Photo Finish

So many lovely cards linked up this fortnight. Many thanks to all who played along with us, we love to see what you make! Here are a few cards we thought interpreted elements of the inspiration photo especially well:

Brenda B of Brenda's Scraps of Life

...combined gorgeous wood veneer, lots of luscious gold and fabulous foliage to really sum up everything we loved in the inspo pic!

Marina of My Perfect Life

...made an amazing CAS card that manages to evoke both the color palette and also the "rustic glam" vibe of the decor in the photo!

Joanne Travis of Sleepy in Seattle

...worked in many of the wonderful shades and textures of WHITE from the inspiration photo, plus a touch of gold; and the bonus of that utterly adorable reindeer!

And of course we're all longing to know who scored that fun little prize package, too. According to the fine folks at Random.org the lucky number is #16 which means our lucky winner is:

BARB G!

please send your snailmail address to lauren (at llaurenb (at) hotmail (dot) com) to claim your prize!

We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt we hope won't leave you feeling blue... ♥

Neutrals & Sparkles

We're still taking our inspiration from the rustic-but-glam Christmas scene this week:

(photo source)

Here is how we found our inspiration this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "Having gone seriously Maximalist last week, I had intended to pare down this time. (I stress the word INTENDED in that sentence.) I was still very inspired by the incredible tree in the inspiration pic, and wanted to make a bauble-shaped card which was mostly white-on-white, using papers from Prima's Pretty Pale collection, but then adding in some little hits of green. That part did actually happen. The pared-down-ness... not so much, lol. It turns out that when it comes to Prima flowers, the words, "just a few" are meaningless to me. But then Christmas is a good time to go a tiny bit crazy, in a good way, right?!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "This week I pulled in a little blue from the blue spruce on the fireplace mantle to complement my neutral tones.  I combined it with a vintage texty piece of designer papers as the base and then lots of ephemera and a piece of a vintage receipt book before finishing with some bronze glitter dots to bring in the sparkle ... all of those layers remind me of the decorations on that gorgeous Christmas tree."

Scroll down to the original post (directly below this one) to link up your own masterpiece and also to see the fun prize one randomly chosen cardmaker will win! ♥

A Rustic Glam Christmas Fireside

...is the vibe we are channeling this fortnight. Or at least, it's one possible interpretation of this beautiful inspiration photo we're using as a jumping off point for our holiday card designs:

photo credit

But in case you're thinking, "Well that's definitely not my style!" remember it's just an Inspiration Photo! So you can use as much or as little of ANY aspect of the pic. 

Maybe you'll go for a palette of all neutrals? Maybe you'll focus on ALL THE SPARKLE? Maybe you'll just choose one element, like the stockings hanging from the mantel? Or the frosted evergreen garland? Or even something super-specific, like the sweet vintage bike under the tree, or the amazing texture of that sisal rug? It's 100% up to you! 

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I started with the texture of the rug by covering my card base with DCWV Burlap paper.  Then I used the sketch from Fusion Card Challenge to incorporate my other elements like multiple shades of neutral ivories and browns with a touch of golden ribbon.  I die cut a Gina K. Designs Decorative Tag from a piece of Basic Grey Aspen Bark packaging (which I thought was close to the shape of the mirror on the mantle) and then used a few vintage embellishments that evoked the feel of the room that both include a Christmas Tree and grounded them with a cork sticker.  I attached my entire tag with a piece of vintage sheet music of The Little Drummer Boy.  I finished with an Alexandra Renke die cut clip."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "It's pretty obvious that I focused mainly on the neutral-but-never-boring color palette... specifically the many shades and many textures of WHITE which are in that gorgeous holiday room. My background paper is from Prima's "Pretty Pale" collection and has a bit of a layered, collage style. I couldn't resist adding floral elements and sparkly snowflakes, like the ones included on that amazing tree. My "natural" style tends to be a bit on the --ahem-- maximalist style (lol) so it was no trouble at all for me to add layers and layers of embellishment in the form of stenciling, rub on transfers, and of course plenty of bling!"

We've got an extra added attraction this time, in the form of some fun holiday goodies for one randomly chosen cardmaker who links up with us this time!

Link as many cards as you'd like before 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, July 31st. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:19:15.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter