Today I'm sharing a quick card that I made for a few current challenges:

I saw the badge over at Just Us Girls and that inspiration photo immediately reminded me of the retired stamp set 'Spirited Snowmen' so I dug it out and paired it with the Color Dare challenge colours for a sweet love-filled card:

Stamped, coloured and mounted using my Layered Squares dies, with some added clear Wink of Stella to make that heart shine:

No supplies list today as the stamp set is retired (I also used up some Tempting Turquoise card too!). I'm also linking up with TGIF Challenges and Global Design Project #GDP327 where both are asking for love-themed cards - it's clearly the season!!

Enjoy your evening and I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

I've had a busy couple of days with some of my team at Stampin' Up!'s Onstage event in Birmingham to celebrate the launch of the upcoming Spring Summer catalogue. More about that in my later post though as for now it's Sunday and time for this week's new challenge over at The Paper Players! It's the turn of the queen of diecuts, the lovely Laurie, to host this week and she has an unusual colour challenge for you to work with:

When I first saw this colour combination I almost ran a mile and it did have me stumped initially, although a sudden flash of inspiration led to me not only creating with but loving this trio that I used to create another Christmas card to share with you this week  - take a look:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

Love Never Melts - What could be sweeter than this pair of snowmen, all wrapped up in their winter woollies and hats? I coloured their accessories using a combination of my Stampin' Write markers and Stampin' Blends and added a Smoky Slate outline to the snowy areas for a touch of extra definition. I'm hoping Laurie will forgive me the liberty of adding a touch of green to my holly leaves, but I'm afraid it just had to be done! The sentiments in this stamp set are so sweet - the one on today's card is perfect to send festives wishes to your bestie and continues onto the inside of the card:

Another Custom Plaid - When considering what paper to pair with my snowmen, I drew a blank. Instead, I decided to create another custom plaid design using my Buffalo Check stamp set in Smoky Slate and using the thick and thin ends of my Stampin' Write markers in Poppy Parade and So Saffron respectively to customise my pattern. I love the Buffalo Check stamp on its own, yet love how you can create such fun and unique patterns with this stamp. What colour combinations and patterns would you try?

Subtle Sparkle and Shine - Although difficult to see on my photos, all of the snowy areas on my image are brushed with clear Wink of Stella and the red heart the snowmen are holding has been painted using a fine tipped glue pen to give a wonderful glossy shine when dry. The shimmer and gloss are subtle, but they are there and add so much to this clean and simple card.

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my Product and 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

I can't wait to see what you create with this week's colours and look forward to visiting your blogs this week! Enjoy the rest of your weekend as it will be over all too quickly. I'll be back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used: 

Spirited Snowmen Clear-Mount Stamp Set (£18.00)	Buffalo Check Clear-Mount Stamp Set (£14.00)	Smoky Slate Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)	Poppy Parade Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)	Poppy Parade A4 Cardstock (£8.00)
Whisper White A4 Cardstock (£9.00)	Poppy Parade Stampin' Blends Markers Combo Pack (£8.50)	Smoky Slate Stampin' Blends Markers Combo Pack (£8.50)	Call Me Clover Stampin' Blends Markers Combo Pack (£8.50)	Many Marvelous Markers (£112.75)
Fine-Tip Glue Pen (£6.50)	Clear Wink Of Stella Glitter Brush (£7.50)	Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad (£5.50)

Before I get into my creative post today, I just wanted to remind you that we are nearing the end of the month so you have just two more days to take advantage of this month's offers: a free bonus coupon for every £45 spend, redeemable against next month's purchases, and also the limited time Blended Seasons bundle and the second colour assortment pack of watercolor pencils. You can read more about both of these offers here and here.

Check out this post with details on my Creative Escapes Luxury Weekend Retreats too - you have until the end of the week to take advantage of my Bank Holiday booking offer for my next weekend in October!

A day off yesterday as we had a family day out at the Black Country Museum (a fun visit if you're in the UK and never been - lots of fun interactive history) and I needed to give the first episode of the Great British Bake Off my undivided attention yesterday evening (more on that later!) but I'm back with you today and I'm sharing a card using this week's CAS(E) This Sketch and the current bright colour palette over at Inspire.Create for a fun Christmas card:

This another of those great sketches that can be used in lots of different ways with the sentiment diecuts that I love - although I did need to rotate my card base through 90 degrees and go 'long and thin' to fit everything in! Take a look:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

Merry Christmas Thinlits - Today is the turn of the 'Christmas' thinlit to feature, stamped with a 'merry' for good measure; these dies are going to get a full work out this season, I think they are just great! I love that with the co-ordinating bundled stamp set, there are so many sentiment combinations you can make; this is absolutely a 'go-to' set for me this Christmas.

Spirited Snowman - I liked the 'object' at the end of the sentiment on the sketch and thought the little skating snowman from the new Spirited Snowmen set would fit perfectly and look as if he was almost skating the sentiment into the ice. I decided to heat emboss the snowman and an array of snowflakes from the same set across the top of my card, so that the white elements, i.e. the snow, would be white against my sponged background. I must confess whilst this looks great in white in real life, especially with the sparkle of the Wink of Stella on the snowman, the snowman loses some of his definition in white when photographed. In hindsight silver might have been a better choice - or maybe a little added definition to the body of the snowman with my Blends; something to play around with on version 2!

Unconventional Brights For Christmas - You could have looked at the Inspire.Create colour challenge colours this week and be forgiven for thinking that a Christmas card would not come immediately to mind with these bright colours; I actually thought they would be perfect for a sponge-brayered sky and his bright woollen scarf and hat combo. Once I'd stamped the snowman onto my cardfront, I stamped him again onto a post-it note and cut it out to create a mask so that I could brayer my Bermuda Bay sky, whilst keeping my snowman white. I then coloured the rest of my Snowman with my Blends/Blendabilities/Stampin' Write Markers. I did stick to the colour palette along with a smidge of black and grey neutrals, save one exception - I used orange for the snowman's carrot nose. I'm not sure any other colour would do so I hope I'll be forgiven this departure! Lastly, I painted my snowman liberally with Clear Wink of Stella; difficult to see on the photo, but so pretty in real life.

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

So what do you think - do these unconventional brights work on today's Christmas card? Do leave me a comment below - I would love to hear your thoughts.

Enjoy the rest of your day; the James Juniors are currently in the kitchen baking homemade wagon wheel biscuits, having been inspired by the technical challenge on last night's Great British Bake Off - I'll let you know tomorrow how they turned out when I'll be back with another project! Until then, happy stampin'!

I typed this post up last night but am finally going live this morning - I will share the wagon wheels tomorrow! 

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Spirited Snowmen Clear-Mount Stamp Set (£18.00)	Merry Christmas To All Photopolymer Bundle (£45.75)	Versamark Pad (£8.25)	Embossing Buddy (£5.50)	Heat Tool (Uk) (£28.00)
White Stampin' Emboss Powder (£4.75)	Bermuda Bay A4 Cardstock (£8.00)	Whisper White A4 Cardstock (£9.00)	Clear Wink Of Stella Glitter Brush (£7.50)	Sponge Brayers (£7.50)
Bermuda Bay Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)	Melon Mambo Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)	Melon Mambo A4 Cardstock (£8.00)	Brights Stampin' Write Markers (£27.50)	2017-2019 In Color Stampin' Write Markers (£13.75)