Happy Christmas

The last two weeks here have been absolutely hectic, I feel as if I hadn't stopped since we got back from Paris (not even any time to edit the photos, that's a holiday task).
As I write this it's Christmas Eve afternoon and I have been baking all morning - melon soup, chicken pot pie and the Bûche de Noel for tonight at my aunt's house, fresh bread for lunch with half the dough being saved for cinnamon buns for breakfast tomorrow, and a Bailey's cheesecake for tomorrow. Now it's time to start winding down...

The first photos are from Midleton on Thursday, all of the library. Thursday was a beautiful day, not too windy and even a little warmth if you stood in the sun in a sheltered place.

Bûche de Noel for Christmas Eve - thank goodness there is some of the chocolate buttercream frosting left over because I would hate to think that I had used an entire four 125g bars of chocolate. At least the cake this year is lighter than the chocolate roulade I normally make, since I came across my mother's old recipe on a filing card somewhere. We had the dinkiest little miniature ones in Paris, complete with tiny little sugar toadstools and little plastic saws/axes for decoration.

Merry Christmas to all my cyber friends.

Crane Circle

I shared a card on the Art Neko blog today which uses a crane medallion stamp. One of the reasons I chose the stamp is because it reminded me a lot of an embroidery I did many years ago, and since I didn't want to add a photo of the embroidery to my Art Neko post, I'm putting here. Don't look too closely at the matting - at the time I couldn't afford professional framing and even with a proper mat cutter, it ain't easy! Anyway these days it hangs in our bedroom because I got C a piece of metal wall-art for his birthday with a clarinet, so the embroidery had to be moved from its previous place.
A peek at the card - the full card is on the Art Neko blog, and the embroidery.

I really wanted to add colour to my sun, as in the embroidery; since it's a sold image I just used a q-tip to carefully remove all the black ink before stamping. I should have taken a closer look at the colours in the embroidered pine - I just went for a sort of pine-needle green. Next time I use the stamp I will remember to use two shades of colour!!

On the way to work...

Me, myself, I.

One day last week - when we had glorious bright sunshine and blue skies, I happened to cross the road a few meters earlier than I normally do, and was surprised to see a triple shadow of myself.
Looking around, it can only have been the strength of the light reflecting from the apartment block across the road, but it was certainly unusual to see.

By Friday, when I had decided to walk home from work because I had a dental appointment at 2, it was already starting to get more cloudy and overcast. This week has been very dreary and dull - it's felt as if there was no daylight for taking photos of cards today or yesterday. But on Monday I noticed this splash of blue lobelia.

November Favourites

My favourite cards from November, which seems to have gone by in a bit of a blur - and yet I have found a good number of favourite cards!

I also got my own winter sampler piece made for my 12 x12" frame, as well as a Spring one for a gift.

Not many photos taken last December. I had to look back through the December 2014 archives for the photo of a wood duck on the canal. Unusually I had time to visit Phoenix Park last week (photos will follow), and was disappointed to see neither the wood duck nor even one single mandarin.