JOY

I might have to rethink this pal-to-pal challenge thing I'm doing with my friend Joy. I go through my list of challenges, save my document as is my method, then I send it to her with a "here's my latest list" note. Then you know what? SHE DOES THEM! I cannot take this pressure. I CANNOT! *wipes brow*

It's day 9 of the new year, and I've just made four more cards. I CAN'T KEEP UP! To save myself, I've added a few more challenges to my already-too-long list. One of them is another Christmas challenge: CASEing Christmas. Each week they show us a card, and we're to be inspired by that card to make our own. Here is this week's card inspiration:

Created by Pat

Most of you know that I wasn't going to go with purple, right? I chose to CASE the layout, and I made this:

I got the layout part done just fine - background and banners were gleaned from my now-opened-and-used MME Mistletoe Magic paper pad gifted to me (I think) by Miss Lauren.

The JOY part was my third or fourth attempt. You see, I wanted a humongous poinsettia there with a handsome sentiment underneath it. Do I own a humongous poinsettia stamp or die? No, I do not. #FAIL

But I do have a tiny poinsettia die, so I thought maybe I could use three of them in a cluster. I cut the die a bazillion times from one of the red papers in the pack, layered the ... layers, detested them, and set them aside. I then tried another pass at the poinsettia dies, using a different paper and just the big leaf part of the die. Better, but still not great. I set them aside, too.

Think, think, think. I finally gave up on the whole poinsettia idea and went with a big, bold word. I don't even know who makes this, as it was in an unmarked zip-top bag. I stamped it in Red Royal ink onto another paper from the 6x6 pack and die-cut it with a Nestabilities oval, probably one of the first sets of Nestabilities I ever bought. I cut another one from another red paper from the pack and layered them over the banners. After it was layered, I added a shadow with a W0 Copic marker.

The lined paper with the JOY stamped on it had a small area of a flourish on it, so I used one of my bazillion die-cut poinsettias to cover it up.

Wow, I think I cut into at least 7 pieces of paper from that pack. Go, me. And that's my second Christmas card of the year already. Wheee!

I've done a few more challenges, so stay tuned for a few more posts later today. I must share and get back to work. Joy is at a crop this weekend, and I fear how productive she might be. I KNOW, I'll go visit her and distract her. heh heh

Thanks for stopping by!

ETA: This card won honorable mention at CASE-ing Christmas!

Stuff I used: Spellbinder's Classic Ovals Lg & Sm, mystery JOY clear stamp, SU mini glue dots, and the following:

InLinkz.com