this whole card was basically lorraine's idea

at least indirectly. you see, when lorraine, of paper vernissage, my fellow crafty jersey girl, saw the emboss/resist card i made for sos a few weeks ago, she said the mandala stamp i used reminded her of a snowflake. so when i was thinking about what to make for the second week of our embossing prompt at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ i decided to stretch the idea even further and see what would happen:

mandala (or snowflake, lol) stamp set: sheena douglass for crafter's companion; inks: several shades of blue distress ink by ranger and purple pigment ink by colorbox; white glossy cardstock: paper accents; holiday/winter sentiment sticker: SRM; purple patterned paper: anna griffin; snowflake stickers: stickopatomus; felt and gem snowflakes: hero arts; adhesives: elmer's brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, gluedots, sewing machine

i was playing around with a few different color palettes, but when i saw the gorgeous blue and purple tones of the new "floral fusion" board at fusion card challenge, i was smitten. i'd hoped to use the sketch, as well, but i wound up liking my background so much that i decided not to cover it up.

strangely enough, this was one of the easiest stamping adventures i've ever had, and one of the hardest card-making scenarios. which, for the record, is the reverse of what usually happens to me. but it turns out that when you don't really stamp that much, and you suddenly come up with a pretty cool background, you can totally psych yourself out about "ruining" it, lol! eventually... (by which i mean, "after literally trying every other idea in the entire universe that could possibly involve snowflakes"!!!) ...i just went really simple, enhanced one centrally located snowflake, and made a little pennant for an SRM sticker sentiment:

i'm happy with the end result, and would actually consider making a few more versions of this if i need some extra cards in december. i like that i could make them all the same in terms of design, but all unique in terms of colors and blending. plus-- except for the silly dithery bit in the middle-- it was really fun to make.

speaking of fun... you should totally go and check out the cards miss stephanie AND our lovely guest star steph c have made at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥. i'll give you a hint: they both feature embossing!!! :)