Jingle Bells Card & Creating!

I know it’s been a long time! I’ve been so busy but most of the things I’ve been making have already been given away or couldn’t be photographed. This card was photographed at night; my first attempt under seriously rubbish lighting using angled light. It’s ok for a first go- more improvement needed.

This is one of my Christmas cards that I’ve been mass-producing. All well and good until I realised that to send these babies through the post would require a ‘large’ stamp and make Christmas posting hideously expensive. Thus, they were downgraded- sadly, as the jingle bells were definitely my favourite part! In order to go with something I’m doing, I also did a YouTube video. The quality is really awful but that’s because its been compressed by 99%!! You do not want to know how big the file was beforehand! I’m now playing around with compression sizes until I can find a size that allows me to upload without waiting until 2013- but still retains a reasonably clear image. That’s quite possibly an ‘after-Christmas’ job!

Whilst I’m typing this, I’m sipping a dark hot chocolate- not as luxurious as the one I gave away as a present today, but not bad either. I know we often have sudden impulse moments after seeing recipes on TV, but after watching Jamie Oliver last week, his ‘epic hot chocolate’ seemed like a perfect gift. I changed the recipe slightly to accommodate a lack of enough plain choc, and thought that white choc looked quite pretty in contrast. Here’s a side view- I layered it up to look more attractive (they can mix it all up later!)

It is a sizeable amount of chocolate- but a) can you ever have too much? and b) there is enough mix here for 4 pints of hot chocolate which is probably too much to ingest at one sitting for even themost serious of chocoholics! I presented it like this–

in my ubiquitous Kilner-type jars and added 2 mini Candy-canes for their two boys to do some stirring with. That said, I doubt their sons will get much of a look in with this beverage!! I also was busy filling up jars with various treats for the teachers at school. Just put in anything calorific and its bound to work a treat for soothing teachers’ ruffled nerves come end-of-term! By the end of term, however, I couldn’t down a single chocolate treat and hardly any healthy calories for that matter……

One of the dubious joys of having a large family is best felt at times of illness. It was last Monday evening and I had literally just finished a costume for one of mine for their Victorian Day the next morning. There is a good reason why it was a bit last minute and I was fairly proud of my home made mop cap and maids apron created from a largish heavyweight cotton embroidered charity shop table-cloth. Just as I was tying off the last thread, Jamie appeared, looking a peppermint green colour and announced that he was feeling sick. To be honest, the rest of that evening and night kind of disappeared in a sick-filled twilight zone that ended with 3 kids in our bed taking it turns to vomit. Nice. Steve managed to sleep through most of it which was fortunate. He really needed to be at work. I, on the other hand, was less lucky. The germs managed to keep me busy that night and descend on me during the morning. Perfect timing. The last week before school finishes and you have lists on your lists! Ah well. Couldn’t be helped.

I was thankful for several things; 1)copious amounts of plastic-ware in the house. 2)An extraordinary lack of appetite that has helped shift my post-christmas excess weight even before I put it on and 3)- 2 days motionless on the sofa were very good for me. It takes something like that to make you stop completely. I’m now doing double-duty with the washing machine etc etc but maybe, just maybe I needed the sit down!

On the 12 Days of Christmas front- there were lots of widely different answers. The correct answer was 11 and Congratulations—- Ros was nearest with the answer 12. I will be contacting you shortly to see which choice of prizes you would like.

Had better dash- will be back before Christmas to wish you all a Happy Christmas!

Til then xx

xx