Sketchbook Saturday 18 and The Paper Players 54

I think I missed some kind of Christmas stamping memo because Christmas is the last thing on my mind now, but every time I turn around I see a Christmas in July challenge theme!  And this theme has carried over into other areas of my life too.  This past Monday I went to the 4th of July parade that my town hosts, and who do you suppose was sitting in the last float of the parade?  You guessed it!  None other than Santa Claus himself.  So I took this to be some kind of cosmic sign that I better get out my Christmas stamp sets and start inking them up.  The Christmas challenge at The Paper Players helped me along!

Once I decided on a theme, I wanted a sketch or a color challenge to get my creative juices flowing.  The Sketchbook Saturday challenge seemed to fit the bill.

I used some retired designer paper called Christmas Cocoa and Jolly Holiday to set the tone for the colors of my card, which are Very Vanilla, Soft Suede, Old Olive, and Cherry Cobbler.  I was a HUGE fan of the Jolly Holiday paper which was all about Old Olive and Cherry Cobbler.  I've got quite a bit of it left, so I'm sure I'll be using it again to make some Christmas cards soon. 

At least I hope it will be soon!  I'd like to get my Christmas cards done early this year.  This, of course, is what I say every year but is not what actually happens!  Last year I nearly got them all done in time for me to realize that I hadn't made enough.  This precipitated an emergency card-making night that I'm not sure I have recovered from yet!   This year I'm confident that I'll do better!!

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you have time to stamp!