When I made the card for the current Color Hues Challenge I made a second one, and inlaid the leaves in green metallic paper–couldn't do that for a two-color challenge. But I forgot to add my Color Hues card to The Colorful Options Challenge (RED), so I wanted to get this one posted as well.

Since I gave more detailed information here, I won't go over it all again. The lovely ornament is from The Greetery, The Jumbo Curiosity Ornament: Round. All the papers for the ornament are metallic, and the sentiment is a premade one from Memory Box.

It's been raining all day (and cold) so it doesn't seem like Christmas is right around the corner, but I know how fast the time flies, so I need to be focused the next couple of weeks if I'm to have the cards, baking, and gifts wrapped in time for the holiday. I'll be glad to take the day off on Thursday to celebrate Thanksgiving with Tracy's family. I'm the "pie lady" so I do have to make three pies, but that's far easier than roasting a turkey and getting all the elements of a traditional dinner together. 

Here's the lovely moodboard for this month's RED challenge at Colorful Options.

The Paper Players have the perfect color combination for holiday cards:

Recently, Altenew notified me that I had reward points that ought to be used. It didn't take long for me to order their Festive Greenery 3D Embossing Folder and Stencil set. It seemed like the perfect time to break it out, and after playing with some possibilities I ended up with two cards. 

This card is pretty much the way Altenew shows it in the layering stencil guide. I use Simon Says Pawsitively Saturated Cherry ink for the berries and two new Pinkfresh Studio ink colors: Spruce Tips  and Lush Forest. I trimmed the edges so I could add a thin gold frame before adding it to a red cardbase.

The sentiment is a prefoiled one from Pinkfresh, Foiled Sentiments 4 Holiday which I adhered with dimensional tape. I added just three gold pearls as a final accent.

For this card, I embossed Evergreen cardstock from Concord & 9th. I wasn't sure how it would work, but I lined up the first stencil for the berries and ran a VersaMark clear embossing pad across the berries. Then I sprinkled some Zing Red Glitter embossing powder on the berries and heat set them. Aside from red glitter on the desk and on me, it worked out great.

It sometimes happens that a mistake is the first step in creating a card with a different design. I over-trimmed the long edges of the panel but didn't want to cut it down any more. In my stash where I keep folded cards I didn't end up using for a project I found one with an off-set front panel. It worked out perfectly for the embossed panel to which I again added a narrow gold frame. The sentiment is the same style as the one above, but this one I gold foiled on black cardstock which I liked much better for this card than the versions on white cardstock.

This card was finished yesterday, but it gets dark so quickly now that I had to wait until this morning to photograph it. Thus I am getting these into the challenge just in the nick of time.

I'll be sending another card over to Darnell's NBUS Challenge. Another new item used (rather quickly this time!)

*Note: if you're here to see today's Color Hues Challenge post (more Christmas, of course), click here.

It may be a bit early for the sentiment in the title of the post, but definitely NOT too early to be thinking about Christmas cards. Last year at this time all the cards that I needed were completed. There's a long story behind the fact that I am not nearly ready, but I'll save it for later if the original plan pans out in the end. In the meantime, I'm making Christmas cards when I can. Work on our house last week and the fact that volunteer work always seems to increase at this time of year, has meant crafty time has been diminished for the last couple of  weeks. I'll be working with our Dining Room Ministry program Saturday, but there appears to be a good amount of time for crafting as well. I have big plans . . .

For today, I'm sharing two cards that were quick to make since the gold foiled backgrounds were already prepared. I'm entering them in the Peace On Earth Challenge where they have a lovely mood board for inspiration, but where any Christmas themed card is welcome. This time I'm not focused on anything on the moodboard.

The beautiful foiled background is Pinkfresh Studio's Lush Vines which I've used over and over. This time it was foiled on Concord and 9th's Evergreen cardstock.

Both of the sentiments were die cut once from gold metallic paper and layered on four green die cuts for dimension. This JOY is from Savvy Stamps and has been in my collection for years. 

The die cut for this sentiment ended up in the envelope with the Savvy die. I haven't (yet) figured out where it came from. The sub-sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's Sending Joy set. 

The sun is shining here and we're due for possibly 60° temperatures, possibly the last day this fall. I'm hoping to get out for a long walk after lunch.