Peace & joy

It's summer already in this very unusual year, and time again for a new task at the Fadengrafik Challenge. This month, our theme calls for "Christmas in July", meaning we'd like to see your Christmas-inspired crafting as long as it includes some kind of stitching/embroidery. 
I decided to stitch something new for a little inspiration, a traditional Christmas scene with a candle and some winter greenery. I've chosen to work with traditional colours, too, using mainly red and green shimmering yarn alongside with gold (and a tiny bit of black, to be precise). The time to make Christmas cards is probably not *that* traditional right now (at least not for me, I know many of you stock up on time), but then again an extra card here and there might save quite a few nerves in November/December - especially when it comes to cards that are suitable for a male recipient.

Once the stitching was done, I began to wonder about the background. In my stash, I discovered a card base with a layer of shimmering paper already glued onto it. I've no idea what I planned to do with it, but it must have been something more than one of those come-and-go ideas, as I've even used a border punch to decorate the edges. Turns out, the size of the stitched image fits perfectly as if the card base had been waiting for this moment all those years, and even the punched borders seem like icicles to me! 

In the end, I decided to add an extra layer of red shimmering paper to raise the stitching from the background. However, I managed to restrain myself from adding pearls or gemstones :)

A little contribution to the July collection of Create in Austria - artwork created by Austrians and/or in Austria.
A little contribution to the collection of hand-stitching at made with Blümchen.

challenges: 
- a bit more time to craft: ATG
- alphabet challengeblog: G for glitter & gems
- craft-alnica: for boys/men
- crafty catz: ATG
- crafty sentiments: ATG
- craftyhazelnutschristmaschallenge: ATG as long as it's Christmas (optional twist "for a man/boy")
- creative moments: ATG
- cute card thursday: ATG
- double D challenges: stitches
- love to craft: ATG 
- morgans artworld: ATG
- pennys papertake: ATG
- sketchy challenges: ATG
- through the craftroom door: ATG
- tuesday throwdown: ATG
- use your stuff: free week
- wortartwednesday: ATG
- worldwide open design team challenge: ATG