Hippo Happiness and Wishing You A Warm and Toasty Cool Yule

Today it's Monday and the start of a new week! I've had a Paper Pumpkin craft along with some of my lovely customers, putting together our 'Joy To The World' kits already this morning and now it's time for today's creative post! I'm sharing a couple of cards for a couple of challenges. The first of these is a card using Narelle's cute sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches and the colours at CAS Colours and Sketches:

The CAS Colours & Sketches colours intrigued me and I made my card in a landscape format to accommodate my slightly longer sentiment and took a short break from creating Christmas cards to make a  quick birthday card - take a look:

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

I kept it simple and used block colours for my background squares and stamped a little hippo from the 'Hippo Happiness' stamp set in Basic Grey on the central one with a stamped flower that I fussy cut and added behind her ear. I then added a sentiment and finished my card with an equally punny sentiment inside:

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. 

My second card uses the colours over at Color Throwdown and the current layout over at CAS(E) This Sketch:

After last Friday's post where I declared that I find myself avoiding Rich Razzleberry as a colour these days, I saw it was one of the trio in the Color Throwdown colours this week and loved the combination with aqua and vanilla, so reached for it to create another Christmas card - take a look:

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

A bold banner of purple and a rather snazzy hat and scarf combo to adorn my skating polar bear, but the real star of this card is the lovely snowflake-embossed Pool Party Panel that sits behind him and adds a lovely element of texture:

I fussy cut the polar bear to finish, but that is no real hardship - it's quite easy to do with some sharp paper snips.

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. 

I'll be back again shortly with another post with notice of the 'Merry and Bright' 24 hour flash sale that starts at 10.50pm tonight, so check back for that - you won't want to miss it! Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used - Card 1:

HIPPO HAPPINESS PHOTOPOLYMER STAMP SET (ENGLISH) (£17.00)	STITCHED SHAPES DIES (£28.00)	WHISPER WHITE A4 THICK CARDSTOCK (£7.75)	BLACKBERRY BLISS A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	PURPLE POSY A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)
BLACKBERRY BLISS CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)	BASIC GRAY CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)

WARM & TOASTY CLING STAMP SET (£20.00)	WINTER SNOW EMBOSSING FOLDER (£7.00)	TRIPLE BANNER PUNCH (£21.00)	TUXEDO BLACK MEMENTO INK PAD (£5.50)	VERY VANILLA A4 THICK CARDSTOCK (£7.75)
STITCHED SHAPES DIES (£28.00)	RICH RAZZLEBERRY CARDSTOCK A4 (£8.25)	POOL PARTY A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	RICH RAZZLEBERRY STAMPIN' BLENDS COMBO PACK (£8.50)	POOL PARTY STAMPIN' BLENDS COMBO PACK (£8.50)