White Christmas polar bear in a bauble

Hello crafting friends!

It's important to look on the bright side of life isn't it, so I'm going to start this post with saying that the miserable weather here has been SO good for my Christmas card stash! There's snow in today's card although things haven't got quite that chilly in real life yet! Come and see:

Several people have given me gifts of dies and although I was going to hold out until Christmas for a die cutting machine, I crumbled the other weekend and bought a Big Shot Foldaway. It deserves a post all of its own I think so, for now, I'll just say I really, REALLY enjoyed cutting this bauble aperture using a bauble die and a circle die from nesting sets - thanks Gill!

The scene inside the bauble was started by stamping the bear from Stampin' Up's White Christmas (retired) in Smoky Slate ink on a separate piece of white card stock. I coloured in the sky with a couple of pale blue alcohol markers, using a colour lifter to add the suggestion of snow. The trees from Waterfront were added and I added snow to those with a white gel pen. The scene was glued to the back of the bauble aperture.

To finish the card, I used the bauble die again on Smoky Slate card stock, then trimmed it to add a topper to my bauble. A bakers twine bow and a stamped sentiment were added before the card panel was attached to a Soft Sky card base.

The sketch I used for this card is the current challenge at Freshly Made Sketches.

I shall also link up to CrazyHazelnut's Christmas Challenge where Anything Christmas Goes, with optional For Someone Special theme.

You can enter up to two projects at Sweet Stampin' Christmas, where Anything Christmas Goes, with optional Christmas Decoration theme. This is my second entry there :)

AND IN OTHER NEWS
It's been a hectic weekend here with both my daughter and my eldest son visiting to make sure I was bearing up after my youngest had gone off to university! (They are sweet but, considering he spent most of his time at work or out socialising, I had plenty of time to get used to not seeing him much!) It was so good to see them both but, as always, I realise that we were so busy enjoying ourselves that we forgot to take photos. Note to self: memories are twice as sweet when you can relive them through photos afterwards!

Thanks for joining me today. Judging from all the inspiring challenges that have come out over the weekend, I shall be back VERY soon! How are you getting on with your Christmas card stash? Do let me know in the comments below - I always love hearing what you've been up to :)

Hugs,