Funky Christmas tree

A few days ago, my husband came home with a box containing the Stamp of Approval Holiday Magic collection. The stamps and dies in this collection were hand-picked by Catherine Pooler and are just wonderful. I think this is the first time that I broke into my new stamps within 3 days of their arrival into my house.

I'm always having a hard time deciding which stamps to use first, but this time I let myself be inspired by the interesting colour combination over on the CAS Colours and Sketches blog. After picking my ink colours (Dark Chocolate by Papertrey ink, and Dandelion and Elderberry by Memento), I grabbed the Bright Baubles set by Neat and Tangled (none of the products in this SOA collection have been released to the general public as yet) and set to work, using my MISTI and a die cut panel I saved from a previous project (cut using a stitched rectangle die by SSS).

I stamped the tree trunk in brown ink and then added the various baubles in Dandelion and Elderberry ink. I also used my Elderberry ink to stamp the sentiment (from the same N&T set) and the background borders (Holiday Trimmings set by Winnie & Walter; also included in the SOA collection) on my base card. For some festive shimmer, I went over the baubles, star and background borders with clear Wink of Stella and adhered the stamped panel to my base card using foam tape.

Edited to link this card up to the Parade of SOA Holiday Cards.

I'm entering my card into the following challenges:

CAS Colours & Sketches - 149 Colour combo

ATSM - 169 CAS

52CCT - Pick a previous theme (21 Christmas trees)

Aud Sentiments - 144 Bingo + sentiment
 (middle column: stitching - stamp - glitter)