Noteworthy Neutrals

It turns out a neutral palette can be as elegant, exciting and glamorous as a more colorful selection, as a wander through the Readers' Gallery will demonstrate. Here are a few Neutral Noel cards that especially caught our eye:

Prudence N aka Penguin Parade on Instagram

...not only embraced the neutral palette but managed a one-layer CAS masterpiece with just intricate gold embossing and a few perfectly placed copper sequins.

Vicky of Crafting Clare's Paper Moments

...used an embossing folder and ink daubers to create this incredibly realistic and totally textural slimline pine perfection!

Melissa Miller of Mel's Card Corner

...artfully torn paper in multiple tones of taupe, grey and white make this beauty a super-star stand-out in any company!

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Many thanks to everyone who played along, we loved seeing all of your amazingly creative ideas! We'll be back at midnight with a brand new theme that we hope you'll think is TREE-mendous! ;)

Keep it in Neutral

We're still embracing a neutral color palette this week and you still have until Wednesday evening to join the fun. You can choose from white, ecru, ivory, beige, tan, brown, gold, copper, bronze, silver, grey, charcoal, ebony, black and everything in between. Make it monochromatic... or mix it up. As long as you keep it in neutral, you're good to go!

Here's what we made this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I had intended to go with more of a silver/grey/white scheme this time, but I still had some of the tan/cream/brown items out from last week; then I discovered an entire herd of adorable tan Impression Obsession diecut reindeer, which sort of clinched the deal. I used Penny Black's Trees and Hills dies to make a landscape and my trusty Nestabilities Diamonds to frame them up, with some highly patina-ed vintage sheet music and Carta Bella starry patterned paper to round off the design."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I combined recycled packaging (mostly covered with glittery poinsettias) with handmade paper and some vintage BasicGrey grid paper using this week's Sketch Saturday layout.  I blinged-it-up with some pearl flourishes and two sentiments from Taylored Expressions Simple Strips - Christmas.

Neutral Noel

This fortnight we're asking you to create holiday cards which embrace only the neutral color palette – white, cream, ivory, ecru, silver, gold, black, gray, charcoal, obsidian, brown, tan, kraft, camel, oatmeal, sienna (you get the picture). If you're feeling limited by lack of color, why not think texture? There's burlap, jute, paper bags, cork, chalkboards, sandpaper or lace... Use them all together or chose one hue and rock the monochromatic design  as long as it's NEUTRAL it's in.

Here's what we made for our Neutral Noel:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I started with a piece of upcycled Tim Holtz packaging on an ivory cardbase, and then I built my collage from there with lots of neutral bits and bobs. I finished with some Eyelet Outlet Black Pearl Swirl Bling and a neutral poinsettia."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I raided my well-hoarded stash of Ciao Bella's Snow and the City papers (from Paper Anthology a couple of winters ago) from which I took the bokeh paper, the brick paper and tag, and I was even able to make my focal point by punching a circle from one of the thumbnail pictures on the collection's cover sheet. I mixed in a fabric poinsettia, Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Bling, some Pavilio White Lace Tape, a Tim Holtz sticker sentiment and lots (seriously LOTS!) of distressing and machine stitching."

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Link your Neutral Noel masterpieces right here by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, August 9th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB2316.

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