Sketch Saturday #225 - 'Twas the night before Christmas

It's Saturday which means another fab sketch from

Sketch Saturday

Sponsored by the wonderful

Bunny Zoe's Crafts

First of all I'd like to say a big warm welcome to my new followers.  It's great to see you!

One of my absolute favourite stories of ALL time is "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Clement Clarke Moore.  We had a really tall shaped version of the book when we were children and it was read to us year in year out.  My 30 something year old niece still receives a call from my brother (her Dad) every Christmas Eve so that he can read it out to her and as she now has a baby of her own, I suspect the tradition will continue in her household the same as it continues in many homes.
This wonderful Magnolia Santa with Sack, reminds me so much of the Santa pictures from our old book.  I coloured parts of him with my Copics but his red suit and mittens are in fact paper pieced with a red and then shaded with Copics and I have paper pieced some of his parcels in scraps from my drawers.  

The background stamp is a Cover a Card stamp by Obsession Impression.  I love it!  It contains the whole of the poem on one 6x6 stamp but it didn't stamp very well on my DCWV brown mount.  I don't mind actually.  I think it adds a vaguely vintagey feel.   The spotty paper is Recollections from the Naughty or Nice stack and I added a little spotty ribbon.  Obviously I rotated the sketch too!
Please drop by my teamies' blogs and share some love and then come along and play with us this week.

I am entering my card into the following challenges:

"Christmas in September"   with Midweek Magnolias #28, and Cute Card Thursday #234;

"Starting Christmas Early" with Stampin for the Weekend  #17;

"Anything Goes" with Simply Magnolia 

and "Use your Favourite Stamp" with Totally Paper Crafts #134