Winter Wonderland (DT) Winter Sports!

And a very happy Friday morning to you!  It is a happy morning in Squirrel Towers because (a) it is WINTER WONDERLAND challenge day and (b) I've got the day off work, wheeeeeeeeee!

Thank you for all your fabulous entries last week, you certainly loved that challenge, and choosing the Winner and Top 3 is going to be a hard task - glad it's not my decision this time.  Don't forget to pop over to Winter Wonderland on Sunday morning, it could be you.

So, let's see what you make of this week's theme WINTER SPORTS - sledging, skating, snowball fights, skiing ...... that kind of thing.  

As a bonus for you, we have TWO sponsors this week; we are so pleased to welcome a brand new regular sponsor CRAFTY-EMBLIES, and our regular sponsor KENNY K - Crafty-emblies are offering a £10 voucher and Kenny K are offering 5 digital images of the winner's choice.

I got a bit excited when I saw the theme as I have had this stamp burning a hole in the studio just crying out to be used:

The ingredients for my card are:

Stamped Image  Marianne Design - Ice Skating Don

Medium  Distress Inks (ReInkers)

Sentiment  LOTV Circular Sentiments

Papers  Papermania Yellow Collection (yes, really, yellow - that's what it says on the pack!!)

I've had a few questions about how I achieve this type of background to my images and, honestly, it's not that difficult to do if you are good with a small pair of scissors!  All I do is make a mask for the image using either a Post-It Note or, if I am feeling extravagent, Eclipse Masking Tape - this one was a bit fiddly because of the skates and his hair (you can see I didn't cut too close around his hair).  Once the mask is in place, I use Distress Inks pads with an old, and now very tatty, Hero Arts sponge.  It's like a small round car washing sponge but with a finer texture.  I have tried make-up sponges but they are a bit too dense and slippery and I end up with skid marks, and no girl wants those on a card!!  Really, a bit of patience and it's not that hard.  It can't be, or I wouldn't do it.

Right then, time to get your skates on (stop groaning) and get a Winter Sports card made and entered in the challenge - what's keeping you?!

Hugs, Sxx