Hello!  It’s the fourth Saturday of the month, which means it’s time for an embellishment or a technique challenge at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown.  This week our hostess, Jacqueline, is challenging us to use sequins and/or pearls to embellish our Christmas cards.

I’ve chosen to use pearls on my card – mainly because I don’t own any sequins.  I decided to use them as the ornaments on the tree in this digital image.  The pastel colors of the pearls dictated my color choices for the card.  The layout is a fairly recent OWH Stars & Stamps sketch that I hadn’t yet used.  I originally planned to turn the sketch on its side to make this a portrait-oriented card, with the sentiment banner across the bottom, below the image panel.  However, as I opened one of my green markers to color the image, it splattered green ink on the cardstock, right above Cocoa Mouse’s head.  I tried using colorless blender to “erase” it, but I wasn’t completely successful at that.  I didn’t want to take the time to print another image and color it, especially since I’d already colored Cocoa and the garland.  So I ended up turning the card back to a landscape layout, and angled the sentiment banner to cover up the ink spot.  I guess that’s making the best of a bummer situation.  It’s hard to tell in the photo, but the yellow cardstock is textured, to give the card a little more visual interest in real life.

I hope you’ll check out the challenge details at the 52{C}CT site and play along with us this week!  Be sure to visit the rest of the design team members’ blogs for some more inspiration.  Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Digital Image: Cocoa’s Christmas Tree (Sweet ‘n Sassy Stamps)
Sentiment Stamp: More Merry Messages (Stampin’ Up)
Cardstock: Blushing Bride, Barely Banana textured, Certainly Celery (SU); Pure Luxury White (Gina K. Designs)
Ink: printer ink; Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Other: half pearls (KaiserCraft and Basic Grey); markers (Copic)