The germ of an idea

I had a thought. Just one little one, honest. I have discovered that I enjoy making cards. I never used to. I could never get them to look anything other than thrown together by a reluctant card-maker, which is exactly what they were.

Sitting down with Little Miss to "Do some crafting, Grandma" meant that I had to slow down so that I could show her how to stamp and how to use puffer paint and how to cut out carefully. The result was that my cards looked good. I made nearly 400 cards!

I gave loads to TENOVUS, the Welsh cancer charity and some to each of my children so they had some unique cards to send to special people and as I was cutting the backs off the cards we received this year I had the thought.

I would like to make the cards I send out this year to have a photograph that I took on them. I have a really good picture of Blue Cat under the Christmas tree and I have a snapfish account. I have sufficient good card that will cut to make A6 cards all I need are envelopes. You wouldn't believe how long it took to find a good envelope at a reasonable price. I have now found a website that sells envelopes, all colours and sizes so I will be ordering some soon. I have ordered the photos from snapfish, that way I don't have to waste sheets of photographic paper when the ink cartridge fails or blocks or something that turns every picture blue or magenta or strangely psychadelic just because the printer hates me.

I also cannot stand the noise it makes when it is printing. It sounds like a little voice from inside it is saying "help me, help me, help me" as the cartridge thingy goes back and forth. I used to ignore it until one day I heard it talk. I pointed it out to Mr M and he says he can't use it without listening now. It's a really sad reason to change your printer isn't it? Imagine asking in PCworld if I can listen to the printer before I buy because I don't want it to talk to me, now that would be worth a try...

I have a new Camera!

I have been given a camera, not new but new to me. A very dear friend came to stay for New Year. We haven't seen him for a long time because his now ex-wife didn't like me much. Well, I am the mother of his former live-in girl friend so I can understand her reluctance to include me in their life. Anyway, he was our friend through the dhop I used to have before he was my daughter's boyfriend and now he is in contact again. He is a photographer, amongst other things, and when he realised that I take pictures and scrapbook he said he had a camera and he would bring it when he visited.
I didn't expect him to remember but he did. He brought it whith him. An Olympus SP 55OUZ. It is fabulous. I have spent quite a long time playing with it. We went out on Friday and walked about the city centre pointing our cameras at things and trying different settings. On Saturday I took a few from my favourite spot outside my back door and today I took it with me to the dedication of my cousin's new baby. I was able to take pictures using the available light setting so there was no flash to disturb anyone and with the zoom lens I could sit happily at the back of the congregation.
I will post some of the pictures soon but at the moment I am still learning how to do things. He has promised to teach me about photoshop too. I always learn better when someone shows me rather than reading things from a book.

Keeping up

I am still up to date with my pages. I don't blog about them every day but I am managing to get them done. I seem to be enjoying the process more this year, although the lack of a printer is a bit frustrating. I have come around to the thought that I will simply write a piece for every prompt and then when I can afford the ink for the printer I will print the chosen photographs small enough to slip into the pockets I have thoughtfully provided on most of the pages.
I have taken some pictures of the existing pages but I left the camera in the other room and when I leave this room I am going to bed so I will upload some pictures tomorrow, perhaps.

I also did two 12 x 12 pages today for the 2010 album. My eldest grandson has just completed his GOLD Duke of Edinburgh's Award. He will be going to Buckingham Palace in the spring to receive it. I am just so proud I could burst!
The programme of events for the presentation evening that took place here in Newport had a picture of him and two friends taken while they were on an expedition - canoeing down the river Wye - as the front cover. I used this and the page with his name on it as the main ingredients for a page for the album.

Two Christmas stories

I thought about what I wanted to write, then I wrote it, then I decided that it is just too personal to share with anyone outside my immediate family as it stirred up feelings I had thought long gone. I am not even sure if I will put the stories into my journal or whether they will go into the folder to be read after I am gone - yes I do have one.

I think this picture of Blue Cat (the name is a long story) with his "bah humbug" face on is just so good and sums up how I feel today so I won't write anymore

Counting Down to Christmas

I didn't think I counted down to Christmas, I thought I was relaxed and didn't really bother, until I thought about it. I was quite busy trying to finish a couple of hats and wrist warmers that my daughter has sold for me. She wore hers to work and some of the girls loved them so I have been extra busy knitting and crocheting. You get a lot of time to think when knitting although I do watch TV too.

Anyway, I thought about counting down and realised that I do. Of course I do, I have to because I need to know where I am on my list of things to be completed by certain dates. What a daft thing to think that I didn't do it. I made a wall hanging for Little Miss so that she could change the numbers every day and know how many "sleeps until Santa". My children always had an advent calendar each - the source of much shouting and hitting from their father because he thought they should only have one between the three of them and would always find some reason to deny them the chocolate each day.

Perhaps that's why I avoid thinking about counting down, hmmm.

Mr M counts down secretly but he always knows exactly how many days until santa brings gifts for the children. He would make sure that each of my children had at least one advent calendar so he more than made up for the bad years.

Perfection? ok I'll try

My perfect Christmas happens every year even when it is not happy. It has been perfect for the last 30 years because I have Mr M with me. My children have grown up in that time - they were teenagers when Mr M came into our life - and they have their own families. I love having them around but don't ever make them feel that they have to come to us for Christmas. They have in-laws who like them to go there for Christmas and as long as my kids are happy then I am content. I don't need them close to know they love me.

The most perfect Christmas was in 1992. We were having a lot of work done on the house - roof, wiring, water pipes, drains, windows. All good stuff and as we were continuing to live in the house while the work went on it got a bit stressful for Mr M as he hates me even moving the furniture.

Every day the builders would tell me which rooms they would be doing the next day and we would then move all the boxes and furniture into a room that was done. After the windows were replaced we had no curtain poles so no curtains. We live in a terraced house with a small garden at the front that separates us from the pavement. people walk past our house all day and most of the night too as it is the drunkards path home from the clubs in the city centre. Getting into bed each night was quite a feat, I can tell you.

The work began at the end of September and by December 20th we had a new roof, all the plastering had been done after the new wiring was put in. The windows were all new and double glazed and the brand new copper water pipes were in and the floorboards relaid. The last few jobs were completed and at 9am on Christmas Eve the painter arrived and painted the front door. "Keep this slightly open," he said with a grin "to give the paint a chance to dry so it won't stick to the frame and pull off the door."

It was pretty darned cold with the front door open all day on christmas Eve. There was a bitter wind and even with three blankets hung across the gap it was still cold. We held out until three pm and then Mr M said "I don't care if all the bl**dy paint falls off, we are closing the door!" So we did. We had a sofa to sit on a coffee table the TV and the stove in the kitchen to cook dinner. The boys were in Germany in the army so they were with their own families. My daughter was in Manchester with her new boyfriend so it was just Mr M and me. we cooked the dinner together, and then sat on the sofa with our plates on our knees to eat then we sat back and watched TV for a while then we played cribbage and all the time we talked. We are always talking, we have never yet run out of things to say to each other. sometimes we sit in silence, reading or listening to music or watching TV but mostly we talk.

That's why it was so perfect. I knew my family was all safe because they all rang me during the day to say that Santa had been and he gave them good presents. So I suppose each year I hope that I will be able to repeat that perfection even though we no longer have wet plaster on the walls and there are curtains at the windows.

Maybe this year eh?

Christmas Cards made or bought?

I never thought that making Christmas Cards was my 'thing'. Card making was hard, it never came out the way I saw it in my mind so I just didn't do it - until 2009 when my cousin Michelle began to come to my house to scrapbook with me. She came every tuesday stayed for two hours and we would laugh and talk and put the world to rights but all the time we were either doing a scrapbook page from a pagemap or deciding which family pictures we wanted to share for our albums. She said she made cards and sold them for charity. She brought a pile of used cards and we cut the fronts off them and I helped her make new cards. I did pyramage when there were several of the same card. I did decoupage too. Both things I had never done before because they were not my 'thing'.

I thought I would have a go at making some just to send to the family - just to see if I could. I made 40 cards for family and suddenly realised that less is definitely more and in future my cards would be simple. I try to use whatever I have in the bits box which makes me feel good as I am saving a tree or two but the very best thing is that this year Little Miss is growing up and is now old enough to really help. Her cutting out skills are excellent. I stamped s whole load of baubles onto plain white paper and used some puffer paints that I found in Costco to decorate them. When they were dry I used the heat gun to puff the paint and then let Little Miss cut around them, making sure to keep the little ring at the top. She cut out 48 of them!

This project took us several evenings after school and made the time she had to wait for Mummy to come home from work just fly by. In total we made 100 card for me, 20 each for her mummy and two uncles and we also made 100 for TENOVUS, a local cancer charity.

Part of a goody bag I got from Create and Craft TV at NEC (even though I didn't actually go) were 24 decoupage sheets of Christmas toppers so we used those too.

So this year all my cards were hand made and it really felt good to put them into the envelopes and post them. I will make more for next year.

What happens if I don't make enough? well I will buy some from TENOVUS that's what, I won't be beating myself up over not doing a few cards because I will still have my apprentice and we will be doing even better stuff after school in our own special craft club.