Moon Lake for Retrosketches

 Hi Everyone.

Happy New Year!!!!  I hope you all had a wonderful evening and that 2015 brings you all of the wonderful things you wish for yourselves and your family 🙂

Today is the official end of our Christmas vacation and I managed to spend some very good quality time with some of my new SU goodies from the Occasions 2015 and Sale-A-Bration catalog.  There are some sets that I am totally in love with and have really enjoyed inking them up and giving them a little crafting love.

As usual I went looking for some challenges and found this great sketch across at retrosketches.  What I didn't realize is that the closing time for the challenge is just a few hours away, so am sneaking this in just under the radar.  Here's the sketch:

Now, it didn't take me long to find the set to use with this sketch.   I am TOTALLY in love with a set from the new occasions catty called Moon Lake.  I have used every single image from the set today and have used them with three different media:  Copic Markers; Colored Pencils and inks used as watercolors.  For this card, I used Copic Markers. 

I had such fun coloring this image and I know that you can't see it, but I did use my Wink of Stella glitter pen to add a little shimmer to the wings of the bird and the water.  I really like the gentle shimmer that it adds.  I backed the focal image with some Soft Sky DSP and some other DSP that I had in my stash from one of my Simon Says Stamp card kits from last year.   I finished it off with a white button from my stash and some SU Whisper White twine.

On a personal note:

Lou and I had a really wonderful time over Christmas.  Lou generally travels for most of December and gets home a couple of days before Christmas.  This makes it pretty hard to do all the things that I love doing as a run-up to Christmas.  This year he decided he would make up for it by booking tickets for us back to England so that we could meet up with our dearest friends and spend Christmas with them.  It has been many decades since I have been back in England for Christmas and I cannot tell you how wonderful it was.  

We had some very late nights, some amazing dinners and managed to get in some sight-seeing along the way.  Over the next couple of weeks I will share some of those adventures with you.

You can also expect to see many projects made with my new favorite goodies from the SU Occasions and Sale-A-Bration catalogs.  I can honestly say that I have been more excited about this catalog than I have for the past year or so.   There are a couple of stamp sets in particular that I have really enjoyed using and think that the offerings in the Sale-A-Bration catalog are the best in a very long time 🙂

I know that I have shared many photos of the Pileated Woodpecker over the last couple of years, but I managed to get this shot of him digging around in one of the splits in our "stump".

Considering it is so cold, I have no idea what he found, but he spent a fair amount of time there, so he must have come up with something 🙂

I'll be back with another project for you tomorrow.  In the meantime, warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight and, if you are traveling home after festive celebrations, travel safely.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe – all ingredients Stampin' Up! unless noted:

• Card stock:  Simon Says Stamp #110 white.   X-press it Copic paper.  Stampin' Up! Soft Sky
• Stamps:  Moon Lake
• Inks:  Copic Markers.  Memento Black
• DSP:  Soft Sky DSP.  Other blue DSP from stash
• Accessories:  White button from stash.   SU Whisper White Baker's Twine