Merry Chrismoose!

The weather here in Virginia went from the low 70's to mid 40's so fast this autumn. One day I was wearing sandals and the next I was searching for a jacket and scarf. Sigh. In any case, it started me thinking about Christmas and Christmas cards. Can you believe it is only two weeks till Thanksgiving?

So...for today's card, I decided to post something in honor of Christmas. I love the stamps by My Favorite Things. What fun! I saw this set, and had to have it. I am sure that many of you have had that same problem when seeing new stamps!

To create the card, I stamped the moose onto 120lb watercolor paper with black Versafine ink. I allowed it to dry and then colored the image with watercolor crayons and pencils (moose with pencils and background with crayons). I colored the entire background (even the holly leaves) with a green watercolor crayon and then smoothed it with a waterbrush. I then went back with markers to color in the holly (over the green crayon). I found it easier to highlight the holly in with darker colors rather than trying to color around each individual holly leaf.

The image of the moose is actually bigger than what I have on my card. I decided to cut it out smaller so that I wouldn't have as much coloring to do. I find that going through my stamps and picturing how I would use just part of an stamp rather than the whole image helps me get the creative juices flowing. It also makes my stamps so much more versatile. My moose stamp has holly around him, but if I were to just cut out the moose, I can use him year-round.