It's Rudolph Time again.

If you had a panic when Christmas came around and you didn't have enough cards ready, why not join us over at Sarn's blog, Stamping for Pleasure, where every Rudolph day (25th of each month), we submit two, or more, Christmas cards for her challenge. That way you will have made a good start on your collection.

For my cards this month I used a new stamp that didn't manage to get inked up in time for Christmas. When I was in Birmingham with my son, back in September, I went into a newly opened haberdashery/ textile shop, looking for some buttons, and discovered a small selection of craft items. Among them was this lovely stamp by Heartfelt Creations. I loved the words on it, and the little 'Bethlehem' nestling inside the 'O' of 'Noel'. 

It turned out to be a bit bigger than I expected, so I custom cut the base cards, making sure they would just fit inside a standard Spanish envelope, which is just a little larger than the British one. And here are the cards I made.

I stamped the image onto white heavy paper, and added some colour with copic markers. I didn't care for the stark white background so I used ink dusters to add a little subtle colour to it. My instinct was to colour the flowers red which I did, and I added gold pearl to their centres. The small white berries are sparkly with gold-ice stickles, but that doesn't show well in the photos. I scanned the image into the computer and made a cutting file for the word NOEL. I cut it out using my Silhouette cameo machine and embossed each letter with a red/gold interference powder. I then had to decide whether to paste it over the green swirl that twines round the 'N', but in the end I used a craft knife to carefully cut along each side of it, and I was just able to slip the letter through the slots I made. I think it was worth it! I rough cut around the stamped image and found a piece of red paper in my snippets box to mount it on, and then layered it onto a white base card.

I thought it might be fun to try a different colour arrangement for the second one, so this time I used shades of yellow and peach on the flowers with yellow stickles for their centre, and I embossed the letters with a powder called Disco Black, which was one of my favourites back when I used to emboss everything! I found some green paper to back this one, and there we have it. A couple of cards that I am quite pleased with, and I think I shall be making a few more of these while the stamps etc are out.

I have never been very keen on the use of the word Noel, or Noelle as it is sometimes spelled, but this time I looked up its meaning online, and apparently it is an ancient word now taken to mean simply Christmas, or a Christmas carol. By a somewhat tortuous route, they traced it's origin through some French words to the Latin one meaning 'Day of birth', so I feel a bit happier about using it now I understand it.