Christmas Card Club - A Christmas Scene

It was Lorraine's turn to chose our theme...and it was a great one. We were to make a card with a Christmas scene.
The stamp I chose, triggered some very happy memories. When I was a kid, I lived on a farm and mail was delivered to our rural route mailbox...which looked much like this one. Parcels arrived from Ireland at Christmas...usually slippers...knitted by my maiden aunt. Sometimes there would be something for my Mum...like the gorgeous aqua linen I have used on some cards this year.

I knew I had to use this image...I only have the one as I did it at a class at my local stamp store.  There was a bit of a problem with it though.  I finished up the colouring with the little bluebird on the ground at the front. The copic pen which had just been filled by the lady at the store, leaked a huge drop of ink all over the bird. I have flooded this area with copic blender fluid over and over and when I thought I had most of it out, I stickled the heck out of the edges to help hide the last little traces of much faded blue ink. Whew, problem sort of solved!

I have seen a lot of mirri card lately on others blogs, so pulled out a piece of red to mat my image. I don't know what I do wrong, but mirri card always seems to cut through the colour and sort of make it looked rubbed off the edges! The silvery mirri look sort of shows through...If anyone has mirri hints for me,,..please feel free to pass them along. I cut a couple more mirri pieces and finally got one that didn't rub off quite so badly.

Thank goodness I cut 3 or 4 because I soon needed all of them. I went to stick my image down to the mirri oval and carefully used tweezers to check placement etc. But just at the final moment it seemed my hands trembled as the oval image was not quite evenly placed in the larger mirri oval...Ugggh!
This card was turning into a bit of a problem.
I peeled off the mirri backing and stuck a new one on...same problem...finally on the last scrap of red mirri large enough to fit the die, I hit the jackpot and got it it to stick evenly! Thank goodness.

I seem to have this problem when layering oval dies...I am thinking the solution is to cut each oval sized die twice from card stock. Then cut one in half lengthwise and cut the other in half width wise.  I could then use this template to mark a light pencil line for just where the top edges should line up or just place a piece of repositionable tape at the two points.

This image triggered another fond memory...a memory of living in the Kootenay area of British Columbia (when my daughters were babies and toddlers), and walking to check the mailbox for the Christmas cards and presents my Mum and my in-laws would sent up to us. We were 13 hours away from our families so it was sure nice to get  pretty Christmas cards with precious letters inside! This was over 30 years ago and long distance telephone calls were very expensive. Those cards and letters were like gold!
 The skies in the Kootenay region are the most gorgeous shade of blue. The winters are cold...sometimes up to 45 below zero and even in those freezing temps, the sky would be so vividly blue.

I embossed a shimmery blue piece of textured card stock that reminded me of those vivid skies, with my Big Shot. The skies really were this amazing shade of blue all winter!
I then stuck red diamond bling across the intersections of the diamond grid lines that this EF pattern created.  I wanted to sort of tie the red mirri card in so chose the shock of red!

No sentiment as I felt it sort of interrupted the balance of the card. There will be a nice sentiment inside so that will do.  Yep, this stamp holds a treasure trove of memories!

No recipe today as I have covered it already in my rambling on!

I am entering this card in the following challenges:
1. Pixies Crafty Workshop - must use snippets. The mirri card and the scrap of copic paper were both  snippets...all four pieces of the mirri!
2. Christmas Card Club - must be a scene
3. MFP Speedy TV Christmas Card Challenge - must be Christmas
4. CHNC Extra - Always Anything Goes
5. Jingle Belles Rock - Cardstock Christmas