the holly and the ivy

hooray for friday and hooray for a new ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ prompt! it's going to be hard to beat last fortnight, because we had that amazing sketch stephanie drew, and i seriously think i could easily use that thing another two-- or forty-two-- consecutive weeks without tiring of it! but it's good to branch out, right? so this time we're embracing holiday foliage! of course the eponymous holly and ivy are some of the first things i think of, but there's also mistletoe, and pine boughs, and did you know that all of the leaves on a poinsettia, whether they be red, or pink, or white, or cream, ARE leaves and not flowers? ok, admittedly, i had to check wikipedia to find that out, but it's true! :)

(patterned paper: recollections, echo park, dcwv, october afternoon, basic grey; cardinal and mistletoe transparency elements + border sticker: little yellow bicycle; small velvet florals: petaloo; velvet holly leaves: making memories; pressed paper holly and ivy leaves: prima; resin pinecone stickers: martha stewart; poinsettia and holly stickers: sticko; holly diecuts: kay and co gems: recollections; red pearls: kaiser; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, gluedots, sewing machine)

weirdly enough, this is not only one of my favorite cards i've made in 2014 so far, but it's also one of the fastest cards i've made all year. ok, i guess i should stipulate that it was fast for ME, lol, which is not necessarily "fast" in the traditional sense! i suppose the reason is that once again i had the PERFECT sketch for the job, this time from karan gerber at cardabilities. i mean seriously, how could you go wrong using this?

and now i'm pretty sure you'll want to be heading over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ because you definitely don't want to miss stephanie's gorgeous card! ciao, darlings!