollections red card base and my embossed Kraft card mats. I layered on some red-matted Doodlebug Christmas candy patterned paper, then my 3 red-matted Kraft panels, then my digital images printed on Springhill Digital card which I colored with Promarkers and fussy cut. The elf's bells are colored with my Sakura red Gold Shadow metallic gel pen and the little accents around the stocking were outlined with my Sakura glitter gel pen. I used some red and green Cosmo Cricket Tiny Alpha stickers to make my sentiment, which I embellished with some Frosted Lace Stickles after adhering. I also added some iridescent snowflakes I had bought on Amazon and a skinny candy cane stripe border sticker from my Christmas stash. 

I used SplitCoastStampers Sketch SC82 for my layout, resizing to A7 in PSE but otherwise following it pretty faithfully. 

Inside of my card, I have hand-stamped HOTP, Sweet n Sassy, and Clear Dollar Stamps sentiments, along with fussy-cut and colored CC Designs candy canes, all in Nocturne Versafine Clair ink.

On the back of the card, I let my Kraft-y snowflakes take center stage. I had a large snippet of the patterned paper left, so I cut it with a Spellbinders Fleur de Lis square die, cut that into fourths and used them as photo corners. I added a snippet strip scrap of red polka dots and my Kaisercraft siggie hand-stamped on a scrap of the Kraft card in Memento Rhubarb Stalk ink.

   

A couple of angle shots to try to show all of the sparkle....

And a final view. Thanks so much for visiting me and until next time, stay well and craft on! XOX

MY CHALLENGE PLAYLIST:

1.   SplitCoastStampers Sketch Challenge SC82

2.   SplitCoastStampers Christmas Card Challenge: CCC21APR Animals

3.   12 Months Christmas Card Link Up #79: ACG + Opt. Christmas in July -- #1/10 Option played!

4.   2 Craft Critter Crazies July: AG with a Critter -- #2/5  COW

5.   Crafty Animals #52 July: AG with an Animal -- COW

6.   Jingle Belles JB-21-15: A Christmas Story -- Madeline's Christmas by Ludwig Bemelmans

7.   Sparkles Christmas #125: Snowflaakes (More than 1) -- #1/3 I have lots of embossed background snowflakes and 5 iridescent snowflakes on top layer.

8.   CHNCC #551: ACG + Opt. Use a Die or Punch -- Option played (on back of card)!

9.   My Time to Craft Christmas #14: Have a Krafty Christmas -- #1/3

10. The Sisterhood of Crafters: Embossing (Dry or Heat) -- #1/3

11. Happy Little Stampers July Christmas Challenge: AG + Opt. Jingle Bells -- Option played (elf is wearing them)  

12. The Male Room #152: Christmas in July 

13. MAWTT #132 July: Cool It Down -- #2/3  

14. ABMTTC #143: AAG  

15. ABMTTC Xtra: AAG  

16. Christmas Craft Creations July: AG -- #1/3  

17. Through the Purple Haze #182: AG + Opt. Christmas in July -- #1/3

18. Cute Card Thursday #690: AG Only

19. Classic Design Challenge #7 July 2021: AAG  

20. Crafty Gals Corners #221: Christmas in July -- #1/3 

21. APTS #7 July 2021: Craft Your Favorite Holiday/Celebration -- #4/8 Birthdays my fave celebration, but CHRISTMAS is my fave holiday!

22. 613 Avenue Create #7 July 2021: AG Only -- #3/8 Option not played this time

23. Lil Patch of Crafty Friends #162: AAG + Christmas in July Month -- #1/3 

24. Colour Crazy Craft Challenge #28: AAG w/Colouring -- #1/2 All 3 images colored with Promarkers and the snowflakes embossed on my kraft background colored with white paint pens