Non-traditional Colors for the Sparkles Christmas Challenge #177

Welcome to the October, 2025 edition of the Sparkles Christmas Challenge # 177! Thank you very much for all the participants for our September challenge! Our host for this month’s challenge, Helen, chose Non-traditional Colors for the theme. When you get finished here, I hope you will visit the challenge site to view the creations from the very talented members of our design team. After you’ve created your own themed card, please don’t forget to upload it to our gallery.

Here’s my gold, Pretty Peacock, and Lost Lagoon card:

As always with a fun fold card, I will be adding this to the Creative Creases Challenge where the theme is always Anything Goes with a Fun Fold.

Yet another latch fold card:

As you probably already know, I love the latch fold card! Once you’ve created a couple of these cards, you can adjust the front to your heart’s content! You can see a couple of my other latch fold cards here, and here, and here. I’m also going to be posting another latch fold card on Friday as a guest designer for the Creative Creases Challenge. Please come back for that one as well.

Here’s the basic template I use for the latch fold card:

Heat-embossing HINTS:

One of the most important steps when using embossing powder is to wipe down the cardstock using your embossing buddy, which is available in the Embossing Additions Tool kit
Another important thing to remember is to use the sticky end of your Take Your Pick tool to remove stray flecks of embossing powder before heat embossing
Make sure to let your embossed sentiments dry completely before trying to crop the sentiments, otherwise you might smear your beautiful embossed sentiment
While my heat tool is warming up (especially helpful with metallic powders) I will warm the underside of the cardstock to help keep the warping to a minimum

The Loopy Loop Bow:

I was able to watch Mary Deatherage’s, from Stamps -n- Lingers, Perfectly Pears tutorial. In that video, she showed her loopy-loop bow. That’s what I used for the front of my card. I’m bow-challenged and this technique allows me to relatively easily add ribbon without adding the bulk of a tied bow. If you’ve never seen her videos, you owe it to yourself to watch them. I think she’s the Queen of the Collage. Gorgeous cards!!

This post is short, but hopefully sweet and helpful. As Robert Frost said in his poem Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening, “ I have miles to go before I sleep. ” That poem, and especially that line, has lived rent-free in my brain since seventh grade English class.