undertaking

Well, I decided to work on some winter cards, as the recent snowfalls we've had were really nifty for 'dressing' the landscape, and it was rather inspiring. As of right now, this is the only tree stamp I have, so it looks like I'll have to invest in a couple other styles. Having a deciduous tree would be nice to capture the true starkness of winter. I pretty much stamped the trees by layering two inks--evergreen and brown, and then used a paintbrush to apply the snow to the tips and gave a bit of a splattering of white to soften the whole thing. It wasn't hard, but it was rather time consuming...

Chip's been working on a project room in the basement for me. This means we'll be reclaiming one of our bedrooms so LOTS of people can come visit (without having to sleep in the living room), and I'll get to become organized! Right now, everything is kinda everywhere, since I don't have storage, except for the floor. I've tried to capture this room in stages, and I apologize for the darkness, but we don't have a bright light yet, and it is the basement...
The theme we decided upon is a 1920's speakeasy, partly because it's in the basement, and partly because we wanted to do a tin ceiling. Chip spraypainted all the bricks, as the foundation is stamped concrete, ready to be painted whatever we wanted. The back wall will be shelving, and Chip plans to build a center table for working. We still have to pick out the main lighting fixture, though I do have my mock library card catalog (a set of regular-sized drawers, actually) almost done--Chip's been expanding his woodworking repertoire:

I really look forward to having stamping marathons down here!

Book recommendation: The Coffee Trader by David Liss
Recipe recommendation: Pork Noodle Soup with Cinnamon and Anise
Wine recommendation: Duckhorn Merlot