more outdoorsy goodness...

...at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ this week, thanks to our lovely friend and current guest star shanna picard. this card is one of the fastest i've made all year, and it's almost entirely flat! i realize that neither of those sound very laureny, but let me assure you that it IS still me; would you be more convinced if i essplained that i spent better than half my designing time trying to make it lumpier and more complicated? yeah, i thought that would do it. :)

house panel trimmed from a commercial xmas card; dark blue mat from an old christmas ideals magazine; pale blue glossy patterned paper: little yellow bicycle; doily tree built in layers, accented with colorbox chalk ink and diecut with sizzix christmas tree #2; glossy white cardstock: ranger; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape

of course it helped that i had inspiration for both the layout and color scheme just by virtue of stopping in to check out the current fusion card challenge, which is called "embossed ombre":

wouldja believe the center panel is trimmed from one of those freebie cards that charities send out at this time of year? i often save the pretty ones to use as tags or whatever. in this case i cut a horizontal slice and matted it on a dark blue page of an old christmas ideals magazine, then layered the whole thing on top of a strategically trimmed piece of glossy patterned paper. i finished the whole thing off with an inky layered doily tree that i made at some point and then changed my mind about using. i have no idea when i made it, or, for that matter, why i rejected it; but it was an awesome find this week!

speaking of awesome, shanna and stephanie both have beautiful brand new "outdoor" cards to show off, and all you need to do is hop over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ to see them! ciao, darlings!