Christmas Musing in March

Two of my talented friends are getting together with some Christmas inspiration... Emily is the guest Muse for Ardyth's Muse: ChristmasVisions challenge this week! I'm practically obligated to play along. ;) Here is Emily's fun inspiration card: 

So much in this card to be inspired by! Having no yetis, I looked to: the deer in the trees; the use of patterned paper; the varied colours of the evergreens; the gold cord; and the overall clean design. Emily's little jar scenes are very similar to a stamp I have, so that was my starting point. Here's my finished card: 

I think it's easy to see why I pulled out this particular stamp! I really wanted to duplicate the shades of green that Emily used for her trees, but having all of them on one stamp made it a little trickier. After inking the whole stamp with Versamark (both to make sure my inks stayed juicy as I played, and so I could heat emboss), I used sponge daubers to ink the trees in three different greens and the deer in brown. I was able to curve a cling stamp enough to echo the line of trees. And of course I messed up trying to put the sentiment right on the panel! I kind of like the curved panel I had to use to cover up my mistake. It barely shows in the photo above, but you can see it here a little better: 

I brushed a little Wink of Stella along the curved edge, as well. Rather than try to match the brown of the deer in cardstock, I just sponged the edges of a white panel with the same ink. 
It's great to start building up a small stash of Christmas cards so early in the year! Maybe you'll be inspired by Emily's card to play along, too. 

Supplies: white cardstock, Echo Park Dots & Stripes Metropolitan patterned paper, Memory Box Deer in the Field & Stampin' Up Winter Memories stamps, Versamark & iced spruce, peeled paint, evergreen bough & ground espresso distress inks, clear & pirate's gold embossing powders, My Favorite Things blueprints 24 & Paper Smooches borders 1 dies, Wink of Stella clear glitter brush pen, May Arts white & gold twine