Candles and Elephants

I have two cards to share today - one a Christmas card and one a Birthday card made for challenges.

First up is one more card for my Christmas stash box.  I used 3 Waltzingmouse stamp sets for my design - Little Lanterns (lantern, hanger, chain, holly leaf, candle and flame), Bright Season (berries) and the sentiment is from Alpine Christmas.

All the stampings are embossed using either gold or silver embossing powder.

I die cut the lantern with a die from the WMS Little Lanterns Die set and scattered 3 white sequins over the card.

I'm linking my Christmas lantern card to the Merry Monday Challenge - add Sparkle, Shimmer and/or Bling.

For my next card I used an adorable little stamp set I recently purchased after seeing so many cute cards in blogland using it!   It's called Ella and Friends from Mama Elephant and this is the first time I've used it.  I die cut Ella and her hat using the Ella and Friends Creative Cuts die set.  I cut Ella out of Soft Stone card stock so she was already light gray, stamped her outline with Smokey Shadow ink then colored around the edges with a gray Copic and added a blush to her cheek with a pink Copic - SO easy to make her look SO cute (I'm not big on coloring too much!) Both Ella and her hat are popped up on foam dots.   I scattered some white sequins around the card for a little sparkle.

I'm linking my Ella card to two challenges:

Less is More - Lucky Dip Theme - 2 or 4 legs.

Curtain Call - Beach Ball (I used the beach ball colors on the bubbles Ella is blowing out of her trunk!)

I'm finally back to work today - thanks for all your well wishes while I had bronchitis -  and I was assigned to sit on a jury at Jury Duty yesterday -   the judge appointed me to be the foreman - Yikes! -  I'm pretty sure it was because I had been on a jury before (they ask you that on the questionnaire you have to fill in before serving) and when we got in the room to start deliberating, I found out that none of the other 5 jurors had been.  Luckily it was a quick case and we were released at 1 pm.

Merry Christmas Card:
Stamps:  Little Lanterns, Bright Season, Alpine Christmas - Waltzingmouse
Paper:  White - PTI, Brushed Gold - SU
Ink:  Versamark
Accessories:  Foam dots, Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive, Winter Blend Sequins - Avery Elle, Silver and Gold Embossing Powders, heat tool, Little Lanterns Die Set - Waltzingmouse.

Unforgettable
Stamps: Ella and Friends - Mama Elephant
Paper:  White, Soft Stone - PTI
Ink:  Smokey Shadow, Harvest Gold, Pure Poppy, Hawaiian Shore - PTI
Accessories:  Copics: R20, T2, R35, Y13, BG13, Winter Blend Sequins - Avery Elle, foam dots, Ella and Friends Creative Cuts Die set - Mama Elephant