I'm Back...again!

Hi Everyone!


I'm back!  I've missed you and hope you have missed me. For several weeks a cold was wearing me down. The cold transformed into a sinus infection and an ear infection that completely wiped me out and sent me to bed. Happily after a week of taking antibiotics I am starting to feel energized again.

Backtracking just a little...
I had the most amazing Thanksgiving in my life. My son, Robbie, baked 4 beautiful pies from scratch...apple, blueberry, mince, and pumpkin. My daughter, Marie, made the most incredible stuffing, a yummy squash casserole, a delicious peas and corn casserole, glazed carrots with cranberries, and a perfect lump free gravy. I just roasted the turkey, made mashed potatoes, and baked some date nut bread. I couldn't have asked for a nicer day.  I was and am so proud of both of my children. 

I haven't created many cards lately, but I do have a few to share with you today. I played with all of my small alphabet stamp sets and couldn't get the size and look that I wanted for the message on this card. Finally I decided to create the text on my computer. I was very satisfied with how it turned out.  I printed the text and ran the paper through a Cuttlebug music embossing folder. The holly leaves were punched with a Martha Stewart holly punch. The holly berries were created with Stickles.

I used a variety of tools to create this card. I am not sure that you can see all of the effects in my photograph. I used my copic markers to color the snowman's cheeks because I don't have any pink watercolor pencils...YET! I used watercolor pencils to color the snowman's scarf and arms. I am pretty much convinced that I like using watercolor pencils more than I do my small collection of copic markers. My very dear friend, Susan DeMuth, gave me a cool watercolor brush that has a tube that is filled with water. As you paint water over the pencils you give the brush the tube a little squeeze and more water drips onto the brush.

I used a glue pen and some very fine glitter to add some sparkle to the outline of the snowman and snow. I used a glitter marker to color the snowflakes and added a tiny rhinestone to the center of each of the larger snowflakes. The snowman's eyes are tiny black adhesive jewels.  I used Stickles to embellish the buttons. I put glossy accents on the carrot nose.  The snowman stamp is from Great Impressions and the text was stamped with a Studio18 stamp.

The ornament on this card was created with a Sizzix ornament die. . The text was created with stickers and I used a small Fiskars paper punch to create the snowflakes.










The traffic report that I receive from blogger showed that one of my Thanksgiving cards posts was opened 341 times! The report also shows that I have lots of readers each day. I wish that more readers would become followers and leave comments so that this blog can become more interesting and more interactive. Since I know from experience how much time it takes to write a post and add photographs to the post, I am now making more of an effort to leave comments on blogs that I follow.

I am going to end this post with some thoughts and a question and hope that at least some of the readers of this blog will post a response to it. You'll have to sign up as a follower, but that's easy to do. Just follow the instructions that will appear on your screen.  When I first started to stamp I preferred clear stamps to wooden ones because I could see through them as I stamped so I knew exactly where I was stamping. Now I prefer the feeling of a wooden stamp. 
Here's today's question...
Do you prefer to stamp with clear or wooden stamps and why?

Talk to you again soon. 
Carol