WOYWW - 134

Never mind all the expensive gadgets that we are all told we cannot do without for Christmas.  This is what it is all about for me.  This gorgeous canvas was a very special present, created by our very clever daughter.  All four grandchildren together for once.  The original picture was heavily photoshopped to sort out the fact that the colours all screamed at each other, and to create a professional looking background.  It must have taken hours of work, but, I am sure you will agree, the result is stunning.  I will show you the other picture she did for us next week.

It was great to have all the grandchildren together on Christmas Day, although it was a shame that son's poor wife was on duty till about 5pm, so she missed this part of the festivities.

Looking at Shaz Silverwolf's blog today, she has been busy sorting out all her ribbons, and they look really good and easy to find.  I wish that was all I had to do.  My room looked a wreck when I closed the door on it on Christmas Eve, but I thought it would do until after the big day.  Oh boy, was I wrong?  When Steve arrived with the two girls, the youngest was distinctly cross and tired, having not even closed her eyes on the journey down.   So she urgently needed a sleep in a darkened room, so as my room has black out curtains, things were moved rapidly to make room for the travel cot, out of reach of anything dangerous.   I really need to start working my way back in to make it fit for working in again.

I also failed miserably in my mission to use up all the Christmas stuff and reduce the two boxes to one.  In fact, despite making over 70 cards with the stash, I think the stuff left over got busy breeding, and I am not sure it will all fit back in even two boxes.  So my next mission is to make Christmas cards throughout the year to clear the backlog before panic sets in next year.  I have quite a few stamps that were intended to be used for this years cards, but there was no room or time to play with them.

My final card to be finished this year nearly sent me to an early grave.  The topper was already done, one of my stained glass variety of a Nativity stained glass window, with the acetate married up with the paper version underneath.   I needed a frame to cover the glue holding the two halves together, but then I discovered that nothing was the right colour.  OK, strong sticky tape round ti and Martha Stewart fine glitter rubbed into it.  That looks good.  Now back it onto black card.  Fine.  Now I need gold card as the final matt - problem, nothing matched the gold glitter.  Here we go again.  this time, spray glue on the mount, stick the topper on that and rub glitter into the edges of the matt.  Then the whole thing was finally stuck on to the black pearlescent card.  That looks fine.  Now all I need is the gold holographic sentiment - problem - I used all the gold ones, only silver left.  Out came the spray glue again.  I cut the sentiment off the sheet, sprayed it with glue and rubbed in more glitter.  Then I peeled off my newly glittered sentiment and stuck that on back card and mounted it in the same way as the topper.  All that was left the the simple job of printing out the insert, which was already set up.  Did I say simple........  What a mistake that was.  It printed fine, but then it needed to be trimmed.  After three disasters when bits got chewed off, I looked at the guillotine and found that the channel the blade runs in was clogged with glue and general stuff.  After I cleaned that out, things worked better and the card was finally finished, and was very well received.  Sadly, I cannot show it to you this week, as I forgot to photograph it before I handed it over, but I will try to remedy that and post it here in a later post.

I hope you all had a great time at Christmas, with various ailments taking a back seat for the day, and lots of family all around.  It looks as though Julia did, with her family together.  Just click on her name to find out what she and many other friends got up to.  Meanwhile, Happy New Year to all of you.  I have really loved reading your posts and your comments this year.  Keep them coming and enjoy your crafting and your lives in 2012.