Last Christmas..

I really wasn't very prepared for anything last Christmas. Let's face it, I'm never prepared for any Christmas. Other than for what I need to do, obviously. If writing lists equated to actual presents being bought, wrapping paper and ribbon being selected, addresses being found, cards being made and then cards actually being written in and sent... I'd be done by now and have a comfortable few months ahead. Instead I started my seasonal card making today.

It started like this.

I apologise for the cornflakes. Well I don't really, they were nice (best eaten bone dry) and they shouldn't really be offending you in a picture. Besides card making and 'breakfast' (lunch) work well. In my head. It also started with a card made for a friend at uni, but this is a Christmas blog post (this is, in fact, obvious by the discussion of breakfast I know.) Anyway, most of my cards start out as me gazing at a lot of bits of paper and grumbling a bit. Ink pads and stamping blocks? This was a fancy* day!

I ended up making eight cards. Considering I didn't play theme hospital (blame the boyfriend for introducing me to that one) in the middle, that was a reasonable result. I'm choosing to ignore the hour or so on the phone to various friends. Sadly only one really merits the attention of this blog. Everything else was roughly a cut/slap on/stick affair. Hey I said all my cards were going to be individual, it's pot luck** if you get an interesting one.

No, the card I chose to make was loosely based on a window. If you have crimson, satin windows, black satin bricks and holly wallpaper, I practically created your living room window...

I spy stockings

Sadly I don't think this photographed well. The front is entirely black and red satin ribbon, and I haven't yet learnt how to photograph texture so it appears touchably appealing rather than annoyingly garish. The stockings (of a Father Christmas, snowman and teddy bear) are made of wood, which worked as a contrast. This was just a basic craft knife exercise, as well as canyoupleasenotfraymisterribbon one. I found when I'd finished that all the extra space slightly distressed me, in its open, holly focused blankness. Sadly, I need somewhere to write come the time a list tells me to do so.


*unnecessary. By which I mean they were only used once, and that was not for Christmas cards.
** It's not. Nice people get better cards. Fact.