Color Throwdown Guest DT card

I'm absolutely over the moon to share this card with you, as it's my Guest DT creation for this week's Color Throwdown which launches today. It is one of my "go to" places for inspiration, the DT is bursting with talent and the colour combos are amazing. I like to play along as often as I can. And today I have the great honour to join Tammy and her team of incredibly talented ladies to hopefully inspire you to play along with the rich colours you can see below. When I saw the colour swatch I immediately thought of an autumn theme, but as I had just created a few autumn watercolour scenes, my brain quickly moved on to Christmas instead because of the red and green. And the orange - what else could it be than a crazy beak? Can you see I still have Crazy Birds on my brain? So my little Crazy Santa was born. He wasn't born without considerable labour pains though, as this card is version three in the creative process. You can see version two below, and you won't see version one unless you have a good old dig around in my bin. But as most mother's would say, you forget the pain when you publish a blog post about your newly born card. Now it's your turn to link up over at Color Throwdown to inspire us with your gorgeous creations!

I created the background using my new favourite toy, the Tim Holtz Spritzer tool. I used the Lawn Fawn Mini Snowflake die cuts as masks, and spritzed several hues of brown distress markers to create the background. I absolutely adore that spritzed look. I stamped Santa birdie and his hat and candy cane onto watercolour paper and watercoloured using distress markers. Version two is coloured with Copics, and although I like the vibrant colours, I still like the muted earth tones of bird number three more. To finish, I die cut a frame using Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies, added some Ice Stickles to the hat and some Glossy Accents to the candy cane. The sentiment is from the Lawn Fawn Joy to the Woods stamp set.

I would like to link up with the following challenges:
The Friday Mashup - Use a die cut to create a frame 
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra - Anything Goes
The Artistic Stamper - Things With Wings
Aud Sentiments Challenge Blog - Christmas
Clear It Out - Theme: Things with wings, stash:glitter (there is some stickles on the Santa's hat although it doesn't show very well in the image)
Papertake Weekly - Take your pick (autumn colours) 

Card: 300 gsm hammered white card, 240 gsm coloured card Chocolate Brown, Daler&Rowney 300 gsm Aquafine watercolour paper
Stamps: Tim Holtz Stamper's Anonymous Bird Crazy and Matching Dies, Crazy Things, Lawn Fawn Joy to the Woods
Ink: Staz-on Jet Black, Tim Holtz Distress Markers Ground Espresso, Gathered Twigs, Vintage Photo, Tea Dye, Antique Linen, Festive Berries, Barn Door, Fired Brick, Mowed Lawn, Frayed Burlap, Spiced Marmalade, Abandoned Coral
Colouring: Copics (on the smaller card) BG 10, R24, R46, R89, YG11, YG13, YG15, YR04
Other: Lawn Fawn Mini Snowflake Dies, Stitched Rectangle Dies, Merry Christmas border die (on the smaller card), Stampin' Up Glossy Accents, Ranger Ice Stickles