Peace On Earth Christmas Challenge #1 & Christmas Card Throwdown October Color Challenge

I am combining a BRAND NEW challenge, Peace on Earth, with the Christmas Card Throwdown challenge.  I heard from Michele at I Card Everyone that Diane & Darlene. who also run the challenges at Double D and Two Old Bats Halloween, have started a new Christmas challenge!  I am always looking for a good Christmas challenge to supply the inspiration needed to build my stash.  I am so excited!

From the MOOD BOARD supplied at Peace On Earth, I focused on the Scandinavian Christmas pattern and the prancing horse (which I replaced with a prancing deer).  At Christmas Card Throwdown, the COLORS we are focused on this week are RED and BROWN.  I decided to play around with a card idea!  The cards made for each challenge have a few common elements.

I started with Tim Holtz' Holiday Knits. I created two background with the cover stamp.  One background is stamped in Mama Elephant's Apple ink and embossed in clear.  The second background is stamped in Versamark and white embossed.  Looking at the two backgrounds, although the same stamp, the effect is very different. Second, I die cut and layered Essential by Ellen's Leaping Deer from kraft/brown cardstock.  To each deer, I added a pink rhinestone nose and a small red bow from My Favorite Things Bundle of Baby Clothes. 

On the Christmas Throwdown card, Concord & 9th's JOY was die cut from the embossed panel.  To get a bit more brown into the card, scrap red cardstock was stamped with C&9's Buffalo Check background stamp in Momento Brown, and  the JOY die cut and inlaid in the embossed panel.  The embossed panel was adhered to a kraft cardbase and the deer adhered.

On the Peace on Earth card,  Simon Says Stamp's BELIEVE was die cut from red cardstock and mounted on a vellum background.  The embossed panel was adhered to a white cardbase, the deer and sentiment adhered.

Enjoy!