Saturday, October 31, 2009

Christmas Spirit

So... ya know how I signal the beginning of the holiday season? I start listening to Christmas music music NOW! In case you didn't notice, it's October 31st... Yeah, it's early - some might say insanely early - but I say why not? Time flies way too fast and before you know it, Christmas arrives and I haven't watched my favorite holiday movies (Grinch, Polar Express, The Santa Clause, among the many) nor have I listened to all of my favorite Christmas music. To be totally honest, I put in a Christmas CD yesterday so this year, hey, I'm ahead of the game.

This beautiful cardinal card is one my ladies made in a recent card workshop. I've always loved cardinals so I couldn't resist creating something festive with Season of Splendor (item # D1326). It's a two-step stamping set meaning you stamp the outline image with first generation ink then fill in with the matching solid image in a lighter ink which we in the stamping world call "second generation." In case you're not sure about the whole "generation" stamping technique, let me explain...

To stamp with first generation ink, simply ink your image and stamp directly onto your cardstock. To stamp with second generation ink, simply ink your stamp, stamp once on scratch paper then, without reinking, stamp onto cardstock. With second generation ink, the image is lighter, therefore, it acts sort of like a "coloring in" of your image. Cool, huh?

The paper I used for this card is X7115C Jingle. The plaid is created by inking and stamping the edge of a long acrylic block. (That's one of my favorite methods for creating plaids.) The red striped paper is folded accordian-style, without any particular method to my madness. (Ribbon candy inspired that type of folding:)

Any day now I will be a grandma......whoa, holy cow, that sounds......hmmm......I'm not sure how that sounds! I figured I don't feel like a grandma because I still have a 15 (almost 16) year old. But, we are so excited for our little guy to enter the world. He's sure taking his sweet little time in arriving and he's making his mommy very uncomfortable. His Auntie Jessica is growing a bit impatient, too!

I get an extra hour of sleep tonight so I'm off to enjoy that. See you next time.