Christmas card- 1 gift

This is my first attempt at a lot of things. First time ever coloring in black and white shade and first time using the new alcohol markers. Before I used a mix of Bic, Promarkers, Copic...and a few others. They would never give me light hues or pastels so I am branching my markers out. Go easy with the critique of the coloring. I am learning to ALWAYS check the marker cap color ( tapped a dark color on her leg thinking it was light), how the markers bleed and what shades can be blended with others well.

Notice some really random items on the card? I have -no- green embellishments and I had to use what I had. When I started to run into all these issues I then had to get even more creative.  When I started to stitch I stitched a HOLE in my card!!! See a HOLE.  I kind of freaked out but then kept on stitching, which I am still getting the hang of.  After my card was stitched together I still had the hole but no ideas to cover it up at all. I went to my "Crap gotta clean up in 2 seconds" drawer and found this little piece of ribbon.  I just had enough to do the two sides.  It is not what I would have liked but it was better than starting all over and overall it does work with the card.

Now for the green flourish on the left. UGH I had little "puffs" of thread that kept sticking up so I put the flourish there to keep the puffs down. This card seems to have a mind of its own especially when I outlined the area in glitter. I could not coordinate my hands with the card and the glitter went where it wanted.  Of course I learned the hard way that you really cannot move glitter. It will leave behind this glossy smear of glue and look worse than a crooked line of glitter.

End result is I love the card, and each challenge that it gave me! I love just about all things I make and always have fun making the items.  I usually...never work with green so that was fun, and made me realise I need more of it.   Be easy with my coloring, just got the markers yesterday and i need to work on blending. My paper was getting too soaked for me to keep going. Practice practice practice.

The following challengs are the ones I am entering into. Seems like a lof of folks are doing anything goes which made my entries kinda high. I am stoping before 25. Thats a lot of work as it is, but I love to share and I love the feeling of joining in on the fun!

Lovely hAnglar- Grey image colored background.

2 Sisters challenge- color challenge----Top 3 :D

Christmas card challenges------ Punches (mat design in card. Fiskars lattice looking one. Matches ribbon!)

Fussy and Fancy- -----------Punches and dies

The poodles parlor----------- Anything goes

Crafty Anns--------- Stitching

Sparkles Christmas- tree

Creative card crew----- Ribbon

Crafty Catz---- Anything goes

Christmas stamping---------- Anything goes

CraftyHazelnuts------ ANY sentiment but no word christmas

Kaboodle doodles------ pop/3d dimensions

Crazy4 challenges- Paper piecing

Inky Impressions-------- Anything goes

Magnolia stamp lovers---------- Stitch

Paper Sundaes--------- ribbon and pearl. Who would have thought that my mistake would let me into another contest?

Crafty Sentiments designs---------- Spots or stripes

Papertake weekly- ----------Anything goes

Paper playtime-------- Anything goes

Pixie dust----- emboss (my tree is embossed, dry)

Simon says ----- anything goes

Tottaly Tilda------- Stitching (around the edge...you know where the HOLE was :)  )

Winter wonderland------- Girls!

Craft us crazy- I love magnolia and 2 sisters blog inspired the whole color scheme fun!