Five and a half inches!

Yes, five and a half inches of snow fell between 6 and 9.30 this morning. It is amazing! This winter has been the most winterly I have seen since I was a child. Usually we get a day or two of snow that melts very quickly. This year has been very special though. It started to snow on the Saturday before Christmas and it has stayed around, snowing on and off over that period. I love snow (in case you hadn't noticed) so this is making me feel like a kid. At the moment we have thick fog but more snow is forecast for later. I usually hate New Year but this one is turning out to be more fun than most.

These two photos are of the road that runs in front of the house.

Merry Christmas!

It looks like we will be getting a white Christmas this year. The first in many years. Yippee!

So, now it is Christmas Eve, and all the cards have been delivered, I can show you some of the Christmas cards I have been making this year. I bought some nice stamps and card so there was very little that could go wrong with them. It made the job much easier. Every year I seem to have fewer and fewer cards to send. A family members pass on and friends leave the fold the need to make as many cards diminishes. It is a sad but natural part of life but this time of year allows me to think of all the fun times I had with those people.

The pictures above are of my final tip in pages for the monthly swap I took part in. The recipient was a fan of pink so I used my snow obsession and pinks and purples as the theme.

The swirly card here is by a company called Hunkydory and the images and stamps by Crafty Individuals. All very rich and Christmassy.

Wishing you all a crafty Christmas and a creative New Year.

Tim's tags

There can't be a crafter out there who hasn't heard about Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas. This year, for the first time, I made a tag every day following Tim's inspiration. Mine were just little though, 2x3.5 inches, as I wanted to use them on my Christmas gifts. So the photo of my tags are here, a glut of techniques and new stamps.

Fun and festive

Yes, we are ALL getting involved with the festivities. Stanley is wearing his reindeer antlers in solidarity with all reindeer. The decorations are all up, the cards I have received are stuck to the doors (though they keep falling off again) and we even have snow. Now all I have to do is finish up my final, family Christmas cards. Hope you are all having a good festive period - no matter what your beliefs.

Pussy cat, pussy cat

I have been doing a few speedy loose pieces again. I enjoyed doing the zoomie pieces last year but like so many other things I never got back to doing them. The neighbour's cat is a great subject though. He loves posing. They are not meant to be finished pieces but I wanted to just have a little fun with a brush pen filled with black ink. I have always admired artists who can produce a likeness of an animal in just a few strokes. While I'm a long way from having their skill I was quite pleased with the shapes of the finished animals.

Ta-da!

At long, long last! I've done it! Some of my paintings are on Etsy with more to come - once I actually finish them. At the moment the art I have up is the mouse in a tea cup and the panda from my earlier posts. Unfortunately the art exhibition wasn't as successful as it usually is. I can only assume it was done to the current financial climate. I also added the pencil drawing of the coal tit that I also posted a while back. It has been sitting on my desk for weeks so I figured I might as well show it off on Etsy and see if anything comes of it. In the pipeline are some cute bunnies but I actually have to sit down and finish up their landscape. At the moment they are sitting in mid air, just floating on blank paper. They look like the first rabbits in space. A swish or two of a paintbrush should sort that out for them. Anyway, I hope you will take a look at them. At the moment their viewing figures are kind of low so a few visitors would cheer them up.