"Believe" Christmas

What a beautiful week this has started off to be!  It is finally feeling like fall here and I actually saw some COLORED autumn leaves this morning! :)  Just in time for Thanksgiving.

On to today's first card:

The challenges are as follows:

1) 2S4Y: Kazan's Sketch 40 (flipped horizontally):

2) Papertake Weekly "Christmas Crackers"

3) One Stop Craft #56 "Snowflakes"

4) Colour Create #32 "Red, Green and White"

5) Saturday Spotlight #8 "Ornament Obsessions"

6) Creative Card Crew #38 "Favorite Things"

To make the flower, I took a red fabric bloom from Spare Parts and patted it into embossing ink, then I heat-embossed it with Ranger Superfine clear powder.  This was tricky, since my old heat gun has gotten a short in it, and will only work if pointed straight up towards the ceiling.  Ack!  I got some singed fingertips during this step! :{  While the embossing was still tacky I covered the bloom with Martha Stewart fine Garnet glitter, then covered this with a few more layers of embossing powder.  It is VERY *sparkly* and slightly stiff, so it holds up well.  The center is made using the Martha Stewart snowflake punch.

The twine as a corner element was my husband's idea; he has a good eye, doesn't he? ;)  I love using twine to capture a simple, home-spun goodness in my cards.  It cheers me up.  I also love this color combination as it is so very easy to work with... black, red and white have always appealed to me as being so timelessly classy.  Holly is another of my favorite holiday emblems, along with the nativity star and snowflakes and christmas trees and... need I go on? :)

 Materials used on this card:

DCWV Christmas Card base

Patterned papers from 2009 "Magic of the Season" paper stack from Hobby Lobby

Bright green cardstock

Red fabric bloom from Spare Parts (see above for directions to alter)

MS Garnet glitter

Ranger Superfine clear embossing powder

Shorted-out heat gun (I do NOT suggest this however!) :{

EK Success circle punches, 3/4-inch through 1-1/4 inch

"Believe" metal embellishment charm

9mm red acrylic gems

Butcher's twine

Thank you for visiting, happy crafting all and have a really wonderful week!

--Kathryn

PS-Don't forget to enter for my November 10K Hits giveaway before the 30th! :)