Anything Cold Challenge

We are on Day 2 of Snow Days for school.  I LOVE it!  I didn't think we were going to get snow this year down in the low lands.  Yesterday my youngest and I raced outside and built a snowdude complete with snowboard and goggles (my own little guy isn't so little, he just turned 18, but still is up for playing in the snow with mom.  I love that!).

All of this to say that I've been procrastinating about joining the Paper Smooches Anything Cold challenge.  After a little stint in the brisk morning air I got busy though to create this card.

It's tricky to catch glittery bits, but look closely to see the snowy hillside and sparkly blue sequins in the large snowflakes.

The Paper Smooches set that I used had to pulled down again as I stash away my holiday stamps after Christmas.  I used images from Enchanted Elves and Merry Motifs.

Just in the nick of time, too.  Today's the last day to join the challenge!

Wishing you all warm thoughts.  I'm off to play in the snow again...

Crafting Burn-out? I hope not!

After the 25 Tags of Christmas marathon I think I hit a little bit of crafting burn-out.  Every time I walked into my creative space I stared blankly at my supplies.  It's also entirely possible that the chaos of my space could be the cause.  LOL)  Regardless, yesterday morning I had the itch to make something and checked out some of the challenge blogs that I stalk...er...follow.  The Stampotique Designers Challenge caught my eye.  "Let it Snow"...I can do that!

Lovely little Sonia is not the image I initially was planning on using, but since I spotted her in my stash and haven't used her in ages she needed to be inked up.  Good thing too, because I still haven't sent out ANY Christmas cards.  Yikes. 

MFT Color Challenge #129

I have a stamp set from MFT stamps that I actually purchased when it was released. (I hardly ever do that; my mom was a big one for waiting for sales and she passed that along to me. 😏)  But it was so cool that I just had to.  I love the rad snowboarding critters in this set and they are perfect for unisex wintery cards IMHO.

I have to admit that I struggled with the colors a bit.  I decided to go for a watercolor look by using my watercolor pencils to color the images.  Sadly, I don't really have colors that match the challenge this week. I improvised by mixing where I could.  That's what we do, right?

I'm looking forward to a few days spent zooming down a snowy hill.  How about you?

Repurposed Christmas ATCs

One of the ATC groups I trade in decided that repurposed Christmas packaging was a good theme for our trade this month. Sadly, in a fit of highly unusual (for me) organization and promptness, I had all of my Christmas stuff tossed or stashed BEFORE New Years' Eve.  I know...I'm a little shocked myself.  Lucky for me, one of my boys had a gift bag in his room full of nice, white filler. 

Snow immediately came to mind of course.  I also, as I do every year, have pledged to use my stash more. 

I've had this reindeer die for a bazillion years and it mostly collects dust.  Out it came. 

I love gel bead medium, but it's stashed in a drawer so it also rarely gets used.  Out it came.

A tray of acrylic inks is sitting on a shelf, but it's away from my working area and often gets overlooked.  Out came the blue ink.

Strolling through the aisles of JoAnn's last month I found myself standing in front of paper packs ON SALE.  There was a pack of cork paper - cool!  Not sure what I was going to do with it, I landed a pad in my basket.

I love how this has a bunch of texture on it.  I stamped over the cork reindeer with one of my fave Stampotique stamps and as I looked at it, it occurred to me that the swirls looked a bit like targets.  Oops!  Not what I had intended, but fortunately I had stamped with Distress inks so I just dabbed them a bit with a water brush.  A few gel pen highlights later and we were good to go.

The cards sat on my desk for a few days because something was bothering me about them; they felt unfinished.  This morning I realized it was the blank space in the corner and a little fir branch was just the thing.  Now they're packaged up and ready to be mailed.  Yay!

Wishing you a fab weekend!