We went to Home Depot today, and when we walked in, my husband saw that all of the artificial Christmas trees were on display and said, “Already? It’s not even Thanksgiving.” We both remember when the day after Thanksgiving was the “official” start of the Christmas season, but it seems that every year, Christmas displays are out earlier and earlier!

I have to admit, I’m kind of putting off making our Christmas cards. Since I’ve started card making as a hobby, my worry is that people know I make cards and that they won’t be pretty or fancy enough! I know, that’s pretty silly, but hopefully I can get them made soon!

It’s great to work on card challenges because they make me think of color combinations or ideas that inspire other projects, and the color combo for this week’s Color Throwdown challenge is perfect for getting in the holiday spirit:

For this week’s Get Sketchy challenge, I used some beautiful fall-colored papers from Basic Grey’s Pyrus collection.

Fall is my favorite time of year…I love living in an area where the leaves change colors! I really need to get out and take pictures before all the leaves fall off of the trees!

Here’s the sketch for this week:

For my card, I used some Lawn Fawn stamps from the “Harvest Season” set. I colored the cornucopia and leaves with some Copics that I borrowed from my friend Sparkle at our last stamping session! The papers I used are from Cosmo Cricket’s “Matilda” collection…even though they are technically Halloween papers, I like the way they look with these stamps!
 

I got so inspired by all the damask loveliness over at Moxie Fab World that I decided to make a card to enter in the Diggin’ on Damask challenge! There’s still time to play along…the contest runs until midnight on Monday, November 8!

Cath has assembled lots of beautiful examples of damask patterns used in bags, notecards, even light switch plates and more! Check it out! This is one of my favorite images, some note cards from InkspotWorkshop:

My card features some paper from Basic Grey’s Eskimo Kisses collection.

I took the damask theme a few steps further by embossing some Tim Holtz grungeboard and inking it with several different colors to make my Christmas tree. Each of the chipboard “ornaments” is inked and stamped with a subtle damask pattern. I even stamped the star with a different damask stamp!

This week’s colourQ challenge colors stumped me at first, but I made them work for me with a cute snowman stamp that I thought I’d lost!

Here’s this week’s set of colors:

Even if you can’t feel a chill in the air just yet, this week’s Tuesday Trigger over at Moxie Fab World will have you thinking of cooler weather:

This is my first time participating in a Sparkle Creations challenge, because I didn’t have any of the stamps until now!

This week’s challenge is inspired by some pretty red and white snowflake-y bedding:

For this week’s Card Positioning Systems (CPS) sketch challenge, I made a Thanksgiving card! It’s very easy to work with this sketch — I added my sentiment in the open area in the middle, and used the block at the lower right for my main image.

Here’s the sketch:

It took me a while to figure out what design I’d use for this week’s Get Sketchy challenge, but luckily, I had some paper that worked out great!

Here’s the sketch: