Time to stamp for fun!

Hi Stamping Friends!

Well it always seems that this time of year keeps me too busy to do any "fun" stamping.  This weekend, for example, my two oldest kids had a swim meet on Saturday and Sunday, plus music recital practices and performance.  And we still have our church Christmas musical coming soon.  Plus I'm neck deep in creating our family Christmas card.  I'm almost finished.  Just need to add our greeting, possibly an embellishment and then stuff them and get them in the mail.  This will be the earliest my cards have been mailed, in years!  And let's not even talk about the decorating and gift buying I still need to get done!  But tonight I wanted to take a break and stamp "just because".  There are so many great challenges out there, that I hate to miss them!

Today's double challenge card is inspired by the Pals Paper Art blog PPA19 and gets the sketch from the Mojo Monday blog MOJO116.  Here are the two blog challenge pics:

I love the vintage look of the PPA challenge piece.  Just simple, traditional Christmas.  Here's what I came up with:

I just wanted to keep it kinda simple.  I tried adding other embellishments, like buttons, but it just wasn't working.  Sometimes you just have to leave well enough alone.  There are some crafters out there that can make the simplest cards look absolutely gorgeous!  I'm trying to learn their techniques.

The card base is Kraft, layered with Real Red.  The stamp images come from the SU! set A Cardinal Christmas.  I'm terrible at watercoloring, so I used Blender Pens and ink from the ink pad lid, to color this image.  I also colored part of the bird with sponges, to give it a softer look.  The Old Olive circle is embossed using the Perfect Details texturz Plate and the Real Red circle is embossed with the polka dots from the SU! Background 1 Texturz Plates.  I sponged all the edges of every layer with Chocolate Chip ink, to help with the vintage look. 

A CARDINAL CHRISTMAS  #111760  $23.95

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Stamping!