On the Fourth Day of Christmas

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It snowed Sunday night. It stayed all day yesterday and today. The weather announcer on the radio said "highs 32 degrees" which I found amusing, as that is freezing. Wow, it will warm up to freezing today! The weather report this morning from our local forecaster Miss Staley, is "Tomorrow more snow.. today crystal clear and sunny with SNAPdragon cold!" (Just in case you are wondering, you are looking at a loaded tree branch here.)

I get happy when it snows! It is interesting to me how excited snow makes people. Folks call each other to talk about the snow in their yard. And bloggers all over the world will announce the first snowfall in their area on the Internet.

I like to see the cars slow way down on our road. Usually they are roaring around the corner at 55 mph. Now they go by so carefully and quietly. I wonder if that was what it was like to live out here in the really olden days, when automobiles were first out, or when the horses and wagons went by.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon sorting scraps and ironing them, folding them, and containing them in their box. It seemed like an awful waste of time when I had so much to do, but the scraps were spilling out of their box and running all over the place-- every time I turned around they were on the floor, on the chair, on the table, and lest they should end up in the kitchen crawling into my pot of soup, I had to take control. At least now it will be faster for me to use them in my crafting.

(A tip for Seamstresses: Before putting those scraps away after you have cut your pattern out of the material, make sure to trim them. One big scrap connected to another big scrap by a string of material makes for a big tangled mess! I am a scrap saver, and I tend to save every little bit, just in case I will make a charm quilt someday.)

When I finally got to my Christmas card project, I had a good start with them, but soon weariness and the late hour overcame me, and I had to stop, and begin again this morning. May I complain here a moment? Yes? No? I cannot hear you. Well, I have to say, making cards is a tiresome mess! That does not sound very nice, does it? But it seems like there is so much to get out to make a card (if you are putting several elements on it) and if I am going to go to all the trouble to find all the stuff and bring it out of the storage area, I may as well do two dozen cards instead of one. And the card crafting area is the dining room table, with the leaf in it, and would you believe those bits of paper take up nearly the whole surface! I did find delight and pleasure in these cards, it was just the huge quantity that got to me. I found this project hard to finish. But they are finally made! Now I want to keep them. And of course, I need two dozen more than I made.

I did something different this time. Usually I would glue and glitter a card, but this time, I stitched them. Stitching cards is sew much fun! I had a dull needle in the machine already, and the sewing machine seems to like paper better than fabric as it behaved itself very well! The other different thing I did was to use some glitter paper that came in a big pad at Walmart. It really sets off the cards and there no loose glitter mess.

Here you see the card that I would usually make and send off:

And above you see the card with the stitching!

I used a lot of the "heirloom" style stitches on my sewing machine, and changed thread color often for the different cards I made. I did make the mistake of sewing one card shut! I thought about sending it to someone to see if they found it amusing that I had sewed a card shut, but decided against it. I also did a card that had a thicker embroidery-type stitch on it, and it perforated it so finely that the card started to fall apart! I wondered how they would hold up or if they would be "punch out" cards, but the others did fine.

You notice I hardly did any of them the same. That is why my brain is so tired tonight. It would have been faster to do an assembly line method, but my goal is to use up as much of my stash as I can, so I was using little bits of this and that. At least I can say no two are alike! Next time, if I do not start earlier on cards, I may splurge and go and buy some store-bought.

I use the leftover tinier bits of paper to make gift tags. These are about 2-4 inches long:

Then I threw the rest of the paper scraps away. Yes, any more tiny scraps I just threw away. I thought I should tell you all that lest you are under the impression that I am insane! No, I did not make confetti out of them.

If I can get those cards in the mail tomorrow, they may arrive before Christmas to most of the States. I need to get up early in the morning to address cards and package up some things, then it is off to the post office.

I used to complain about the post office, and their high postage stamp rates, but this year I am going to proclaim that I am very thankful for the United States Postal Service. What a service they provide. They bring my mail to me every day! And in this weather too!