That's what today was! Really, really cold outside, and my car has been in a snow cocoon since Thursday night, so I had ZERO desire or ambition to go anywhere! Greg had to be out, since he plows several area parking lots, so I was on my own off and on during the day, too. Hmm...what should I do? Well, play along with a couple of Splitcoast Stamper challenges and catch up on the Jingle Belles, too!
I'm pretty excited about my Jingle Belles cards, so I'm sharing them first. The first one is for this year's first prompt, "No Time Like the Present(s)", which I started making the day after the prompt was posted, and then totally missed the deadline to upload it last Wednesday. Life stuff - you know how it goes... Anyway - the prompt was to use wrapping paper (preferably from one of the gifts from this Christmas just past) to make our card. Here's mine:
Paper: Wrapping paper, Close to My Heart Clover Meadow, black; Ink: Stampin'Up! Glorious Green; Accesories/tools: Sewing machine, Sizzix holly die, ribbon and buttons from my stash
No stamps at all! I just cut a piece of the wrapping paper that included the singing snowmen and the candy stripes above and below them, added some stitching for interest, added the ribbon and bow at the top and the diecut, inked holly leaves and button berries to the bottom - done!
The current prompt got me totally excited, because it inspired me to take on a couple of things that I find, well, challenging! The prompt is "Sketching Through the Snow", and it's this great sketch by Kirstie Vittetoe:
The card that came into my head required me to do something: a) collage-y and, b) vintage-y, neither of which I consider my strengths. That's what challenges are for, right - to challenge us to do new things! Or, at least, to attempt to get better at old ones... Here's the card I managed to pull off for this challenge:
Stamps: Stampin'Up! Many Merry Messages, Anita's angel stamp; Ink: Versamark; Paper: DCWV Old World and Textured Metallic stacks, Stampin'Up! Naturals Ivory; Accessories/tools: Gold embossing powder, Perfect Pearls, deckle-edge scissors, ribbon, gold cord, lace and flower from my stash
I'm pretty proud of this because it doesn't suck and it pretty much matches the picture in my head - rare! I'm also proud because I used bits of lace and ribbon that have been hanging around for a couple of forevers - ditto on the flower. PLUS - I dusted off my old deckle-edge scissors to cut out my image and the mat for it (remember when we ALL did that - before Nestabilities...?)
The lace was sewn on with off-white thread and my sewing machine, and then I did a hand-sewn embroidery stitch with some thin gold cord over the machine stitching. It took a while to figure out the spacing on the holes to poke prior to stitching, but once I got that sorted it went pretty quickly! The only other thing not immediately noticeable on this card is that I mixed some copper Perfect Pearls with a bit of water and did some tiny splatters on the angel panel, just to help everything coordinate, and to make the ivory cardstock less stark.
This is the second time I've written this post. The first one got lost in the ether when my computer started having issues and I had to re-boot. Now it's bedtime and I'm tired and so I'm going to share the other two cards tomorrow - sound fair? Here's to a great week, and thanks for stopping by!
