Rudolf a day late

Yesterday was the 25th April, so already another Rudolf day has come and gone. The aim is to make a Christmas card on the 25th of each month. Well this month I did actually get my card made on the right day, but I finished it too late to photograph, so I had to wait until this morning. Then I was out all day at my parchment craft class, so finally I am back at the computer, and this is the card I made. 

I had a new Marianne die in the post this week, and as usual I had to give it a quick try. I always do this with whatever bit of scrap paper is to hand, which is silly really as it is then often wasted. I did the same with this one, but as I had used white paper I tried giving it a spray all over with  perfect pearls, sour apples, and then darkened the embossing and edges a bit with a Memento cottage ivy ink pad. I felt the circle called for a little bird inside it so I found another trial cut, this time of the Marianne small bird on a branch die, and used my copic pens to colour it like a robin. Then I found a nestie circle that was more or less the right size for the ivy circle and used it to cut a hole in piece of thin white paper with white vertical glitter stripes. Behind the hole I used a small snippet of pale blue paper with white spots on it, and mounted it onto a pale green DL card. I glued the robin across the circle and then the ivy circle around the hole. For the lower part of the card I used some sticky ribbon and a cuttlebug slider label stamped with a simple greeting, and hung from it a little wooden charm that I bought at the Ally Pally show last year. It had a patterned fabric surface but I coloured over this so it looks vaguely like another robin. I thought the pearl spray on the ivy had got rather lost, so I added a little stickles to liven it up. It doesn't immediately strike you as a Christmas card, but it makes a change. As usual I am hoping to make a set of six of these, to add my stack, and ease the work when November comes around. So I'll get a production line going now, but first I will pop over to Stamping for Pleasure, to link this one to the Rudolf Day Challenge there. Why not join in and get a few cards made in advance this year.

Apparently the new style blogger does not allow you to upload a tall thin photo. It kept turning it on its side - landscape, so I had to cut and paste it onto a wide white square and put it on it's own instead of beside the writing. I do wish they wouldn't change things that are working perfectly well as they are!!