Ornamental Christmas and some thank yous!

Wednesdays are sketch challenge days over at Splitcoaststampers. I don't always manage to play the challenges but I did today. I love using a stamp that doesn't obviously scream "Christmas" and turning it into a holiday card. This new Ornamental Vines backgrounder is a lovely rich pattern and I thought it would be fun to use in rich, traditional holiday colours! The pattern really reminds me of a sumptuous brocade fabric so I added just a little metallic gel pen to the open areas of the flowers and leaves to enhance that feeling. Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms): Ornamental Vines backgrounder (releasing 21 November 2008) Christmas Expressions (Mona Lisa Moments line) Paper: Olive dark and Blush Red dark (Prism Papers) Ink: Versamark Versafine (Olympia Green) Other: Mirror Gold detail embossing powder Copper and green metallic gel pens Krylon leafing pen (pale gold) Labels One Nestabilities by Spellbinder Paper piercer I'm usually rubbish at remembering when somebody passes on a blogger award to me but I've remembered this time so a big thank you to both Darlene and Dru who gave me this Kreativ Blogger award last week. Here's how it works: 1. The winner may put the logo on their blog. 2. Put a link to the person who sent you the award. 3. Nominate 5 blogs. 4. Put links to their blogs. 5. Leave a message for your nominees. The bit I always struggle with is picking five blogs to pass it on to - I hate anyone to feel left out! So this is a random "first into my head" kind of list:

• Kaz - for the tales of monkee derring do at Slightly Wonky Crafts
• Janice - cardmaker, cook, digi scrapper, smiler... Serial Crafter
• Lisa - classy cards, creative paper projects and lovely team mate Silverstamping
• Gez - fairly new to blogging and taking to it like a duck to water GezzyB's Crafty Bits
• The DCM team - tricky one since it's a group effort but it's a very creative blog that keeps us all on our toes with cardmaking dares at Daring Cardmakers

Thanks for visiting today!