HLS Christmas September Christmas Challenge - Holly

Hello and welcome to the HLS Christmas Challenge for September...this month our theme is Holly.

Our challenge Sponsor is Happy Little Stampers

 and the winner of this month's challenge will receive one free stamp set from HLS. So we hope you'll find time to play along with your Holly ideas, have some fun and perhaps win a lovely free stamp set.

 - MFT Pierced Oval die cut a forest green cardstock. Applied a Starform holly outline sticker. Used Wink of Luna (WoL) markers to color in the motif. Have used these markers on black, with a pretty result, so decided to try on a dark green this time. I rather like how this turned out, but it was not very easy to shade the leaves. These markers are opaque, don't blend, but overlay the previous layer. Finally decided on sort of a 'flick' stroke to try to achieve some blending. After using the 2 shades of green that are available, and not getting quite a nice look, tried the blue marker. (well, some holly does indeed have a blue undertone!)...I liked it a bit better. WoL gold did nicely on the stems (it looks brown, but the label says it's gold). The red on the berries did not show well, even with many layers of WoL, so got out some of the red Starfoam glitter dots, and that did exactly what I'd hoped. While I like this look, I think the darker the background that WoL go over, the more stunning the resulting look is.

- Sue Wilson Frames & Tags Dainty Oval Frame diecut the mirror gold filigree mat behind the green oval. This layer has very thin dimensional foam under it.

- White layer has been embossed with a Holly Embossing folder...and used a piece of white fun foam cut slightly smaller to life it up from the green mat. All layers adhered with tape to the white card base.

The sentiment is one of the lovely calligraphy fonts from Kylies Mixed Christmas Sentiments. This card needed just a simple small design, and this particular one seemed perfect. Stamped on a snippet of white using Delicata gold, then heat embossed with Ranger's Queen's Gold. Punched with a small SU oval punch, and put some dimensionals behind it. I'll say it again: These new sentiment sets are going to be so versatile for me.

I had a lot of ideas when I saw the Holly theme for this month. Gathered many holly motifs - dies, folders, stamps, etc. Then I happened to think of these Outline stickers - which I've used with Ritz Glitter - and decided to try the dark green with the WoL markers. Now I can go put all the other 'stuff' I didn't use back where it belongs! Do you waffle on like this when you're trying to make a card???? :=0

Check out how my fellow HLS Christmas Teamies have shared for September and do join in to show us your Holly cards...and maybe win that nifty free stamp set!

Thanks for popping by. Have a wonderful day, and Big Hugs.