Christmas Card #2

Don't you just love when you see an idea and think it's cute but know you can improve on it? 
I went to Archiver's last weekend for the make and take and we stamped on a sheet of Hambly acetate (snowflake design), punched out a tree and slapped it all on.  It was fast and easy and sort of cute...I decided since I already had that punch...yep, bought it last year and NEVER used it.  Anyway, I decided to emboss the tree with a little bridal embossing powder to sort of give it the look that snow was on it.  I used an embossing pen and just sort of "drew" on the branches.  I think it sort of spiffed up an otherwise plain tree.  I also double matted the tree for a little something extra.  Easy to do and it just set the tree off from the red paper better than when it was just a white square...in my most humble opinion!  Uh...not so humble.  It DOES look better than when the white was directly on the acetate...trust me.

Here's the card:

The red cardstock is from Paper Trey Ink (Pure Poppy) and the green cardstock is Bazzil....I stamped Merry Christmas with Clearly Wordsworth stamps with Staz-On ink.  The snowflake paper is acetate and I attached it with the Tim Holtz mini attacher (love that thing!). Easy and fast....I like! :)

OK...so here are a few more ornaments on my little tree:
The first one is a favorite I got a year or two ago from my friend, Holly.  I love it....so cute and is a reminder how we like a nice drink once in a while!  (Since I became Irish...haha... when I went to Ireland a month or two ago I'm into anything with Irish Whiskey these days...a good ol' Irish coffee sure hits the spot on cold days!)

You wouldn't drink Irish coffee in that type glass though, of course!

This ornament makes me laugh...this is AG's "school" photo (he's going to Mother's Morning Out two mornings a week.  And he was not impressed with the whole photo taking session.  But I love it because he DOES make that face often and it is soooo him!

This ornament also makes me laugh....not because it looks funny but because of the story behind it.
Many years ago I was in a stamp shop and there was this really cool stamp there in the shape of this ornament.  You stamped it on cardstock but embossed the edges and then meticulously cut it out.  You did it over and over to get the several layers.  I carefully cut out the center of one layer so I could use it as a frame for my son's school picture.  I probably spend about $18 on that stamp and just KNEW I was going to make a ton of them to give away.  I made ONE! It was so much work!!!  I ended up selling that stamp at a consignment sale...

I would say this ornament is about 10 years old.  Now that I look back at it I think...well, it's only 3 layers and I wish I still had that stamp! HAHA!

Oh, and Becky...if you have read this far...all of these photos were taken with the camera I picked up for you the other day.  The Canon SX 230.  Costco has it for $199 and I am loving this camera.  It is a point and shoot but does have manual controls...I bumped the ISO on it up to 3200 and I can't remember what the shutter speed was but I took all of these photos here with this little point and shoot and it's a great, great little camera.  The price is so great I'm thinking about picking up a spare!  Not really but I did think about it!
If you are in need of a point and shoot (something small to keep in your purse) I'd recommend this one.  I'm a big Canon fan and this is a goodie.  It has a 14x zoom which is unheard of in point and shoots and does really well in low light situations.  There is also a setting for handheld photos at night. It takes 3 shots and merges them.  Here's one I took last night:

That's AG in the driver's seat of the fire engine!
My friend, Theo, does a huge Christmas display every year and I always try to get by to see it.  Here is her house and part of the front:

This is just a small part of the front.  It really is amazing....

Happy Crafting!