Festive Greenery ATCs

 

I don't think I've ever actually kissed anyone under real mistletoe (possibly a plastic version?). It may be a tradition but we've never really had much of it and it's not been a household tradition of ours. Although perhaps, now I have my own house to run, I could start it off next year. I seem to recall a small faux sprig the parents occasionally put up over the stairs when I was little but I don't know what happened to it. 

Do you have mistletoe in your house?

I like the tradition though. Having just researched it there seem to be a couple of different legends associated with it. One is that it originated in ancient Greece as part of the festival of Saturnalia (a Roman pagan festival honouring the agricultural god Saturn) which is in mid-December near the winter solstice. It was also used in marriage ceremonies because of the plant's association with fertility and, during the Roman era, war enemies might reconcile their differences under mistletoe as a representation of peace. 

There's also a legend of Norse god Baldur (God of truth and light) who was slayed by an arrow made from a mistletoe branch. His mother wept tears of white berries which brought Baldur back to life and it was decreed that mistletoe was never to be used as a weapon again and that she would place a kiss on anyone who passed beneath it. 

I don't know if there are any other stories of Mistletoe you know of?

Customarily men can steal a kiss from any girl standing underneath the plant and a refusal of a kiss might lead to bad luck and a lack of a marriage proposal the following year! Of course, once you've kissed someone under it you should remove a berry and once all of the berries have been taken the kissing must stop.

I'm not expecting any kissing in relation to my mistletoe cards though, they are hopefully just pretty to look at and remind of a festive season. 

As usual I have layered up backing fabrics to create a colour background with interesting textures to lightly stitch. You can read all about how the fabrics have been stitched and how I made the mistletoe pieces in my previous post linked here. 

I haven't had any cards through the post recently for this swap but I think there are about three saved in my Stitchscape folder from members who sent theirs in with the November card - very organised of them!! There are a couple more days and then in the New Year I'll see what I've got and double check whether anyone else is wanting to join in as cards might have been delayed in the post due to the strike action, or not posted yet because of the festivities. 

I'm sure I've said it before but I'm really excited to see a whole year's worth of cards and do some follow up blog posts about the collections as a whole. If you have been joining in it would be great to see how your cards look together as a collection as well. 

Snow Days

A couple of weekends ago we had a fairly heavy snowfall for our area. It was made all the more exciting by the fact we haven't had a snowfall this deep for a couple of years now with such mild winters, and that it was Finley's first snow!! He was not at all impressed with it and couldn't understand why I kept leaping in and out of the house into all of this giant white rain. 

The flakes were enormous! In the above photo we had only been outside for about three minutes and were already pretty covered - it came down really fast on the Sunday afternoon and caught a lot of people out. Luckily for us (as it turned out) we had noticed a nail in one of our car tyres the day before so were already stuck at home with the puncture waiting for a tyre fixer to come to us the following day to replace it, otherwise we had planned to be out that afternoon too. 

We knew when we moved here that this town gets snow much worse than where we were living but it is much more exciting when you know you aren't going anywhere anyway. It was a good four or five inches deep on our balcony railing, which is partially shielded from the building, and much deeper in more open areas. Our carpark isn't gritted so for the following week any visitors had to battle through the snow to park, and I ended up in a snowdrift helping to push my sister's car out after she came to visit us. (In crocs too so my feet got wet!)

That's our black car hiding under the snowy blanket in the above photo!

We have the most amazing view over Ashdown Forest from our balcony and after the snow it was beautiful to look at. Every day offers a different scene anyway, sometimes mist lies in ribbons over the lower ground which makes it look like a giant lake with a couple of islands poking out the top, or at low light times it just becomes layers of grey shadow in different shades. The colour has changed a lot since we moved here already, especially as the sunsets have changed - whereas the sun used to go down past that tree on the right hand side, now it doesn't even reach anywhere near the trees on the left, our kitchen doesn't get any sun at all!

As we couldn't go anywhere it was a good few days to finish off my December and January ATCs so I am ahead again which is good because I have a lot of jobs to do in the run up to the new year, and also I'd like to catch up on stitching all of our badges to our camp blankets. Finley got given his own camp blanket (with badges already stitched on!) for Christmas so we can start collecting memories for him right from the off! So far he has a badge from when we visited Longleat together when he was only a few month's old, and some commemorative badges from the Queen's death as that was a major thing to happen during his lifetime.

The January, Frosted Dew Drops, card is a simple concept and design and I hope it isn't too different from my usual style. I have tried to create spiderwebs with little splashes of frozen dew hanging onto thin strands using a metallic thread and clear sequins. There's a lot of sparkle behind the web with metallic printed fabric and a shiny ribbon so I hope I haven't overpowered the web itself. 

These cards are backed and finished now anyway so I can photograph and show you them in more detail in their own post!

Angus & Flora 2022 Week Four

December 22nd:: On the 22nd December the Elves were playing Christmas Bingo!! What started as a fun game is now rather tense as Angus only has one more box to be ticked before winning the game!! He's got his fingers crossed that Baby Jesus will be next!! Flora is pinning her hopes on Rudolph and Chocolate.

December 23rd:: Don't ask, because I don't know! For some reason Angus and Flora have been collecting the needles that have been falling off of our Christmas tree and today they are having some kind of bath in them?

I suppose it's a bit like an Autumn walk where you swish and throw around the pretty yellow leaves, but Christmas style!!

December 24th:: Angus & Flora are beyond excited! Honestly, they've been up since the early hours pitching a tent, decorating it with tinsel, hanging up their stockings, wrapping presents for Santa and selecting the best mince pie and wonky carrots to leave out for our overnight visitors. 

We've finally managed to calm them down with some carol singing so they've stopped bouncing around at top speed and are singing beautifully, if a little squeakily, in their campsite. 

It's sad that today is our last day with them but there's always next year!! Thank you for following along with their adventures and Merry Christmas!!

So there we are! Another advent full of Angus and Flora!! I imagine next year may be slightly different as Finley will be nearly two (can you believe?) and possibly a little bit more interested in the antics of the elves than he has been this year. 

It's been a fun one to do as this is the first year in our new home so the elves had lots of new places to explore. What I love about doing these little set ups is that they really reflect what's happening during December and act as a reminder about where we were and what was happening to us; like the snow, not having any water, having our first real Christmas tree and the needles that fell from it constantly even though we had it in water (it also fell over several times, strewing more leaves everywhere in a temper. Our hoover was not impressed!), or how little Finley was and how much he loved the balloon bunting and his ball pit. The elves don't always stay in our home either, this year they travelled to my parents and also came to a Rainbow meeting to help us hide the end of term presents from the girls (pictured below).

Hopefully next year will see lots more elf inspiration as well as some golden oldies and, if I remember, I'll pop them on here as well so that we can all look back and see what they've been up to. 

Have a wonderful Christmas all!!

Angus & Flora 2022 Week Three

December 15th:: For the 15th December Angus and Flora decided to make some balloon bunting for a little balloon obsessed baby boy!! I'm not entirely sure how practical it is strung up across the living room but he seems to like it. 

December 16th:: The elves felt there was just something missing from our decorations so they've added a few more! I'm not going to be the one to tell them that the chains can't stay there when we want to close the curtains this evening!

December 17th:: Angus and Flora are present rattling under the tree. They think we haven't noticed but some of the presents are a bit jingly!!

December 18th:: Uh oh, Angus and Flora have discovered the cotton wool in the bathroom and decided to use it all to make themselves look like Santa! He apparently has the most enormous eyebrows!

December 19th::  Angus and Flora came across a stash of carboard tubes this morning and have been busy upcycling them into snowflakes! I'm pleased to see that Flora has the big scissors this time!

December 20th:: We've been having water supply problems in our town and were without water for two days with intermittent water so far so the elves are anxious to collect some water just in case whilst the taps are sort of working!! It's very helpful of them but they won't get far with those cups - they have holes in the bottom!!

*Disclaimer - we do have actual back up bottles of water without holes in!!

December 21st:: For the 21st December the elves have discovered the bookcase and made their own friends to help act out some of the stories! They are very entertaining to watch with their different character voices. Next stop, Broadway!!

Angus & Flora 2022 Week Two

 
December 8th:: Angus & Flora are tree gazing. I'm told it can only be done on a naked tree - pre-decorations - and you have to look for funny shapes in the light between the branches....Are they having me on or have they been at the mulled wine in secret?

It's week two of Angus and Flora!! We are whizzing through December and I'm slightly panicking about not having finished my Christmas shopping yet, especially as ordering anything online that will be sent by Royal Mail is really risky due to the strikes and the backlog of parcels and letters. It's a real disaster for small businesses like me because lots of people are having the same thought and I've seen a real drop in orders this year for the festive season. But, Angus and Flora are still up to mischief - here is what they got up to this week. 

December 9th:: Angus & Flora are building a....snowman?

December 10th:: Angus and Flora are having a game of Elf Monopoly - they're about ten minutes in and it looks like Angus has lost already? Can he make a cheeky comeback?

December 11th:: Angus and Flora have stopped, mid-snowball fight, for a quick huddle to warm up before they carry on. Clearly they should have waited before making pretend snowmen in the kitchen, because now they can make real ones in the garden!!

December 12th:: Angus and Flora are duelling. Apparently something was said or done in last nights' snowball fight and the only way to resolve the matter is by wrapping paper roll innards at dawn! (Or lunchtime in this case.) They do have their safety mince-pie-case face guards on so that's a relief, and I think we'll just leave them to work out their differences!

December 13th:: Movie day!! It's all icy and slippery outside so the elves are staying warm tucked up under a cosy blanket and nibbling on marshmallows. They've watched Home Alone, Love Actually and are now on Elf! What would you pick next?

December 14th:: Snowflakes are so last year! Angus and Flora are making origami Christmas trees for our windowsills with some rather impressive folding techniques. The bigger question is, who gave Angus the big scissors?!?