southern hemisphere appreciation week!

yes, it's officially winter in august! we CAARDVARKS have teamed up once again with the fabulous folks at HERO ARTS to help them preview their brand-new, not-even-out-yet winter stamps!!! hero arts generously supplied each member of the design team with a cool "build-a-snowman" set...a set of awesome winter & holiday greetings...one of their new vinyl cling background stamps in a gorgeous brocade pattern...and some luscious pearl bling! so of course we had to "test drive" all our goodies and we have made an extra-special flickr gallery to show off all of our creations!

since there are so many projects involved, i've decided to spread them over the next week or so, in order to give details on each one. today i'm going to show you my "snow day survival kit"!

it's one of those little 6x4" clear acryllic pails from michael's that i decorated & stuffed with small goodies. it's got everything you need to while away a day of inclement weather: hot chocolate for sustenance obviously, and of course some mini-marshmallows! then there are a couple of little crafty kits & a puzzle book from the $1 aisle, for something to do. it also *had* an emergency candy bar, as well...until about...ohhhhhhhh i dunno...15 seconds (max!) after the photos were taken, that is! (it WAS a genuine emergency, i do assure you!)

i used many of the stamps from hero arts' "build-a-snowman" stamp set on this project. it includes graduated circles for the body and head, a choice of 3 faces, a broom, several hats and scarves, little buttons and snowflakes and holly leaves for decorations, and a few winter words in a fun handwritten font. i used the masking method to stamp my snowman, colored him with markers and pencils and then cut the whole thing out.

you can't have a snowman just standing around all by himself, so obviously i had to make a little winter scene in which he could live: i made some wavy snowy hills out of patterned paper, popped a snow-flake patterned transparency behind it, and cut a bunch of fun trees out of rob-n-bob xmas paper. i made labels for the side and the top in broderbund's printshop and used the "fun" stamp from the hero arts set and that was about it!

i wish it'd snow now......i kind of want to break this baby open!!!

check out all the challenge details on the CAARDVARKS blog and be sure to stop back tomorrow for another fun "snow business" project!

(materials used: hero arts rubber stamps; hambly transparency; patterned paper: basic grey, rob & bob; markers & adhesive: tombow; pencils: prismacolor; lots and lots of miscellaneous ribbon scraps; plastic paint pail from michaels)