A many layered Christmas card

Evening Everyone,

It's been another busy day here at Chez Worthington, though to be honest, I'm really not sure where the time has gone and what has kept me so occupied!

There is this card of course ... unlike the quick and easy one in my previous post, this one seem to take forever to come together and even now I'm not too sure about it.

I find these shaped cards more difficult to design for, though I'm not entirely sure why. I aimed for a collage effect, using up quite a few snippets and stash that has been tucked away for a year or so. The paper used for the first two layers are not intended to be Christmas designs but I thought the stars on the background Kraft paper and the red polka dots on next layer were pretty festive looking.

The vintage horse image in the card, cut out of a snippet of Bo Bunny paper is quite quirky - not exactly what we associate with Christmas nowadays.

The flowers are made up of miniature poinsettias layered on to cherry flowers punched out of the polka dot paper and the pins are ones I made myself. The sentiment label was saved from a Christmas gift received last year.

Materials used:

• Shaped card for base
• Patterned papers: Leftover pieces of the following: Fancy Pants Design, Kraft Kuts, Pattern Star: My Mind's Eye, Love Me do, Blooming Love; Bo Bunny - sorry, I can't remember the name but it is a Christmas paper with a vintage design of postcards on both sides, the source of the third of the layers and the horses image
• Ink pad: Tim Holts, Brushed Corduroy - used to edge all the papers and the horses image
• Embellishments from stash: Red felt bauble, Papermania; Ribbons - Bo Bunny, Holly Berry Wraps (green frill); K&Company, Holiday Adhesive Ribbon; Flowers - Wild Orchid Crafts, miniature poinsettias; pins and Kraft label

I was intending to enter Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge, hence all the layers, but what with one thing and another, I've missed the deadline ... maybe next time :(

However, Wednesday was the 25th, the day Sandra's Rudolph Day challenge, over at Stamping For Pleasure, for this month began, it runs for a week so I'm still in time to submit this card into:

Sandra's Rudolph Day Challenge  - April 2012

And, because this card is, with the exception of the base, made up of snippets, leftovers and ancient or recycled stash, I'm also submitting it to Di's challenge over on Pixie's Crafty Workshop:

Pixie's Crafty Snippets Challenge – 17

Before I go, I have just got to show you what the postman delivered today:

As many of you will be aware, I've taken up crochet again, and as there are going to be plenty of lengths of yarn leftover I thought it might be a good idea to use them up by making flowers. This little book, which I ordered from Amazon, cost just £3.69 and has instructions for 20 flower designs in it, all look quite simple to make. Some are made with crochet yarn and therefore not much good for my purpose, but others are made with knitting yarn and are perfect for what I want to do.

That's me done for the night. In the same package as the crochet book there was a new novel I've been waiting impatiently for, my bedtime read. It's a first novel entitled A Sweethaven Summer by Courtney Walsh. Some of you may have heard of her, she has also written two books on scrapbooking, including one that I already own and love, The Busy Scrapper. You can find her blog here. Not surprisingly perhaps, a scrapbook features in the novel ... which is what drew me to it.

So, I'll bid you goodnight, sleep tight and don't let the bed bugs bite :)