December 18th Weekly Post

 Hallo, lovely peeps, hope you are all surviving the holiday rush.

I have been a very busy bee this week and I have big personal news, unexpected but blessings happen in their own time. Details after the art.

First up: Festive Foliage is the theme this week at Sunday Postcard Art, hosted by Mandy.
As I am winding down from Christmas cardmaking, I opted to use what I already had ready, so I looked through the bits and bobs box and found this A Day For Daisies digital image called Five Robins In Winter that I'd printed out and not used. I colored it with Promarkers and added glitter using Icicle Stickles and a clear glitter brush marker on the snow. I had some extra greenery bits in the box and added them. I think they are from Amazon, HOTP, I/O and Sizzix. The sentiment strips are from Tim Holtz's Seasonal Chit Chat Sticker book. I had just opened and put away a new-to-me Tim Layering stencil, Brush Marks. I keep them in page protectors in binders, and the black and grey backing sheet was sitting there orphaned, so I cut it to 4x6 and used it as the base after ink sponging it with Tumbled Glass DI. 

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And I also have a couple of guy birthday cards to share:

This card is completely ink and edge distressed with DI's. Orange Chatterbox card stock base, and designer papers are LilyBee Designs Happily Lost collection. I used dies to cut the circles and sentiment label. The Gerda Steiner sentiment is stamped with Versafine Clair ink and heat-embossed with clear powder. Those crazy party monsters are stamps by Brett Weldele, a pretty well-known cartoonist in that genre. I stamped them, heat-embossed them, fussy cut them, and then colored them with my Promarkers, adding some acrylic paint pens in here and after. I had fun with it. And the recipient was happy.

And the sketch I followed.

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This card was made for my nephew who started his career working for the State Dept. in DC and is now transferring to the Commerce Dept. as a Special Agent stationed in NYC. He's training at Glynco right now. (I have to brag a bit, we are all so proud of him.) I used the other Brett Weldele stamp set I have for this card, Steampunk Gents. I thought that the old banker-looking dude stamp went well with some of Tim's gentlemen and striped dp in his French Industrial paper collection. The stamped sentiment is Pink By Design. Every layer is ink distressed, but instead of using the distressing tool again, I was able to cut all the layers with my Carnation Crafts Pretty Shabby dies.

Oh, and the burnt orange color was deliberate. His undergraduate degree is from University of Texas. Hook'em Horns, Old Chap! 

And here is the sketch I followed.

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Okay, so here is our BIG NEWS:

We found a house! Not just any old house either.

Feel free to peruse it HERE and you will see what I mean. 

I do not know what has come over us both, but we've fallen in love with it.

After a lifetime of living frugal lives in little 1800-square foot homes, we have the money and want to experience living in a house so big we get lost in it, lol, and with some nice amenities. The house's design is a bit of an adventure the way it is laid out. I am going to inquire about a floor plan and hope there is one. But seriously, there are SO MANY closets I may not be able to fill them all, and that is saying something. I could literally have a separate closet dedicated to each season's decorations. I am not going to have to downsize or throw away any of my stuff! And every time I think of all that wall space, I start dreaming of painting large abstract canvases to hang. And I could frame and hang every one of my 4x6 pieces. And I can decorate the living areas in a more neat, minimalist style, which makes cleaning easier, because all the clutter is in the closets!

Oh My Gosh, I'm practically orgasmic thinking about it! 

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Honey loves the tiny backyard (easy maintenance), the front yard trees do not drop their leaves (yay!), all the windows on the back of the house have a clear gel in them that repels heat and noise, plus you can see out but not in, so we will try to go curtainless. Honey is in love with the kitchen, too. He practically drooled over all the counter space. LOL, he said today he can't wait to NOT have to take the air fryer down from on top of the fridge to use it. I added, also your Kitchen-Aid mixer and your digital Seal-A-Meal. 

And we won't even mention the Butler's Pantry off the dining room, because that blew my mind when I saw it.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but this all happened when we gave up looking. I had kept eyeing this neighborhood because it's a newer part of the same neighborhood I grew up in, but no houses were ever for sale except tiny ones. All of the sudden, 5 big ones opened up this month. We looked at them all.

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Well, that does it for me this time.

I thank you for hanging in on this long post and I apologize for not visiting blogs this week.

I promise to catch up over the weekend.

I'll be sharing the remainder of my Christmas cards next week, hopefully Wednesday, in time to wish everyone a Merry & a Happy!

Hope to see you and until then, may the spirit of the season bring you peace, comfort and joy.

XOX