Christmas Card Making Countdown

Hello Folks!  Well everyone seems to be well into the Christmas Card Countdown now, including me!  I have separate lists for what I need to do and I am trying to get some done from each of them every day for the next 10 days, so I hope that I will have time to Blog about them. (Or rather remember to Blog!!)

So this little card is from a second batch that I have managed to get finished.
 
I was asked to add to an order at the last minute (before posting to my customer) a card for a little child and I immediately thought of this Teddy Bear card.  The image is from the Forever Friend's Christmas Character selection.
I printed and then cut out the image building it up with double sided foam pads.  I put this to the side.

I then chose to cut out squares to mat and layer the background.  I decided that I would colour the background on the first layer with Archival Plum ink using an ink duster.  I then went around the corners with Archival Coffee and also put in a bit of shading under the Teddy to give it a grounding.

I also took my embossing tool around the edge to give it more definition.  I then cut out a larger square from a Christmas Paper Pad from my stash.  I shaded in the corners of this with the Archival Plum ink.
I then matted these up and attached the Teddy Beat with Double Sided tape.  I like to use strong tape when I am doing layers or adding decoupage ( sometimes when building up a card one can get carried away so you have to choose a suitable strong fixative)

Before mounting the Teddy I decided to liven him up a little bit by Clear Embossing his nose...just to make him look a bit more like Rudolph!.

I took one of my pricing labels and coloured the string with Archival Plum ink and I gave the label the same shading treatment as the first background layer using both inks.  I finished it off with writing the sentiment with a Black Micron Pen.  I threaded the string between the layers on the scarf and tied it with a simple bow.

I also took the Micron Pen around the stitching on the fake Reindeer Horns.

Then I matted this onto a cream card.  I hope you like it.  Crafty hugs to al xx

I have decided to enter this card in to the following challenges:
http://ready-teddy-gochallenge.blogspot.co.uk/
http://craftyhazelnutschristmaschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/
http://craftyhazelnutschristmaschallenge2.blogspot.co.uk/