Christmas Card Challenges #4

Hey There!  I hope that all of you are staying warm and able to be creative to try and chase away the winter blues.  For those of you that live in warmer climates, please know that I am incredibly jealous!  

Im back with another card for Christmas Card Challenges #4. 

You need to join us over there, we have so much fun with the challenges, and I continue to be blown away by the cards that are entered. 

The design team is fabulous and I love creating alongside them!

Here's the challenge...

This card was one that was incredibly challenging for me to come up with and design.  I often find it difficult to create a card with gold in it because its not a favourite colour at all.  The inspiration image also made it difficult because there were so many directions that I could have gone with it.  Additionally I didn't think I had any stamps that would work well for it, until I started flipping through my book of stamps, and discovered that actually I had many stamps that would be fitting so along came the challenge of choosing what to do.

Finally I settled on a stamp that I have never used before, and knew that I had gold paper that would compliment it nicely.  

I stamped the image twice and coloured both slightly different, and the image that I chose was actually the one that I initially didn't like...funny how it happens that way.

Its a good sign that you shouldn't ever throw anything out while the creative process is happening because you just never know.  I ended up using both on the front of cards, and made 2 cards instead of 1.

I'll first show your the card that I entered into the challenge, but I will then also show you the second card that I created too.  I would love to know which one you like better.

Here's the front of card #1...

Here's the side of card #1...

Here's the image up close of card #1...(sorry about the dark photo)

Here's the front of card #2...

Here's the side of card #2...

Here's the image on card #2...

Supplies Used

Paper Trimmer - used to cut out the card base, and the different layers of the card

Tim Holtz Scissors - used to cut out the sentiment from the pattern paper pack

Acrylic Block - used to attach the image stamp to which helped me stamp it.

Tweezers - used to help tie the bow on the card front

Exacto Knife - used to help position the gems onto the card front

Mini Mister - used to add water to the perfect pearls

Paint Brush - used to paint the colours and the perfect pearls onto the image

Bone Folder - used to fold and crease the edge of the card base

Hole Punch - used to punch the top of the sentiment flag

Double Sided Tape - used to attach a couple layers to the card front

Ranger Matte Medium - used to attach the sentiment flag to the card front

Cuttlebug Machine - machine used with the dies to cut out the image

Pierced Rectangle Die - used to cut out the main image

MFT Ink - ink used to stamp the image with

Stamping Bella - Tiny Townie Ellie the Elf - stamp used for the main image on this card front

Distress Inks - used to colour part of the images

Adirondack - Cranberry - red ink used with the perfect pearls for the ribbons

Prisma Colours - used to colour the images with

Lyra Blender Pencil Crayon - used to blend the pencil crayons

White Ribbon - ribbon used for the card front and for the bow (not a link to the exact product, but linked to something similar)

Gems - used on the card front to add embellishments

Perfect Pearls Powder - used to add shimmer to various parts of image

Silver Stardust Pens - used for the tops of the ornaments

White Paper - used for the card base, and for the main image

DCWV Holiday Sparkle Paper - pattern paper that the stars paper is from, in addition to the sentiment tags which are part of this paper pack too. (pattern paper is discontinue)

Red Paper - paper used to mat the main image

Leave some love below!  Which card do you like better?! #1 or #2?