MERRY CHRISTMAS!

For years Dora´s little dachshund friend, Tessa, has been trying to learn Dora´s 3-ball trick but so far the best she can do is to pick up 2 and practically choke herself by holding one behind the other. At least in her Christmas costume she´s outdone her best friend.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Rudolph And Roses

After an unexpected snowfall yesterday I awoke this morning to a miserable drizzling rain. In this kind of dreary weary winter weather there´s nothing as welcoming as a splash of colour at the front door but in December the choice of flowering plants is limited. Red cyclamen with its fragile drooping blossoms is quite beautiful as is the more flamboyant poinsettia but neither of these will tolerate a sudden drop in temperature so this year I decided on a less conventional display on my doorstep in the form of 3 small rose bushes which I found at a local market stall. No sooner had I bought them than I spotted a dear – pardon the pun – little basketwork reindeer looking at me beseechingly and just begging me to take him home. I fell for him instantly and the fact that he was carrying a tiny shrub with red berries just added to his appeal.

With such a cheerful welcoming group on the front doorstep all I can say is who needs poinsettias!

Preparing For Christmas

Since I got back from Scotland I´ve hardly had time to draw breath! For a while I got totally bogged down in idiot work like washing, ironing, cleaning, dusting and scrubbing. After that it was setting up and trimming the tree and generally making the house look festive, something which seems to take longer every year though maybe not quite as long as it used to take when Dora was a puppy and insisted on helping me. I can do without that kind of help! I remember once taking her for a walk the following day and suddenly noticing something silvery dangling from her rear end. It turned out to be a mangled string of tinsel. I won´t go into details of how it got there. You can probably work that out for yourselves.

But I digress. One thing I really do enjoy is making Christmas cards, something which Dora has never taken any interest in, thank goodness. In most cases this means a lot of preparation in advance. For example the following cards have to be printed on both sides, the motif on one side and the pattern of pin holes on the other. Then I prick out the pin hole pattern, cut out the motif and paste it onto a plain card along with a Christmas greeting. Here are just a couple I´ve made which aren´t really that difficult as the edges of the motif are straight, unlike some which have a lacy edging.

Then there are the cross stitch cards which I only send to my very best friends because they´re quite complicated to make. I´ve already described that process in an earlier post so I´ll just show a couple of the finished cards.

 

This year I´ve also sent some printed cards. Here´s just one in which I´ve used a few elements from A Christmas Carol, one of my Christmas kits.

Which reminds me, included in the above design is a very tiny version of one of a set of three elements which I´ll soon be offering as a festive freebie. So, if you´re also designing your own cards or would like a sparkly accent for a Christmas layout, watch this space....

Christmas In Bloom

All winter my living room looks like a small jungle as all the plants which spend the summer on my patio are hibernating there. Well, I thought they were all hibernating but it looks as though my giant – and normally very ugly – cactus which usually only earns its keep by flowering in the summer has decided to surprise me by suddenly bursting into bloom. It couldn´t have chosen a better time as I´m still suffering from severe backache and needed something other than my Christmas tree to cheer me up.

I created this page in honour of this lovely floral Christmas present using the Christmas Carol freebie QP which you´ll find here.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Coincidence of the Carolling Cats Christmas Card

Those of you who´ve read my earlier post, A Christmas Carol, may remember how I said that my new kit of the same name was triggered off by the cross stitch picture of carol singers I showed you. Well, it seems that the trail of coincidences keeps right on going...

...A couple of days ago I received a charming Christmas card from my cousin´s son, Michael, and was quite amazed by the motif on it which depicted a room full of carolling kitties grouped round a piano complete with a sheet of music. Not only was the subject reminiscent of my new kit and the picture which inspired it but even the night sky glimpsed through the window reminded me irresistibly of one of the background papers included in the kit. As you can imagine, I felt as if I just had to drop everything and create a layout from it. Here it is.

Thank you, Michael, for unwittingly adding to this strange story with The Coincidence Of The Carolling Cats Christmas Card.

A Christmas Carol Preview 2

Here´s the second preview of A Christmas Carol. All in all I´m pleased with the way this kit turned out though it was a lot of work and I was really tired by the time I´d finished it. So tired in fact that it wasn´t until I viewed the second preview with fresh eyes the following morning that I noticed something that sent me racing to Photoshop to alter one of the elements. Strange how something that looked like a spatter of sparkling holly berries one day could look so remarkably like a trail of blood the next day, transforming a Christmas kit into something more suitable for Halloween! As you can see it´s now a scattering of glittering blue gems which coordinates nicely not only with the single sapphire shown on the right but also with the jewelled Christmas tree and of course with the many background papers in this kit.

As I´ve said before, it blends in well with Noel Nouveau but with its 16 backgrounds, 41 elements and 10 frames it´s certainly large enough to stand on its own so it´s more a coordinating kit than an add on.

Hope you´ll like what I´ve shown in this second preview.

A Christmas Carol Preview 1

Here´s the first of two previews of my newest Christmas kit, A Christmas Carol, parts of which are at present scattered around this blog. As I´ve said before, it arose from a series of coincidences. The fact that it coordinates so well with Noel Nouveau may or may not be a complete fluke. I´m not even sure myself. It could just be that I like the contrasting colour combination of cool snowy blue and warm festive holly berry red and you´ll probably know by now that I love gold and silver too and I´m also a great fan of festive bling. I can´t think of a single kit which lacks a scattering of glittery bits. However, A Christmas Carol is by no means simply an add on kit as it comprises 67 items with no recoloured duplicates so it can well stand on its own. Here´s the first preview. I hope you´ll like it.

Now for some really – to me – exciting news. This kit will be the first to be available in the very near future followed by, among others, my as yet unreleased kits. Well, with the exception of one. I have plans for the exception which I won´t reveal just yet but I hope you´ll all take part in something I have in mind for that particular kit. I´m sorry to seem so secretive about this but it´s still in the planning stages. However, I have done this kind of thing before, and if you think about it for a moment, you may even guess!

I´ll be back soon with the second preview.

Not So Shabby

You may have noticed that my room is looking more chic than shabby at present. Unfortunately, the exact opposite is true of me. I went to bed last night with a scratchy throat and a dry cough which by the wee small hours had developed into a full-blown cold complete with stuffed up nose and aching joints. I got up and wandered about the house for a while groaning and rattling my chains like the ghost of Christmas future then decided to brighten my spirits by brightening my room. It´s now a sort of pre-preview of my latest kit, A Christmas Carol. I´m pleased with its new festive look and I think the doll is too, especially now that she has some company. I´m sure the angel will read her to sleep at night, the robin will wake her in the morning with his song and I think she´ll have to move over soon to make room for the little girl when she arrives with presents to fill her Christmas stocking.

I´m beginning to babble so I´m off back to bed to catch up on my 8 hours of which, so far, I´ve only had about 40 minutes. Hope to be back soon with more previews of A Christmas Carol.

A Christmas Carol

I´ve got to tell you about a coincidence which inspired me to create another Christmas kit, something that I hadn´t even considered doing. A couple of nights ago I was suffering from one of my periodic bouts of insomnia and 4 am found me sitting in my workroom sorting through my Christmas cross stitch pictures looking for something to scrap using Noel Nouveau. One of carol singers gave me pause for thought as it suddenly reminded me of a group of three little girls who somehow didn´t manage to charm their way into the kit. As is usual with me, one thing led to another and that picture and the background I made for my recent angels freebie were the basis of an add on kit for Noel Nouveau.

The double frame you can see in my layout I´ve had for quite a while though only in b & w. A vintage gold effect seemed to be called for and when I turned it around and laid it on its side it also accommodated the two smaller companion pieces. I find it amusing that the carol singer on the far left seems to be tilting his head to avoid having it covered by the swirl on that frame. A further coincidence? After that I really felt I was meant to create a kit around that picture and even name the kit after it. No prizes for guessing what I´m going to call it!

Yes, I know I haven´t yet shown the previews of the kit I was working on recently but there´s a reason for that which I won´t divulge just now. Anyway, you´re probably wondering what´s the point in having 5 brand new unreleased kits so I´ll at least tell you that they may all soon be available for sale. I´m just not sure exactly when but you´ll be the first to know so, if you´re interested, watch this space...