Vintage Christmas

Hello,
I don't know about you, but I am so pleased to see the weekend approaching as I have had little time to do crafting with having the grandson everyday and being poorly too.  Also, on Saturday, we go to collect my youngest son from University.  It seems an age since he was home last!
 
When I was packing up the papers for the Candy draw last week I fell in love with a couple of the Shabby papers and so left some on my desk for a card.  Well, at last I have made a card with them and I am rather pleased.  I wasn't sure at first what I wanted to create as the papers were simply roses. Then suddenly the card was designing itself, so to speak.

 
I played around with round dies and rectangles, filigree Motifs etc, but in the end I settled for a square.  Yes, the Fleur de Lis square.  I noticed as I was playing that if you offset two of the squares they form a beautiful Motif of their own and it resembles a snowflake.  Well that was when the card almost made itself.  With the snowflake in hand, the rest just fitted together quite easily. 
I don't know if you noticed but I have used some of the lace I showed on the blog the other day, isn't it lovely; being ivory it fits the vintage look perfectly. I threaded some fine organza ribbon and burlap string through the top holes to add a little extra colour and for texture I added some gold and berry red PVA pearls on the centerpiece and to the outer corners. 

I have kept the card quite bare of embellishments as I thought the paper had so much in it already that it didn't warrant over dressing.  I have, however, omitted one thing that I didn't mean to and that was the greeting.   I was going to stamp a small 'Seasons Greetings' at the top, directly onto the patterned paper (not sure how I forgot to do it!)
As the base card I used was a little thinner than usual I decided to decorate the inside also to give it some strength and stability.

I used more of the same papers and a pretty little Christmas Bells stamp with a greeting.  Again I have left it fairly simple in keeping with the vintage theme.

Finally, the card from the side.  I am really happy with how this one turned out, I do hope you like it too, but be honest please,  I know we all have different tastes.
That's it for another day.  I have a lovely floral card to show you tomorrow using layered Parisian borders.  It's something a bit different for me again.  I am really enjoying pushing my bounderies at the moment.  I am trying hard to play more and not just stick to layering diecuts.  I do adore my Spellbinders and will continue to use them, but now I like to mix them with lots of other things too. 
Before I go, I want to say a big thank you for the input regarding the Diecut Swap Shop.  We must all keep thinking on that subject and then, hopefully we can make a decision sometime next week.
Have a wonderful Friday.  Regards Linda xx