sweasel.com

Maybe you’re using the wrong tools. Use Blender or 3DS Max. Use a texture map of your building on a planar surface, with alpha channel for the empty spaces. Buy a model of a snow globe at TurboSquid:

http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/snowglobe-particle-animation-snow-3d-max/783316

…put your building inside, point a camera and lights at it and render away to glory! :+)

I finished all my Xmas shopping yesterday…bought it all from Amazon…

Maybe the idea of an office building inside a snow globe wounds your creative spirit. After all—snow globes are magical.

A suggestion for your Christmas Card doldrums: Send people Weasel Day cards. Our benighted Western societies probably don’t have a date officially so designated, but that just leaves it open for you to pick one convenient for you. We have, after all, a ridiculous Groundhog Day so why not Weasel Week? If you picked some time in early November, the people you send them to wouldn’t think ill of you for not sending a Christmas card and they might not even notice.

If all else fails for your office snow globe project, just give ’em an empty globe with a black background: Our Offices at 3:00 a.m. on Christmas Morning!

Not much in the way of Christmas prep here, as I don’t have the energy. I’ll enjoy everyone else’s vicariously!

Good luck with the artist job, Stoaty. It sounds like it’ll be nice once you figure it out.

Agreed on the Christmas cards; they’re a drag. I start on them the day after Thanksgiving, don’t post them until mid-December. This, in spite of the fact that the number of recipients on the list has dwindled over the years to almost nuthin’.

I like Uncle Al’s idea. …Weaselmas?

I’m being a tad disingenuous. The ‘office’ is a Medieval building. We do have offices in it, though.

Ah. I wondered about the building.
I have favorite Christmas cards that I have saved for years—because of their uniqueness or great beauty—and bring them out each Christmas because they are no longer simply cards but have become part of my decorations. One saved treasure (since 1977) is by a Western-style artist that shows little prairie creatures—rabbit, skunk, road runner, badger 😉 —gathered around a scraggly little Christmas tree decorated with scraps of discarded Christmas trim. It is comic and heart-stabbingly poignant and makes me sad and happy. That’s quite a burden for one little Christmas card 🙂

For the last ten years, I’ve said I’m not sending cards…then I start getting them in the mail and my Ba Humbug-ness wilts and I end up sending them.
This year is kinda weird because in June of this year, I was diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian cancer. Very long surgery and chemo (last treatment will be Dec 9th) and I’m doing very well but don’t know if I should mention that in the Christmas cards I send.
I want all the ladies here to know that your annual pap WILL NOT detect ovarian cancer, the way I understand it is there is a blood test available. Ladies, if you still have the girly bits, PLEASE ask your Doctor to test! I was two weeks from my annual test when I found the lump. There are NO SYMPTOMS until you feel the mass.

@Janna – I’m very sorry to hear about your illness, but glad you are doing well.

By all means, tell whom you want to tell, but I suggest that a Christmas card may not be the best medium.

Good luck kicking it, Janna!

I really hate cancer, bastard has been trying to kill me for nine years, and is getting ever closer to succeeding. Fight, fight, fight!

Stay strong Janna. You too, Niña.
Ovarian cancer is one of the most insidious of cancers. I’m in my sixth year of being “we find no further signs of cancer.” I had breast cancer with the works (chemo, surgery, radiation), and my oncologist runs a lot of blood tests at every check up. I made up a joke for my doctor: How does an oncologist kill a rattlesnake? I don’t know. He poisons it, then he cuts off the head. After that he throws the two pieces in a fire. (He laughed.)

I did not mention the cancer in my Christmas correspondence. Those close to me knew, and if we were distant enough that our only correspondence WAS a Christmas card, then I knew it would be distressing to them so I skipped it. You might like to wait until after the new year though, then send short notes to all the people you would have sent a Christmas card to. Chemo is a darn good excuse!

I just wish women knew that the annual exam doesn’t catch it and it grows wicked fast. With zero symptoms. That’s the scary part.

Buy a bag of blow-in fiberglass insulation, rent the blower, have somebody blast fiberglass into the air in front of your building (maybe standing behind you) while you snap a photo.

Lest we forget:

“Weaseling out of promises is important to learn.
It is a skill that separates us from animals… except the weasel”.