Friday, December 28, 2012

Mr Cardmaker is Happy and Grateful

I hope your Christmas Day was all you hoped it would be.  We were home, Charlie's mom joined us on Christmas Eve, and spent the night with us.  Charlie made a wonderful beouf bourgignon, and I ate like a starveling. 
And, we had SNOW!  Now, I know to many of you, that's like saying "and we got the Black Plague!", but I grew up in Florida, and even after being north of there for 30 years, I have never once had Christmas snow (that's any considerable snowfall either on Christmas OR Christmas Eve).  Never once before THIS year, that is!  How Great can Christmas snow be, especially when everyone you need to have at your house is already there??

Christmas Day was bright and sunny, but cold, so the snow didn't melt.  Charlie went nuts on gifts, as usual, and I got some beautiful things; most notably, a nice, big, fat, juicy gift certificate to PTI!!  I almost ditched the rest of the day to shop! (I did manage to control myself, however!)  Yes, that puppy has been spent, btw....

I made a stuffed pork loin for Christmas dinner, with roasted potato wedges and a yummy, rich spinach casserole.  As usual, all of my cooking skills evaporate on Christmas Day.  I have no explanation for this phenomenon, but it never fails.  I just need to quit cooking on Christmas, I think.  The pork was blah as blah gets. No flavor, dry, and just blah.  Nobody really cared, I think.  Just frustrating, because I am usually a pretty good cook.  Oh well.  Just food.

So, that's my day.

To thank people who were kind enough to send us gifts, I made some thank you cards.
They look like this--

I masked the sides of this card with post-it notes, and used a sponge to fill in the center with Broken China Distress Ink.  I stamped the sentiment with black Archival Ink, using a stamp from the first set I ever bought.  All I can remember about it is it came from AC Moore.  I then removed the masks, and used several snowflakes from my new Martha Stewart snowflake set (that I grabbed at a 70% off sale at Michael's) in different inks.  I used my new (thanks, Charlie) Fiskars stamp positioner to make it easy to do several of these at the same time.  The shiny ones were stamped in Versamark, and embossed with holographic embossing powder.  I added some gems, and stamped "Thank you for the gift" from PTI's In the Meadow set on the inside.  Round the corners, and off you go!

Here's a closer look, showing the color change-ups--




Well, that's my report of "What I did on my Holiday."  Hope yours was wonderful and that one of your gifts was increased creativity!
I'm posting these on CAS-ual Friday's CFC84 challenge blog.  Wish me luck!

Happy New Year!
Thanks for stopping by!
All Best-
Richard

9 comments:

  1. Sounds like a lovely holiday! Your cards are so pretty!

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  2. Hi Richard! I laughed out loud at your comment that your cooking skills evaporate at Christmas. Oh dear! But your cards are truly beautiful! I need to mask and distress, I think. It is very impressive!

    Hugs, and Happy New Year!

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  3. These are beautiful! I have those same Martha Stewart Snowflakes! You got them for just about free at 70% off! I bought mine at 25% off before Christmas and thought it was a deal! :)

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  4. Gorgeous cards!
    Glad to hear you had a great Christmas!
    Happy New Year to you & yours!

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  5. Snow! Yeah!!! I love white Christmases but don't often see them. Ours was not this year but we did get a dusting of snow a few days before that melted by afternoon. Yeah for pti goodies! And I can identify with the cooking thing too!! Lol! I find it hard to focus on cooking while lots of visitors are at my house!!

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  6. Well firstly, Happy New Year to you and Charlie and secondly, I really, really, really LOVE these Thank You cards. I thought you used a brayer at first, but how neato that you actually sponged these. I love that! In the words of Gomer Pyle ..."sur-prise, sur-prise, sur-prise!"
    Thirdly, YEAH snow!!! I love the stuff. It's SO FLUFFY!! Fourthly, you need to be sharing that spinach casserole recipe. That sounds immensely yummy. :)
    Happy 2013 and I can't wait to see what your creative mind unfolds for us in the coming days.
    Take care,
    Lisa xx

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  7. Pretty beautiful. I love this.

    Sudha
    sudha-kalra.blogspot.in

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  8. Richard - those colorful snowflakes are really lovely, especially the holographic ones! Your friends and family are certain to love those beautiful cards. Thank you so much for playing along with us at CAS-ual Fridays!

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  9. Richard! I grabbed these snowflake stamps on sale too! What a deal! I love how you've used them here with such a beautiful mix of colors. And the masked strip in the center is fantastic. Thanks for sharing these with us at CAS-ual Fridays!

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