Keeping Christmas {Season's Greetings}

Welcome, friends! It's the 25th and that means it is time for the monthly "Keeping Christmas" blog hop! With summer winding down, Christmas will be here before we know it! Also, don't forget to hop along to all of the designer's blogs to see what fresh Christmas inspiration they have in store for us! 

Kelly Lunceford

Anita Madden

Broni Holcombe

Claire Broadwater

Julee Tilman

Kim Heggins

Lori Tecler

Nance Salkeld

Nina Forsyth (off this month)

Rachel Bergfeld

Vicki Finger

I've generally steered clear of making Christmas cards for this particular hop because of my involvement with the Merry Monday Challenge team, but now that it has closed, I feel the need to make a few more Christmas cards for my stash before the Holiday season hits! I found my inspiration for today's card in the most unlikely of spots; my son's swimming lessons, of all places! LOL! One of the cute, young swim instructors had on a darling Christmas bathing suit that I knew could translate into a fabulous card!

The background of the suit was baby blue with candy canes and holly all over it in a random pattern. The straps were peppermint striped, which I was hoping to incorporate along the bottom or something, but I like how it turned out without it. I really wanted to snap a picture of the suit, but felt like I would be a total creeper, especially with it being a bathing suit! Ick! LOL! So...I just used my memory and I think it turned out nicely!

I used Tumbled Glass Distress Oxide ink to blend a panel of color. I used the A2 Vertical Stitched die to die cut it after I had the blending done. I prefer to blend and then die cut it so the edges are even. Once that was cut, I was able to get to work on the images. I used the peppermint sticks and candy canes from the Candy Cane Christmas stamp set. I die cut a lot of the these using the Candy Cane Christmas Die collection. Once they were all cut it was easy to get them stamped in Pure Poppy ink. I did the same thing with the Holly. I used the Spruce and Sprigs stamp set and the coordinating Spruce and Sprigs die collection. I spritzed the background piece and all of the stamped pieces using Shimmer Spray for some holiday sparkle!

I used the candy cane images if the crook would show, and if not, I just used the straight peppermint sticks for the ends that are coming in from the outside edges of the card. I hadn't really decided how I would incorporate a sentiment. This can often times be detrimental to the end result of a card, but I had high hopes I could figure it out. I thought it would be SUPER cute to bend a small sentiment and stamp it repeatedly in the bends of the holly leaves, here and there, but I didn't dare risk ruining all of my hard work. I'll just have to revisit that idea on a later design! 

In the end, I decided on one of my go-to sentiment solutions and that is embossing on vellum. I didn't want to hide any of my beloved background or chop the visual balance of the card, so vellum was the perfect solution. This particular sentiment is an oldie, but goodie. It is from the old SU! set called "Many Merry Messages". This is one that I will never part with! I also stamped one of the coordinating verses on the inside in red ink. Everything is popped up using foam squares, including the blue panel onto the card base. I glued on a trio of sparkling clear sequins for some extra shine. Thanks for joining me today! Don't forget to head to the other designer's blogs to see what they have come up with! Thanks for fluttering by!