On the fourth day of Christmas....

I’m on my own. No radio, no tv, just the gentle hum of the washing machine and dishwasher. Soon, I have to prepare for lunch guests and that will be lovely. But now, this minute, coffee at hand, I’m basking in some quiet. So quiet that for a second, I became all reflective and wondered if you’d like to see some of the cards I made for Christmas. I had two phases of making, the one that I felt was necessary but too early and another where I was actually ‘in the mood’. I can’t now tell which cards came from which phase. That says a great deal about the consistency of my erm, style. Same old same old!

A Sizzix die (which does not cut well at all) and a little bit of stamping required. I like the simplicity and did several of these in alternating colour ways. ie red text on a white card and this white text on a red. Then the difficulty with the die made me gnash my teeth and shout HUMBUG, so I moved on. One thing I can tell you from this pic is that these were clearly made after the poinsettia card!

Wonderful Penny Black stamps. Look at that, an entirely stamped card! And the ‘old fashioned’ felt pen coloured onto solid stamp’ technique. You can rely on me. It’s in a cellophane bag because it was one of the ‘designs’ for the Card Marathon which now seems about a century ago. Despite the colour and re-colouring of the stamp that was required, I think this was my most popular card on the day.Also a Card Marathon make. Nothing but die cuts and a bit of embossing on a die cut. Fascinating fact.....the silvery grey paper was ‘hung’ by a single strip of tape across the inside top behind the ivy cut aperture. I found if it was stuck on all 4 sides that it overwhelmed the text and it couldn’t be read so well. Interesting, huh? I also tried this silver and white colour way with about five other colours of paper on the inside and had the same problem with all of them. At some stage I may get around to trying it on a green card with gold embossed text. The point of this is though, I will now look at my text dies as potential fab embossed texts!

Lastly and seriously, just to jolt you awake on this fourth day of Christmas. Creme Eggs on the counter at my Post Office on Christmas Eve. The world may continue to turn, but today, I’ve been happy to share my quiet moments. Because of course, it’s not actually quiet in my head.