adventures of distraction

Last night as I lay sleeping (not), I suddenly realized that if I'm having a long weekend out of town later this week, and my next Card Buffet Stamp-a-Stack events take place the following weekend, I'd better get something planned.  I have some Christmas cards ready that I haven't offered yet, but it's nice to have a card that can serve other purposes, such as a thank you or a birthday.  The colors at Color Throwdown are a good start for that, as are the snowflakes in Endless Wishes.  I also suddenly realized, just about an hour ago during a period of distraction from buffet planning, that I hadn't left any comment-love for my fellow Wacky Watercooler Blog Hop participants last month, and lo-and-behold, Jean had the *perfect* card, which I jumped right of my seat to go and CASE*:

stamp sets - Endless Wishes, Endless Birthday Wishes; ink - Tempting Turquoise, Wisteria Wonder, Elegant Eggplant Memento Tuxedo Black; card stock - Whisper White, Elegant Eggplant, Tempting Turquoise

Before I was distracted, I was thinking about the Christmas cards we might make, and I flipped through my designer series papers.  I found this beautiful silver-foiled specialty paper that I had forgotten was included in the All is Calm set.  It just called out to be used for the Silver challenge at Stampin' Royalty:

stamp set - Cheerful Christmas; ink - Versamark, Encore Silver (on envelope); stampin' emboss powder - Silver; card stock - Silver Foil, Night of Navy; designer series paper - All is Calm; Big Shot with Deco Labels framelits

There seems to be a bit of reflection making the silver seem like gold in the photo, but it really is silver in real life, I promise - I wish you could see it, it's one of my favorites this year.  I wanted a narrower border for the silver foil mat, and used a craft-knife to trace around the framelit that I used for the sentiment.  That's too fussy for mass production, so we won't making this card at Card Buffet, but I do have another option that incorporates Silver-embossed Cheerful Christmas.

As unusual as it is for me, each of these two cards qualifies at only one challenge - maybe because I was feeling late and distracted, but that seems to be completely normal for me, most of the time, so I'm not sure that's really the cause.  Whatever the cause, I like the effects.

 (*Copy And Share Everything)