Santa, again

Greetings!  I'm having a warm day in PA and I hope yours is whatever makes you smile.  Did you ever make a fool of yourself at the post office?  One of the winners is from Canada, and while I was buying stamps I asked if I could create a shipping label online.  He said yes, you can, but it's international and you will fill out a form also.  ???  What?  Canada is international?  We're attached to them!  There's no ocean to cross, I could drive there.  We're attached along our whole top!  As I started realizing what I was saying, I remembered that I had mailed packages to Canada before, and of course it's international postage!  I started smiling at my stupidity and he thought that smile was related to my joking around.  I'll stick with option #2.

So here's my latest Santa alongside the photo of how he is charted.

I changed the robe to 902, trim to 3829, pants and hat to 3011.  Dropped the toys again and did what I wanted.  The bag on his back was 610 and it was so close to the pants.  I used the new ink trick and ever so lightly brushed the bag with Sepia.  There 'ya go.  Instant color darkening.  I tested it on the corner of the linen and I am so surprised at how drastic the intensity is for such a light touch!  I also tested the stamp cleaner fluid to see if it would remove the permanent ink, and it did.  Then I washed it with a little soap and it was fine.  But I still need to be very careful because it's so much darker than other methods. 

 Speaking of that, husband cleaned the freezer and I spotted what I thought was a large piece of chocolate cake.  Well, as I watched it thaw and saw black liquid running from it, I realized it was my home made walnut stain.   Good thing I saw the liquid and put it in a container before the whole kitchen was stained. 

Doing leaves today again, and we are both exhausted.  Old.  And exhausted.  I made a new lounge hut for the brats with open fronts, lined it with pieces of my old wool carpet, and they are happy happy happy.  Angled from the wind and rain, plywood top extended for a porch, and an additional box for the new brat on the block.

 

I hope you all have a great weekend.  We're been so busy that I really haven't spent much time online and am way behind on blog activity.  So I hope you're all doing fine!  I worked on labels yesterday and will try to paint the boxes this evening, if my hand can hold the brush.

Stay safe!

Thanks for visiting.