White Christmas - Two Ways

The weekend sure comes and goes fast!  We went to the movies on Saturday and saw The Drop.  Don't waste your money - it wasn't that good.  I didn't think it would be but Sonny wanted to see it since James Gandofino was in it.  I figured they are digging up all his movies that didn't make it to the box office when he was alive and showing them now.  Oh well, it was a nice outing anyway.  We went to a restaurant in Cornelius for breakfast before the movie that we had been wanting to try and it was really good.  We'll be going back for sure.

Sunday of course, we went to Big Al's to see the Steelers LOSE!  Grrrr .... that wasn't supposed to happen - to lose to a team like Tampa Bay who haven't won a game all year!  Seems we win the ones we aren't supposed to and lose the ones I think should be the easy ones.  I knew starting the season that we weren't going to have much to cheer about this year but it's still tough to see them struggle.

I did have time this weekend to make a couple of cards using White Christmas.  First I made a traditional winter card.  It's hard to see how glittery this card is.  I used Dazzling Diamonds in the trees and all over the snow on the ground.  I forgot to mask the circle for the moon so after sponging the sky, I decided to try to make a moon.  I sponged a circle with Craft Whisper White Ink and then embossed it with White embossing powder.  It worked!!  You just never know.

I have seen a few cards made with this set that were fall cards so I decided to give it a try this morning.  I stamped the trees and the deer with Early Espresso.  Then I used a brown marker to color in the trees.  For the leaves, I just used the tip of my markers - Crushed Curry, Dusty Durango, Cherry Cobbler, Mossy Meadow and Soft Suede to put dots all over the ground and the trees.  I used the Old Olive Blendabilities to color in the grass.  I masked the circle for the sun (Daffodil) and sponged Soft Sky for the sky.  What do you think?

One thing I really like about the Photopolymer stamps is that you can arrange them on the clear block the way you want to.  Notice in the winter card, the ground that the deer is standing on between the trees is not almost straight.  (I also used a Black Marker to extend the ground.)  On the fall card, I wanted the ground to be more hilly so I arranged the stamp that way before stamping.  The trees and the ground are all one stamp.

What I don't like about the photopolymer stamps is that they are hard for me to see on my desk!!  If I don't clean them right away and put them back in the case, I end up looking everywhere for them because they will stick to things.  I have a tendency to just lay my stamps on my cleaning pad (which I leave open on the side of my desk) until I am completely done and clean everything at once.  Last week I had about 6 stamps laying on the cleaning pad and Bogart decided to check out what I was doing.  He jumped up on my desk, knocking the cleaning pad onto the floor and scattering the stamps.  I had to call Sonny in to help me.  I was missing two of the photopolymer stamps and one clear stamp.  After crawling around on the floor (both of us!), I finally found the two photopolymer ones and had given up on finding the other stamp.  Sonny had the flashlight out and as he was getting up off the floor, he spotted the stamp on the leg of my chair!

Hope you have a good day!  I am headed to the "Y" for a little much needed exercise!