Merry Monday #270 {For a DEER friend}

Happy Monday, Friends! I'm so excited to be the host over at the Merry Monday Blog this week! This will be the last challenge before the new year so I hope you will join me for some fun!

Holiday parties are never complete without a few games, right? I've got a fun version of tic-tac-toe for you to play...card making tic-tac-toe, that is! I kinda wanted to do a "blackout" game, LOL! but decided to resist and just do the top row; stamping, pattern paper and embossing. What will you choose?

I ordered quite a few goodies from Simon Says Stamp a few weeks ago. When they arrived I was swamped with Holliday party preparations so I couldn't use them at all. Do you know how hard that is???? Torture...plain and simple! When I finally had some free time, I was so excited to get everything out. The background for my card is stamped in Versamark ink using the MFT Snowfall Background and heat embossed using White Puff embossing powder. I was 100 percent inspired by THIS card, right down to the paper and red accents! This Dashing Deer stamp set was the perfect companion for this snowy background.

I stamped the sweet little deer and colored him using Copic and Prismacolor markers. I also added some details to the scarf and his body using a white gel pen. Once he was all colored, I die cut him out. I also die cut a circle using a nestabilities die and then embossed it using the Wood Grain Impression Plate. So...I used two types of embossing; dry and heat. I also chose to do this so that I would have a circle to use as a guide to create the wreath. 

This particular stamp set includes three different types of "sprigs" or branches. I stamped each one quite a few times, colored them and die cut them. Once they were all cut, I added some Red Berry Nuvo Drops to the berries on two of the different branches. I left the other one white for some added interest and detail. I set those aside to dry and got to work on creating the "friend" portion of the card. I die cut it four times out of red cardstock and then glued them together using Tombow Mono Multi glue. After that was done, I applied a coating of Nuvo Crystal Glaze and sprinkled some chunky red glitter. I have used the same technique a few times lately on different cards that you can see HERE {I gave this one away on Sunday to the Santa that visited our Christmas party at church and I am having separation anxiety LOL!}, and HERE and another one HERE. It is such a fun effect to create! 

The sentiment above "friend" is heat embossed using Antique Gold powder. I had mentioned a few posts back that I had ordered a few and was eager to try them out. This is the first of the new gold powders that I tried out and I LOVE it! It DEFINITELY lives up to its "antique" name! After all of the elements were dry, it was time to assemble the card. I used a little strip of some old SU! pattern paper to anchor the friend die cut. I also needed that as one of my "tic-tac-toe" elements. Thanks for fluttering by!