It’s been ages since I’ve been here and to be honest it’s been a refreshing little break, although I must apologise for not mentioning that I would be taking a little blogging hiatus.

I didn’t really plan to, but with Christmas, New Year and extended school holidays and everything that goes along with it, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying just hanging out and doing nothing in particular.

Except swimming.  Lots of swimming, plus discovering new parks with the girls and generally having a lovely summer!

You may have noticed that my banner is back to normal and I am dressed in my usual Cameo Coral attire again and have done away with the Christmas hat, hence the title of this post.

Had I myself been wearing a Santa hat for two months, aside from an exceedingly itchy scalp, I’d have had the most atrocious case of hat hair you’ve ever seen.

Thank goodness for digi-me in all my bouffant and hat hair-less glory

Despite not having been blogging, I have still been creating and gearing up for some fun stampin’ stuff in 2010.

I’ve been editing photos galore of some long-ago projects and will be sharing these in the next little while, as well as some newer stuff as well.

How about a little something to get the 2010 party started….?

My Christmas card designs for 2009!

You’ll notice I stayed well away from the Trendy Christmas Tree debacle of last year…

Forgive me for not adding in the materials lists for these cards – I may pop back in with that information, plus a little ‘how-to’ on the Christmas trees in the first cards, but I’m going to spend some reading time with my chickens before they pop off to bed.

What I will do is leave you with a little poll though, as it’s something that I’ve been thinking about a bit lately and thought I would throw the question out there, although possibly the Trendy Christmas Trees comment fest should warn me otherwise…

Anyways, here goes…

Look, I’m sorry, I promise to extract this large buzzing bee from my bonnet very shortly, but I thought I’d give it one last crack based on some further comments on the last post (thanks Karen and Di!)

But before I show you the last effort, can I just say how much fun I’ve had watching the comments bounce around on the previous post!  You guys crack me up and make me enjoy this blogging process even more.

And I’ve loved your honesty, really I have!  I was talking to my friend Danneil on the phone this morning (*waving* Dan!) and she said that the original card didn’t really say “Christmas to” her, but she was too scared to say so in a comment lest the general commenting public flame her for it!

Of course she would have been perfectly fine to speak her mind and add her opinion to the conversation, so long as she was prepared to sleep with one eye open for a while, right?!

*KIDDING* of course!

Here we go, and I think this is my favourite of the lot…

You’ll notice that I’ve removed the glittery ‘pox’.  It bugged me, so it’s gone!

Other than that I used Kiwi Kiss as the base and Chocolate Chip behind the little accent piece, then in a last ditch attempt to try and Christmas-ify it, I pulled out the little bling centre from a small clear Rhinestone brad and stuck it to the top of the tree (leaf, whatever..!)

So I’m exhausted and may never use Trendy Trees again (yeah right!) but I like this one of all three the best and I’m closing the comments section just in case anybody makes a further suggestion.

No, I’m not really, but I am putting my fingers in my ears and saying “lalalalalala”!

So I took some of your advice from the comments on my last post and made some changes to my Trendy Trees Christmas card.

In fact, as it turns out, I took almost all of your advice…

I’m not sure what I think about it, so at the risk of my stampin’ confidence, I’m throwing it out there again…

And here are the original and the new side by side for purposes of comparion…

I cut the card to turn it into a 10.5 x 10.5cm one, enlarged the square of Kiwi Kiss behind the scalloped element and added a tab of Riding Hood Red striped ribbon.

For the baubles, I dotted around some of my Tombow Multi liquid glue and sprinkled on some Orange Fine Supernova Glitter to make the baubles sparkly.  I’m not sure that it doesn’t now look like the original “leaf” now has an unfortunate case of some kind of pox.  A sparkly pox, but a pox all the same.  Aunty Mair, can you look that one up for me…?!

Like I mentioned earlier, I’m not too sure about this one.  I think it’s a bit too fussy for my tastes.

What do you say good visiting folk?  Is it a better attempt than the first, or do I really just need to put this down as a learning experience, step away from the tree and move on….?!

I have been meaning for the longest time to start taking part in more stamping challenges.   I love seeing what different looks can be achieved based on a single sketch, combination of colours, or whatever challenge guidelines are set.

This week I set my sights on Karen Giron’s Sweet Sunday Sketch #42 and what fun I had!

I thought it was high time I started getting into Christmas mode, so thought I would turn the challenge into an opportunity to make a Christmas card.

Here’s the sketch challenge…

And here’s what I did with it…

I am loving this colour combination of Chocolate Chip, Riding Hood Red and Kiwi Kiss for Christmas, which I was alerted to the other day by my sis-in-law Janny.  Just the right kind of cheery Christmas look, without being too traditional.

The process of creating this card is fairly self explanatory, but one quick thing I’ll point out is that I stamped off the flower image once on scrap paper before stamping it onto the Whisper White.  The full strength Riding Hood Red was a tad overpowering and the greeting got a bit lost in it.

I encourage you to play along with some challenges – they’re awesome fun, they give you a shove outside of your comfort zone and best of all they get you stamping.

Happy Friday!

“Sweet Sunday #42 Christmas Card”
Stamps: Season of Joy
Paper: Chocolate Chip, Kiwi Kiss, Whisper White, Washington Apple DSP, Holiday Treasures DSP
Ink: Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Scallop Edge Punch, Small Corner Rounder Punch, Chocolate chip wide double stitched grosgrain, Circle Ice Rhinestone brads, Stampin’ Dimensionals