CPS Day 7 - Merry Christmas

Happy Saturday! I have a couple posts coming your way today as I try to catch up on the Card Positioning Systems 5th anniversary celebration's 15 sketches. This is the sketch from day 7, and today they posted the 14th sketch. Eek! This is sketch #242:

I gotta be honest - this sketch challenged me a little bit. I knew I was going to do a Christmas theme so that I could also use this card in my upcoming Christmas in February card class. And I knew I wanted to use that cute little birdie and the branch, both by Hero Arts. And I had a bunch of this red cardstock pre-cut to this size from a previous class. For some reason, though, the card really didn't come together for me until I added those little black dashed lines around the die-cut piece and the strip of kraft cardstock with the scalloped edge. I am super pleased with the final result - I think it's pretty darn cute! Now for the paper yummies:

I embossed the red cardstock with my "Seeing Spots" Cuttlebug folder, and lightly went over the raised areas with some white ink. I used a Nestabilities die for the white cardstock piece, then stamped the lil' birdie and the branch underneath him. I colored them in with Prismacolor markers, then used some Frosted Lace Stickles to look like snow had fallen on them. The beautiful sentiment stamp is from Market Street Stamps "Essential Holiday Elegance" set. I stamped the little snowflake and embossed it with white powder, then punched it out with my Martha Stewart scalloped circle punch. Here is a little closer look at the "snow" (click on any picture to make it larger):

I'm also playing along with Christmas Card Challenges "Create your own background" challenge. Thanks for looking!

Supplies: cardstock: Georgia Pacific (white), Core'dinations (red), Recollections (kraft); stamps: Hero Arts (bird, branch), Market Street Stamps (sentiment), Hampton Art (snowflake); ink: Tsukineko (black Versafine, Versamark), Making Memories (white); embossing powder: American Crafts; markers: Prismacolor; die cut: Nestabilities by Spellbinders; embossing folder: Cuttlebug; die cut machine: Cuttlebug; scallop edge punch: EK Success; scallop circle punch: Martha Stewart; ribbon: Target; black pen: Recollections; glitter glue: Ranger