Flourishes Beautiful World Tour – Happy Holidays…

Hello Friends and Flourishes Fans!

Somehow another month has snuck past, and so it’s time for another tour of inspiration around the world! I love it when it’s time for another Beautiful World Tour, because the challenges are always something out of my box, and stretch me to try something I’m not used to. This month is no exception!

Don’t forget, your travels can win you free Flourishes stamps! Just remember to leave a comment on each of the designers’ blogs to have a chance at the random draw!

You should have arrived here from Dina’s blog, but if you stumbled upon me by chance, you can always go back to the beginning, at the Flourishes blog here.

This month we are hosted by Bridget, who raised the challenge, “Off the Page” – basically anything but a card. I chose to go with a gift card holder, since the season of gift cards is just around the corner… and once I chose that, I decided to use a technique I’ve only done a couple of times – which is what I was referring to earlier!

I decided to work with the new Handmade Snowflakes set, to create my own patterned paper – I don’t think I even need to mention anymore how much I love doing that, do I? *wink*

I started by embossing my flakes with white powder, then using a couple of different blue inks, I sponged the entire thing to give it some colour and depth. I love how it turned out!

I used a seed packet die, since it fits a card so perfectly, and just stamped and inked it once it was cut out, so that the edges would be properly shaded.

I kept my embellishing simple, because I didn’t really think it needed very much – these snowflakes are too beautiful to hide!

My sentiments are from the cute little set, Sentimental Christmas.

Here, you can see how perfectly the seed packet holds a gift card:

And because I’m in Canada, I made sure to use a gift card from a favourite Canadian chain, Tim Horton’s! I am typically a Starbucks girl, but come Christmas time, we have a tradition of stopping at Tim’s for a hot chocolate (theirs is the best!) and donuts before heading out on our Christmas Light drive around. It’s one of my favourite things to see Tim’s featured on How I Met Your Mother every once in awhile, because it’s so much a part of Canadian culture – I know many ex-Pats who hit up the Tim’s in the airport as soon as the plane lands!

Now you’re jetting off to a much warmer location, Australia, to visit the beautifully talented…