Happy Monday everyone! Hope you all had lovely weekends; mine was busy as always, with a Stampin' Up! party on Friday night, followed by the usual weekend of sport and a morning stood out in the driving rain watching my first rugby match yesterday (hockey is definitely a cleaner game!) Other highlights of my weekend included reaching the bottom of my ironing basket (to be celebrated!) and the addition of a new pet to the James household - Olivia the goldfish has joined Goldie, who was feeling lonely following the recent departure of Fishy.

So, onto today's card! Today I have a clean and simple card for this week's challenge over at Freshly Made Sketches, where Cindy has another great sketch for us:

I took inspiration from another of the designs in the Nordic Noel DSP pack and paired it with the sentiment stamp from Cheerful Christmas for my card today:

I used Soft Sky as my base and a piece of the Nordic Noel DSP featuring the acorns and pine sprigs for the left panel of my card. I stamped my feature sentiment in Garden Green on Whisper White and matted this onto a piece of Garden Green cardstock, rounding the corners on the right-hand side of both pieces. I used some Soft Sky and Calypso Coral Candy Dots to add a little colour to the main panel. Lastly, I added a strip of Garden Green and finished with a double loop of Baked Brown Sugar baker's twine. I love this thick twine - it's great for packaging but also works as a substitute for ribbon and ties a lovely bow. 

I love the fresh look of this card; the Garden Green is definitely a festive colour, but pairing it with Soft Sky, Baked Brown Sugar and Calypso Coral and Whisper White adds a real crispness to it I think. That's all from me - I'm off to get ready for today's class featuring the Many Merry Stars kit; click here to order yours if you haven't already, before they're all gone. 

Back tomorrow with another project and news of a fantastic one-week only demonstrator sign up offer - come back and check it out, you are not going to want to miss it! Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Cheerful Christmas Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Nordic Noel Designer Series Paper	Garden Green Classic Stampin' Pad	Garden Green A4 Card Stock	Card Stock A4 Soft Sky
Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Project Life Corner Punch	Subtles Candy Dots	Baked Brown Sugar Thick Baker's Twine

Today I'm sharing my card for this week's Merry Monday Christmas Card Challenge, where this week the challenge is to create a Christmas card with ornaments that are sliver/grey and blue:

I went for a little 'something old, something new' for today's card: I had a piece of last year's Winter Frost DSP on my desk, so decided to combine it with a couple of ornaments from this year's Cheerful Christmas set for today's card:

I used a single piece of Island Indigo to back my folded base of Smoky Slate and cut a square out of the front using my Big Shot and Square framelits, using the next size up to create an embossed frame. I used a square of Winter Frost DSP inside the framed area, and added a couple of baubles, one in Coastal Cabana and one in Island Indigo, both of which I stamped in Versamark and heat embossed in silver then fussy cut out with my paper snips. I popped one of on with a glue dot and the other with a dimensional and finished with my sentiment banner, which I finished with a row of tiny rhinestones for a little extra sparkle.

That's all from me for today; back tomorrow with my Design Team card for The Paper Players, where Ann has a new themed challenge for us. until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Big Shot Die-Cut Machine	Big Shot Magnetic Platform	Squares Collection Framelits Dies	Cheerful Christmas Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Island Indigo Classic Stampin' Pad
Island Indigo A4 Card Stock	Card Stock A4 Smoky Slate	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Card Stock A4 Coastal Cabana	Silver Stampin' Emboss Powder
Embossing Buddy	Heat Tool - Uk Plug	Versamark Pad	Mini Glue Dots	Basic Rhinestones Jewel Accents
Stampin' Dimensionals

No blog post yesterday I'm afraid, as I was busy with family activities and just couldn't find the time. Today though it's Sunday and time for my Design Team card for The Paper Players, where this week Nance has a fun tic-tac-toe challenge for us:

I had such fun trying to decide which boxes of the grid to use - in the end I went for the diagonal of 'patterned paper, embossing, buttons' and made my first Christmas card using the 'Cheerful Christmas' stamp set - I took the inspiration for my layout from this week's sketch over at Fab Friday: 

This stamp set appealed to me the moment I saw it - I love the Scandanavian-inspired patterns that look so great in traditional Christmas reds and greens, along with white and kraft. For this card, I matted my Real Red base with Garden Green, then adhered a piece of Nordic Noel Designer Series Paper to the top of the card; this DSP carries on the Nordic theme and lots of the papers in this set co-ordinate with these stamps - I love it! I stamped the main flower stamp in the set in Versamark on Real Red and heat embossed in white, then adhered this to my card using dimensionals. Lastly, I added a flag of Calypso Coral and stamped my sentiment, from the new hostess set 'Good Greetings' in Garden Green, onto a flag of Whisper White and tucked it beneath my flower square. Lastly, I finished by wrapping around some white baker's twine and adhering one of the red and white Nordic Designer Buttons to finish.

I even took the time to decorate the inside of my card and the envelope - I thought I'd make the most of it now, as by the time I get to the last minute rush these little acts of prettiness will be all but out the window! Pop over to the rest of the team to see what they did with this week's challenge - there's a huge variety in there this week and as always some great designs.

In the James household, swimming lessons resume today before the new term starts and then I will be doing the final preparations for my first monthly card class featuring Christmas cards tomorrow - yippee! Hope you enjoy your Sunday, however you are spending it.

Lastly, in case you needed a reminder - today is the last day of the Big Shot offer - see here for details.

Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Cheerful Christmas Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Nordic Noel Designer Series Paper	Nordic Designer Buttons	Embossing Buddy	Versamark Pad
Heat Tool - Uk Plug	White Stampin' Emboss Powder	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Real Red A4 Card Stock	Garden Green A4 Card Stock
Calypso Coral A4 Card Stock	Garden Green Classic Stampin' Pad	White Baker's Twine