Freshly Made Sketches 251!

I am happy to report that I think I have made quite a dent in my Christmas card stash this year.  I'm afraid to count how many I actually have in case it's a lot less than I think it is - I don't want any bad news to spoil my good mood!  The sketch this week at Freshly Made Sketches, brought to you by the lovely and very talented Cindy Hall, gave me the opportunity to add another one.  Although, this one is a tag.

The color palette at Christmas Card Challenges inspired the colors of my little elf's suit  and it was easy to create a background with some of the neutral colors.  I actually cut into some very old patterned paper to make one of the background shapes.  Normally I gaze fondly at that paper as I lament that it is just too pretty to cut, but I decided that there's no use staring at that paper anymore when I can put it to good use.  So here it is!  I tried to fit an oval shape on here but I just wasn't loving any of them - the sizes were all wrong.  So out came my Bam Bubble die and I got a cool background for my elf!

I hope you can play along with us this week at Freshly Made Sketches.  Our amazing design team has cooked up some beautiful cards to inspire you!

Supplies
Stamps:  Toy Land (The Alley Way Stamps); Sketchy Christmas (Precious Remembrance)
Paper:  Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Bashful Blue, Holiday Thyme DSP (SU); X-Press It Blending Card
Ink:  Early Espresso (SU); Black Licorice (My Favorite Things); Copics
Accessories:  Traditional Tags STAX, Pierced Traditional Tags STAX (My Favorite Things); Labels Nine die (Spellbinders); Bam Bubbles die (Paper Smooches); Crumb Cake seam binding ribbon, Early Espresso grosgrain ribbon (SU); Winter Wonderland sequins (Neat & Tangled); burlap twine