December? Already?

Where has the year gone? I can't believe we've been in our townhouse for over a year now! We've learned our way around much of our new neighborhood and have met lots of nice people.

I wanted to participate in the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge this week, which is to make your own background for a card. I just recently bought a stencil and modeling paste from SSS and this is my first effort to use it for a background. Those pretty snowflakes are dies from SSS too -- I love them!

That card also qualifies for the Scraptastic December challenge to use gold on a card or layout. I also made a second card for that challenge, with a gold-embossed sentiment backed by a scalloped gold label:

Looking forward to what other scrappy challenges December may bring!

I've been meaning to get back to creating cards for the challenge at Operation Write Home sponsored by Our Daily Bread Design, and had a chance to make a card for this month's theme -- a masculine card. This nice company with an attractive lineup of products supports OWH by paying shipping on up to two boxes of cards to our troops; and they select a random prize winner to boot! I recently got a couple of Tim Holtz stencils and am having fun learning to use them: