And of course, we're training Cooper to the invisible fence right now, with arctic temperatures and four inches of snow on the ground.
Figures.
Being back in the South wouldn't do me any good now, though. Snow and frigid temps all up and down the East Coast. Southerns are not equipped to handle snow or frigidity.
Funny true story. When I was a teenager living in Charlotte, NC, we had next-door-neighbors who moved down from Boston. We got a few inches of snow and were out playing because school was cancelled and mom didn't have to go to work. We noticed the neighbors shoveling their driveway. My mom wandered over and asked what they were doing. "We have to shovel the snow," the man said. Mom replied, "You do realize it will all be gone by this afternoon, right?"
They kept shoveling. The snow was gone by 4:00 pm. Those crazy Yankees.
Now, I am one of them. The white stuff doesn't disappear so quickly in Ohio, so we have to shovel or use the snowblower. (Yes, we have a snowblower because our driveway is very, very long.) But the roads are cleared ever so much quicker, and there's no need to stock up on necessities because you can get to the store within a day.
Stay safe out there, everyone.
Any-who. Today's birthday card will go to my elder son late this year. He LOVES winter and says he wants to move to Alaska. So I made his birthday card with appropriate imagery and colors (or non-colors, as it were).
At first, I just had the sentiment and buck on the card, with the silver swooshy snowbank. But it looked too plain, so I pulled out a little snow stamp from PTI's In the Meadow set and created a swoosh of snow, too, using Mama Elephant moonlight pigment ink, which is very, very light.
I love the movement the snow adds to the card, especially with the bling for sparkle!
To make the snowbank, I cut a scrap of cardstock with a craft knife and then edged it with a PrismaColor silver metallic marker. The marker tip is really fat and holds to the edge of the paper well. The whole snow bank is popped up with craft foam for a bit of dimension that doesn't really show in the photos.
Before assembling the card, I noticed the proportions were a bit off, with too much white space at the bottom. Trimming the bottom of the card and snowbank about half an inch fixed it perfectly.
Mercy, grace, peace, love, and central heat,
Susan
Supplies
stamps: Papertrey In the Meadow (snow), Masculine Motifs (buck), Out on a Limb (sentiment)
ink: Hero Arts soft granite, Mama Elephant moonlight
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: rhinestones, craft foam, craft knife, PrismaColor metallic marker
As a Southerner who has had too much windchill lately, yes, thank God for central heat!
ReplyDeleteThe snow swoosh adds movement and emphasizes the existing visual triangle. Its graphic design goodness makes me happy.
Did you place the bling as you stamped the snow, or did you stamp first, leaving room, and add the bling after? The bling is so well integrated into the swoosh it looks like it was designed as part of it, but the gems don't appear to be sitting atop snow.
Stamped first, then decided to fill in some holes with bling.
DeleteThe reports of this nor'easter remind me of the wonderful snowstorms we had in Northern Virginia in the early '60s. My brother and I went to visit friends for dinner and afterward discovered there was almost one foot of snow on the ground. So, we were invited to stay the night. Well, three feet of snow later, we were snowed in for a week. The only way to get to the market was horseback. The snow was chest high on the horses! Brings back fun memories of the whole family sleeping on the floor as close to the fireplace as we could get. And, we wore three dresses and pants to school to keep warm. Then we moved to Oregon and had to laugh when 2-3 inches of snow would cancel school...of course, it was probably a good thing as they weren't used to driving in snow. Stay warm and safe!
ReplyDeleteLove the color and design of this card; wonderful for an outdoorsman! :)
Thanks for sharing your memories! Horseback, eh? No school like the old school!
DeletePerfectly perfect card! Stay cozy.
ReplyDeleteThanks! You stay cozy, too.
Deletelovely card - hope its not freezing with you
ReplyDeleteWe've still got power, so we're staying warm!
DeleteA great cardvx
ReplyDeleteLove the card!
ReplyDeleteI grew up in MA and CO, lived all over the US with the military and have lived in Alaska for the last 10 yrs...tell your son our winters up here are sadly not what they used to be. The colder it is and the more snow we have the happier I am.....unfortunately most of the state has had a warm winter so far, with snowfalls below normal. I'm holding out hope that things will turn around and we get a good blast of snow and cold! It's 12 degrees at my place right now and I consider that warm.
I'll tell him. Brrr!
DeleteI love this card! The swoosh of snow you added is wonderful.
ReplyDeleteLove this card! I've lived in Alaska for more than 30 years and the snow almost always leaves me stunned with it's beauty... even as I try to drive through the storms to get to work and home again.
ReplyDeleteI now live in Valdez, which is the snowiest place in Alaska! Normal winter snowfall is 300". We have about 3 feet on the ground now and more to come. It is in the 30's today but is dropping to the teens this weekend! I'd rather have the snow and cold than the rain we had last week! ;)
I love this! I am totally freezing in Georgia. We lived in Michigan for 18 months and left after our only winter there. I cannot handle snow on a regular basis.
ReplyDelete