Current location:	Antofagasta, Chile
Current mood:	pleased
Entry tags:	artwork, card, challenge, stampin up

Christmas already?
This card is for the Weekend Sketch Challenge #21 by the amazing Beate and was made using the tutorial she wrote. WOW, 21 weeks already? I remember I participated on the very first one :)

This is my first card using the "Merry & Bright" stamp set that appeared in the Holiday Mini by SU! And it's actually the first christmas card I make in *years*. When I was a freshmen in highschool I made christmas cards with cross-stitched motifs as the main image, but only for close friends and the guy I dated back then. This year, celebrating my "stamping anniversary"  I want to go back to make christmas cards, so this is the first of many (or so I hope).

Since "firsts" are important I wanted to try untraditional christmas colors, at least once, and I had this river rock/blue bayou/soft sky combo stuck in my mind for a few days until I had time to make it.

I'm not very good at following tutorials so I always end up screwing something up. On this one, the corners of the folder were a pain for me, lol. For the front of the card I made my "own" patterned paper stamping the snowflakes from the Merry & Bright set and a random snowflake I got as "Thursday Tip" prize in the OSA group (I knew that snowflake would come handy sometime!).

For the inside of the card I, as always, made a scalloped border using my corner rounder, stamped the snowman with black Staz-On and watercolored it with the same inks as the papers. Then I stamped the saying in Blue Bayou on the little tag... I'm very happy tht it turned out right where I wanted it! (which is a first to me, LOL).

To hold the folder closed I used a light blue fiber I had around, but I'll replace it with soft-sky stitched ribbon as soon as it arrives 'cause I just ordered some from Laura. Now I know what she meant when she said she loved SU! product because they're easier to combine together.

By the way, I tried a "different" kind of photography, using a complete white background (well, enhanced in photoshop <3) which I think shows the colors a lot better than my other pictures. I think I'll stick with this kind of picture for a while :) Thanks for looking!