Won´t You Guide My Sleigh Tonight?

The Red-Nosed What?

Christmas In August

As some of you may know, I spent much of the summer laid up with sciatica. The only place this condition was tolerable for me was in the garden where I spent a lot of time in a mainly reclining position alternately blessing my iPod and my ebook reader for providing distraction from boredom and discomfort. After a while though even that wasn´t enough for me so I hobbled back into the house, hunted out my needles, threads and patterns and started cross stitching some Christmas cards. I suppose it seems strange to even think of Christmas in August but even these little motifs take some considerable time to stitch, especially for someone like me who can never stick to the colours specified in the colour key or even to the chart itself.

Take this chart for example. It´s supposed to be an angel but whoever designed it seems to have got a little confused because it´s the only Christmas chart I have in which the angel is carrying a magic wand.

That was easy to alter with a wave of my own magic wand.

I liked the result so much that I ended up making several, though as you can see, I hardly stuck to the colour key at all. These are a few of the finished cards.

 

Another motif I enjoyed stitching was this one.

It offered so much scope for change that I got a bit carried away. First of all I decided to add a glittering star to each tree and also to add sparkly thread to the trees themselves. Unfortunately the effect doesn´t show up on a scanned image so you´ll have to take my word for that. Here´s the first one I made.

I went on to make quite a few after that simply because I enjoyed changing the colours each time. These are just a few of them all framed and ready to go.

 

Of course, stitching them is the fun part. Actually finishing them i.e. washing, pressing, lining, cutting them out and finally creating cards to frame them is something else again so I´ll draw a veil over the hard part!

Creating these little motifs was a sort of therapy for me. It helped me to feel as if I was doing something useful and not just self-indulgently lounging around on the lawn all summer. Which reminds me, even in November the lawn is beckoning me. Well, not so much the lawn itself as Dora who´s waiting there for me to join her in a game of her own invention called something like I-might-let-you-kick-this-football-but-only-if-you-ask-nicely. I always do and she usually does...

Digital Christmas Tree

I´ve just about finished my Christmas preparations. I´ve posted all my cards and wrapped all my presents and either sent them off or put them under the tree. I´ve also hung all my baubles and beads on the Christmas tree although that´s always an ongoing project due to Dora. Unlike one of her naughty predecessors, she doesn´t wait till I´m in bed and then start to demolish it. In fact she always pointedly ignores it. It´s just that several times every day with one swipe of her joyfully wagging tail she manages to dislodge and scatter at least one bauble and, worse, cause the carefully draped gold bead garland to rat-a-tat onto the floor. Since I can´t tell her to take herself and her tail away and go off and be happy elsewhere, this is something I´ve had to accept. All the more reason to create this digital Christmas tree well out of reach of Dora and her wagging tail.

 

If you´d like to have this festive gift, everything you can see on the above tree is available for download here. 

 

As you can see from the preview, this is a DIY project as you have to assemble your own baubles. I thought it would be more fun and also more versatile to create separate layers so that you can choose which bow to add to your bauble - you could also alter the baubles´ transparency - or just use the bows themselves as deco.

Have fun!

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!

Pets´ Christmas Wish List

I think that, if Dora could write, high on her wish list would be a sandpit to dig her ball in and out of, a pair of thumbs so that she could catch more than one ball at a time and a mouth big enough to hold four balls instead of "just" three. Unlike the pets in this video I don´t think she´d include either a can opener or a pogo stick.

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!

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.

Making Christmas Cards

For the past few weeks I´ve been making Christmas cards, something which would normally take only a couple of days, but these are a little more complicated than most because they´re stitched rather than printed. Well, the motif is stitched but the layout is printed. Stitching is the fun part as I can plug myself into my iPod and lean back and relax during the day without that nagging guilty feeling that I´m neglecting other more important tasks. But all good things eventually come to an end and once all the stitching´s done I reluctantly unplug myself from my iPod and get on with the more tedious parts of the project. First the motifs have to be washed and pressed then stiffened by the addition of an ironed on backing. After that comes the part I enjoy least, namely designing the layout which entails some very precise measuring...not my strong point. The following screen shot may give you an idea of what´s involved.

 

As you can see, the layout is in 3 equally sized parts, (designed to fit onto an A4 sheet of card) the back of the card, the aperture and the flap which covers the back of the motif. By the way, the little corners within the frame are my guidelines for cutting out the aperture. For that I use a steel ruler and a sharp knife. The 4 vertical lines are for scoring the card in order to fold the flaps neatly and the large rectangle is the actual size of the card. If I´m feeling lazy I only print the card once and write the greeting by hand after the card is folded, otherwise I have to create a new layout with a printed greeting on the right side which will be on the inside once I´ve turned the card accordingly and printed it. Does this sound complicated? Believe me, it IS! However, it only has to be done once as I can alter the layout and change the aperture and the greeting for any similar cards. After printing I score the folded parts, cut the card down to size using – thank goodness – my trusty paper cutter, then all I have to do is cut out the aperture and stick on the motif using double sided sticky tape. I also use the tape for sticking down the flap to cover the back of the motif. TADA! One card down, a whole pile more to do...No, not really as I only make these cards for a chosen few.

Having said all that, here are some I´ve already finished. 

I enjoyed stitching this Christmas pudding so much I made a batch of them, some on cream linen and some on green. I think I prefer the contrast of the green but I like both variations. It´s just a pity that the glittering thread and the shine on the beads don´t show up on these scanned images.

I forgot to say that although the second pudding is smaller than the first, it´s only because it was stitched on finer material.

This angel is very glittery because I used lots of sparkling threads. Again, the effect is lost when it´s scanned.

 

The following 2 motifs were really intended by the designer of the chart to be stitched using black thread on white linen but I think they look more effective and dramatic the other way round. By the way, I stitched the house motif before I realised that it was too wide to fit into a landscape layout and I had to create a portrait layout especially for it. You can imagine how I enjoyed doing that!

I´m off now to start a new project using this chart.

I stitched this motif many years ago and gave it to a friend. This time I´m going to keep it and frame it and hang it in my living room so if I´m not around for quite some time, you´ll know where to find me. I´ll be sitting comfortably in my workroom plugged into my iPod....with a Do Not Disturb sign on the door.

The Twelve Dogs Of Christmas

Having a hectic run up to Christmas? Feeling stressed out? Got nothing much to laugh about?

When I feel like that I just have to watch Dora´s antics and I feel a whole lot better. So, all of you without a Dotty Dora to cheer you up, take a few minutes from your busy day to lean back, relax and enjoy the 12 short videos which feature the hilarious antics of The Twelve Dogs Of Christmas.

(Make sure you´ve got the sound on.)

There now. Don´t you feel better already?

A Flight Of Angels

I haven´t been around much lately because I´ve been busy making Christmas cards. I used to find the joy of the festive season was marred by the frantic last minute rush to get all my preparations done so nowadays I make an early start. So far I´ve bought, and in some cases made, all my presents though I´ve only wrapped those which have to be sent abroad, and I sent those off yesterday. Our Christmas tree is up and trimmed and the living room looks particularly festive with all the lights and sparkling dingle dangles though I have to admit to having flaked out for quite a while to recover from that 5 hour marathon. After that there wasn´t very much left to do apart from the cards. I used to make them for practically everyone but that was in the days when I had no Internet access. (Didn´t we all have more time back then!) Nowadays I only make cards for family and friends but always try to make even the bought cards special by making festive stamps and stickers for the envelopes. My favourite motifs are Victorian angels and while I was working on some this morning, I thought that you might like a few to get you in a festive mood so here´s a flight of little angels for you. By the way, these angels also make pretty cards and gift tags, especially with a little additional glitter.

If you´d like this angelic quartet, you´ll find it HERE.

PS I´ll be back before Christmas so I won´t wish you a happy one just yet. I wouldn´t want you to get in a panic thinking of all the work you still have to do before you can sit back and enjoy it! As for me, I´m off to clean my workroom. Even Christmas has its down side...

Season´s Greetings

Who Needs Snow?

It may look pretty decorating my robins Christmas card but I´ve had enough snow to last me a lifetime. In fact I´ve got so much this winter I´m giving it away so if you´re not feeling chilly enough already, get your woolly hat and mittens on and shovel it up HERE!

Angelic Trio

These are some of the angels from my collection of Victorian ephemera which I´ve used as Christmas cards over the years.

I´ve also made angelic postage stamps for my Christmas card envelopes. With a little added glitter they make lovely stickers and page headers. But I´m sure you´ll come up with ideas of your own, so if you´d like them to decorate your own Christmas projects, you´ll find them HERE.
Merry Christmas, everyone!

Cross stitch cards

Embroidery and cross stitch have always been among my favourite hobbies and I enjoy creating not only large pictures but also small greeting cards for special occasions. Here are just a few of them.

I made this mouse for a friend whose birthday is in early September. I couldn´t resist making it look 3D by using various glass beads for the blackberries.

The angel is my favourite Christmas motif. I´ve used it not only for cards but also for Christmas tree decorations. Sometimes I stitch the heart onto plastic and sometimes, as here, I make it out of Fimo.

Of these three the bear is the only one I´ve kept so far. I must say he was easier to stitch than extract!

The frames are from my nostalgic Christmas kit, Noel Nouveau, which you´ll find HERE along with an early Christmas present.