A Love Story

Hello Stamplings!

It's already November eekth, so you have to read this as if I'm talking in a very low voice. I don't want to startle your mojo as you are scrambling to get those Christmas cards done ~ and/or fall cards for birthdays or Thanksgiving.🍂

I've finished my fall cards and can concentrate on Christmas. This year I've separated my NBUS Christmas goodies from non-NBUS Christmas goodies and my goal is to only use the never-before-used-schtuff to make my cards. This is the first design and it ended up being one of those happy marriages between several different companies.

Let me introduce you to Paul:

Paul is a polar bear all plumped up on joy for Christmas, as one should be. He is from a NBUS stamp set called "Have An Ice Day," by Trinity Stamps. 

The cardbase is Neenah and the very shiny background silver paper with embossed snow is from Stampin' Up. The ice floe is from "Cool Day" by MFT Stamps. The sediment is NBUS from Altenew. I colored Paul using my Ziggies. 

I finished the card and set it up on the window sill, waiting for the sun to come out to take a photo. Then I heard from the peanut gallery. 

"Where's he heading to with his arms outstretched that way?" asked Hammy. "I don't know," I said, "I wondered the same thing."

After a minute staring at the card, Hammy jumped down and squeezed his furry behind into the third drawer of my far right rollie-cabinet under my desk. I opened it and there, among my acrylic blocks, was a NBUS "Mirror Blocks" stamp set from Paper Smooches. 

Mirror stamping is something I've wanted to do since the last half of the last century. Hammy's raised left eyebrow implied, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

I know better than to argue with the wee master, so I watched a coupla You Tube videos on the technique and created a lady polar bear friend for Paul.

Meet Noelle:

If you have not had success with mirror stamping in the days before the MISTI, you might want to try again. It made all the difference for me. Jennifer McGuire has a coupla You Tube videos that are great. Here is her updated link, which also includes creating mirror dies! Mirror Stamping & Die Cutting.

The NBUS sediment here is from "Heart Smile" by Concord & 9th.

Just to be clear, I only made one card. I put Noelle on the back of the same card so when you open it up, the two lovebears are skating toward each other! Here is a photo of the whole card: 

Aw. A love story. And won't that be a fun card for someone to get in the mail?

This was a kick to do and I can cross mirror-stamping off my 'To Try' bucket list now. BTW, if you include the ink pads, pop dots, and glue, I used a grand total of eleventeen companies to make this card! If only members of governments could play together that well, the world would be a better place.🐹

Challenges

• Pixie's Snippets Playground: A/G using your snippets. 
  
• Christmas Kickstart: Di (from Pixie's) is this month's Guest Designer. The prompt is, of course, snippets! I used loads of white snippets to make my card parts.
  
• CAS Christmas: Barb is the host and she wants to see Christmas critters. (Changed my mind b/c my card is not CAS, but I will leave the info up anyway.)

~~~

Enjoy your day! 

No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!* 

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower! 

*Life is too short!

To open the pop-up comment box that let's you jump to the end w/o scrolling: Click CTL + Home. Click the Home tab under my blog banner which resets the post. Click Page Down to reach the end of the post. Click Comments and a pop-up box opens. Click "Jump to Comment Form" and wallah, no more car pool tunnel! Mwah! (p.s. If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave me your email address so I can respond. Thank you!)