Bellariffic Friday and Merry Monday Card

Finally the humidity broke and today was just beautiful. Hubby and I spent the entire day outside doing the yard and garden work. He cuts the grass and does the trimming, sweeping, etc (he is very thorough) and I remove any dandelions in the lawn and then I putter in the garden. We each know what the other does and it just gets done. We work very well together. We can even put together furniture/shelving, etc. without one argument. Truly we can. I'm not kidding you. Nice to be married to your best friend! So, now that the garden/lawn work is done (sure which the neighbour took a little pride in their place - shudder) the weekend is free for fun stuff.

Today's card is a combination of two blog challenges. One is Stampin' Bella where we were to make a card using our favorite Bella female stamp - I just picked one, I like them all. The other is from AlwaysplayingwithPaper blog where they have a Merry Monday challenge where we are to make a Christmas card and they had a sketch. I combined the two of them and here is what I made.

This one was coloured with Tombow markers that I first stroked across a piece of hard plastic and then picked up the colours with my blending pen...except for the wreath's bow and the berries where I wanted a more intense colour. I ran the card base thru the Cuttlebug embossing folder of snowflakes. The the checkered paper that was mounted on the redish/wine paper and the ribbon was wrapped around it. I cut out the image with a Spellbinders circle die, and then cut the red fancy circle and cut the small circle from the smallest die from that set.

Once it was all glued down I decided I didn't like it all that much. The large fancy circle had holes cut out and they were sometimes red, sometimes over the checkered paper and it just looked weird. So, I got out some large gems and started placing them on over top of the holes. Wow, can you say BLING? Oh well, once their on, their on. The sentiment on the small circle is a rub on. Definitely not one of my favorite cards but sometimes the ones I'm not crazy about are the first ones to sell.

Here is a tip about using gems for any of you new to card making. Regardless of the size of the gems, always cut between them with scissors before trying to lift one off. The manufacturers put down a length of glue, then add the gems. if you try pulling off one gem without cutting between them first, you will be removing the whole line - or the gem will pull off without any glue.

Have a great weekend where ever you are and what ever you will be doing.