Altered Playing Cards, Week 14: Christmas Reindeer

For Week 14 of our APCs hosted by Claudine at Claudine's Art Corner, I am once again (for the second week in a row, in fact) without any of the necessary tools, products, and supplies to make these cards.  Claudine wants us to make Christmas Reindeer.  One of the things that caught my attention was a comment Claudine made:

if you do not have this die you can use any die that you have it doesn't even have to be a snowflake

I hate to tell you Claudine, but I don't have ANY dies, so I'm not even sure why I'm trying desperately to follow these prompts.  Instead, I fear this whole adventure has turned into a nightmare that causes me more frustration than happiness.  And these challenges should NOT be about product over prompt or happiness.

However, on Tuesday, when my friend Kathy and I went shopping (I'll show photos of our day out next week), I did something I swore I would NOT do: I bought a rubber stamp of a deer.  I DO promise, though, if I don't have the proper products, tools, or images  needed for the remaining prompts, I will come up with my own theme for that week.  No more buying something I will probably only use once, then have it languish in my stamp drawer, never to be used again.

Sorry, I am in a hurry to finish these, so there are no step-out photos this week.

Here are my Christmas reindeer.

Card 1 shows my new reindeer stamp.  I stamped it twice before I applied it to the card, but I probably should have inked and stamped it a few more times before I made the final stamping.  I started with a gessoed card where the gesso pooled to the middle of the card.  I applied some lovely blue fluid acrylic paint, then when it was dry, I stamped the snowflakes I've been using during December.  When the pigment ink was dry, I applied the two dictionary definitions and I named the card "Deer Santa."  Finally, I added the new deer stamped image.  I couldn't find a manufacturer name on the stamp, so it may have been made by Joanie at Mrs. O'Leary's, then adhered to a wood block.

For my second card, I started with a dictionary page.  I couldn't find the word reindeer.  In fact, I couldn't find most of the "R" words/definitions.   I liked this page because of the word December and deception, which fit nicely with the sentiment.    I colored the background of the page with pigment ink, then cut three trees from paint chip samples.  I got out my Stampin' Up giraffe, part of a set I bought a few years ago at the thrift store and turned him into a faux reindeer by adding his "rack."  As an aside, I spent less money on the set of six animals from the thrift store than I spent on ONE new stamp at Mrs. O'Leary's. The problem with this Stampin' Up stamp was it was on a very large wooden block and the rubber didn't line up with the  image on the front of the block.  As a result, I miscalculated where to stamp and stamped over the trees which I had intended to leave plain.  All that was left was to write the sentiment, "Reindeer in training" and hope for the best.

You would think after spending all that money on the new deer stamp, I would be super happy with this week's entry.  However, I was disappointed all the way around.  So what made me happy, you ask? All the lovely comments you have been leaving, even when I was so busy I was unable to return the favor.  Thanks for looking, commenting, and enjoying.

Please remember, the Word Verification is only there to confuse you.  Ignore it and hit publish.  Your comment will magically appear without the need to show you are not a robot.