Back in the swing, and a blog candy challenge

With just tomorrows Three Kings Fiesta to bring the seasonal celebrations to an end, I decided it was time to get back in to the swing of regular crafting. Although I enjoyed following several blog challenges regularly last year, I did find that the time it took me to do them left very little spare time to do 'my own thing' and I always felt sad that there was never enough time to leave many comments on other people's contributions. This year I have lots of new techniques to try and different media to experiment with. I am hoping to do more photography through participating in project 365, to follow an online watercolour course that I signed up to back in November but haven't managed to get started on yet, and to at least start on a hybrid scrapbook using the digital program Serif craft artist with added embellishments to give more dimension to the pages. So obviously some of the challenges will have to go. Instead, this year I am going to participate in a few when the theme particularly appeals to me, and when I am happy with a design I shall make a run of half a dozen or so of them, so that I will still have a good set of Christmas cards made ready for next year, and also some birthday cards ready before they are absolutely needed. (That'll be a first!!)

But to start me off I am sticking to what I am comfortable with, and making my first Christmas card of 2012 for Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge 53 which is an open theme this week. She also has some lovely candy on offer with this challenge so why not pop over to her blog and take a look.

I bought a rather lovely plate of stamps from Chocolate Baroque back before Christmas, but unfortunately it was really too late to use them, so they had not been inked at all. So today I took the main stamp image and stamped it onto a square of white paper that had been inked around the edge with Distress ink - tumbled glass, and I also brushed a little of the same ink over the center to soften the harsh white. I stamped the image with memento Paris dusk, and added colour to the holly with copic markers. I didn't like the blue robin, even when I added some colour to him, so I stamped him again with memento rich cocoa, coloured him and cut him out. Then I glued him flat over the main image which looked a lot better. The main panel is mounted on a 15cm royal blue card and I added crystal stickles to the snowflakes and leaves for a bit of sparkle. So now I am off to link this to CHCC, but this year I shall not be spending too much time searching for other suitable challenges for it. I'd rather be making a few more cards like this, and adding comments on to the blogs of other contributors to the challenge.