White Christmas Challenge prize fund standing at £6.00 so far and growing …

I’m continuing with my Christmas cards when I get chance and here’s the finished card made with the Reindeer ATC.  I thought I’d got plenty of those cute reindeer in stock, but I hadn’t realised just how many people would buy multiple packs, so they lasted about half an hour on the website after last week’s email went out.  If I can get more in, I will, but my supplier is out of them too at the moment.

I kept things fairly simple with just a little stamping on the beige card, a ribbon and a sentiment from Peace on Earth.  The little round sentiment was designed to fit a one inch punch and I have stamped a whole lot of these with Pearlescent Poppy Brilliance ink and punched them out already.  I also have a little scalloped circle punch which gives the tiniest little border to a one inch circle and makes a great frame to the sentiment.  I plan on sticking these on the back of the envelopes when I send my cards out.

So the third ATC I made in this colourway is very simple.

• Cut Crealies Flower 1 from deep red card and using the two largest shapes, cover with Versamark and emboss with Ruby Romance embossing powder.
• Fold each petal up and over into the middle and crease, then let them open back up again. Use a small paintbrush handle and curl the petal tips backwards.
• Glue the smaller to the centre of the larger one then glue a ruby red paper rose to the centre with silicone glue.
• Stick Holly Fourish paper to an ATC and wrap with a teal ribbon tied in a knot.
• Stick the Crealies flower just above the knot.

It’s the curling of the petals that makes this flower look so pretty and it will only hold that shape if the card is thick enough.  I admit I’ve not been thinking much about postage so far when creating these cards, but this one will have to go into a box if it is destined to be posted.

I was hoping to turn this ATC into a card tonight, but we have a bit of a problem with our heating boiler cutting out all the time and it’s just too cold to do anything other than snuggle up with a hot water bottle.  Plus I’ve been to the dentist today and that always leaves me feeling like I’ve run a marathon in a diving suit – all that nervous tension beforehand followed by the adrenaline of being in the chair with someone furtling around in your mouth with sharp metal objects, then the exhausted relief of it being all over.  I had the added bonus of having my teeth painted with fluoride today – if you’ve ever caught sight of yourself smiling after having that done, it’s quite disgusting as the white fluoride makes it look like you just smeared cottage cheese all over your teeth.  I think I gave the assistant in Sainsbury’s quite a turn!

So I’m off to curl up with a warm book and a good cat … or something like that anyway.