Hello!  The new year has brought some changes to the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown blog.  The biggest is that we’ve decided to switch to a twice-monthly challenge format, offering challenges on the first and third Saturdays of each month.  That’s made it necessary for a name change to Christmas Card Throwdown.  We also have a bunch of new design team members, and I hope you’ll join me in welcoming them by visiting their blogs and leaving comments for them.

We’re starting off with a sketch challenge.  It’s actually quite similar to one I put together for CAS Colours & Sketches a few years ago.  🙂  I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if someone else in the crafting world had based a challenge on something like it before I did it!  Still, even with the sketch being familiar, I had a really hard time coming up with a card I liked for the CCT challenge.  I tossed several ideas around in my head, and got one card made but then didn’t like it once it was all assembled.  So I went back to the proverbial drawing board and looked through my Christmassy designer papers.  I found one with ornaments, and a light bulb went off in my head because I knew I had a stamp set with similarly-shaped ornaments.  I turned the sketch on its side, elongated it into a rectangle, and put the fold of my card at the top.  I used the rock-n-roll technique to ink the ornament stamp, which provided me with the darker edges to the stamped image.  I used dimensional adhesive to attach the ornament to the card for a little extra interest.

We hope you’ll enjoy our new blog format and challenges this year!  Now it’s time for you to check out all the challenge details at the CCT site, and visit the rest of the design team members’ blogs for more inspiration.  Then create your own card and link it at the CCT site by 7:00 pm Eastern time Friday, January 20.  Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Supplies:
Stamp: Delightful Decorations (Stampin’ Up)
Cardstock: Gumball Green, Whisper White (SU); designer paper from Very Merry Christmas 6×6 paper pad (Echo Park)
Ink: Riding Hood Red, Cherry Cobbler (SU)
Other: ornament punch, dimensionals (SU)