adventures with all-time favorites

I love the Wonderland stamp set - those magnificent evergreens, the sweet branch & pine cone, the sentiments, the snowflakes - but I didn't buy it, because those darn antlers just stymied me.  Then one of my fellow demonstrators, Deb, brought a beautiful card to our shoebox swap, and I "had to have" the stamp set for a Card Buffet choice.  You've heard before, surely, that Stampin' Up!® demonstrators are notorious enablers.  I was still stumped about those antlers, though.  Somewhere I read that they're "on trend" - is that it?  Other than the idea that deer live in woodlands, I see no correlation between the antlers and the other stamps in the set.  Billie Moan's Rudolph card finally gave me a clue for what do with them, and voilá, a reindeer card for Merry Monday:

stamp sets - Versatile Christmas, Wonderland; ink - Chocolate Chip, Real Red; card stock - Chocolate Chip, Crumb Cake, Red Glimmer, Very Vanilla; Big Shot with Chalk Talk framelits and Woodlands textured impressions embossing folder; punches - 1/4" circle, 1/8" circle

I think of this as Rudolph's attempt at hiding in the woods.  I took it to our shoebox swap this month as a kid's card and told Deb it was her fault <grin>.  In spite of the antlers, this stamp set is pretty surely going to be one of my all-time favorites.

Jingle Belles are celebrating Christmas foods & drinks at this fortnight, so I found another of my all-time favorite stamp sets in the back of my Christmas stamps cupboard, with the other retired sets, and put it to work with the Stick It Down November card sketch:

stamp sets - Cozy Christmas, Scentsational Christmas (retired); ink - Garden Green, Chocolate Chip, Real Red; Stampin' Write Marker - Chocolate Chip; card stock - Very Vanilla, Real Red; designer series paper - Home for Christmas; punches - 1-3/8" circle, Scalloped Tag Topper; baker's twine - Early Espresso (retired)

Well, I mostly used the sketch - I added the tag for the sentiment.  Looking at it now it occurs to me that I could have stamped the sentiment (well, maybe a different one) repeatedly on the card stock as a sort of background and been more faithful to the sketch.