It's Started!

It's Started!

Last week I decided to get a shift on and get some crafty stuff done for Hallowe'en, I've made up some goodie bags for the bairns out Guising*, for the neighbours children I've made and filled some decorated boxes.
 

Anyway, after sorting out Hallowe'en I have given in and started making stuff for Christmas - a load of baubles! I also thought I'd make a start on some cards and ended up only making one because I couldn't decide what to do!

The one I did make is based on this week's Freshly Made Sketches Challenge

 

although it didn't start out as what I had originally planned to make for it! My original plan for the Christmas card went awry when I unknowingly had managed to get ink on my fingers and smudged a part of it - aarghh! Then I remembered the sketch and decided to chop off the bits that were ok and re-arrange them and add another panel.
 

  

All the stamps used this week came as a free gift with the latest Creative Stamping Magazine. They were classed as Christmas stamps but there are several which can be used at anytime of year - especially for making cards for the male of the species, including a rather nice stag's head.

 

 

 

Cardstock

 

PayPer Box - Kraft
PayPer Box - Ivory

 

Stamps

 

Creative Stamping - Woodland Christmas

 

 

Inks

 

Versafine - Vintage Sepia

 

Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pads:

Faded Denim, Peeled Paint & Evergreen Bough

 

 

* Guising - The verb to guise comes from Old French (se) déguiser, meaning to disguise oneself, is a practise not only associated with All Hallows Eve but also, in days of yore, with Yule. 

On the last Tuesday of January  each year, at Lerwick in Shetland Islands the men  participating in the Viking Festival of "Up Helly Aa" are known as Guizers, chief among them being the "Guizer Jarl")

 

Photo of Up Helly Aa  - Burning the Dragon Ship from http://www.shetland.org/things/events/culture-heritage/up-helly-aa

When I was younger going Guising at Hallowe'en wearing an old white sheet with holes cut for eyes sufficed as a ghost but these days, as the rather commercialised import of Trick or Treat seems to steal a march on guising, it seems the shops are full of more theatrical style costumes. 

Another tradition was the long, labourious, and a bit smelly, task to hollow out a tumshie (swede) and then carve a scary face into it but with the candle lit turnip (neep) lantern it was off to knock on the doors of friends and neighbours. The tradition was to do your party piece (tell a joke, sing a song, dance or recite a poem) to receive your fairins (presents, especially sweets, apples, nuts although you may be lucky to receive some money) rather than modern, imported, demand  of "Trick or Treat".

"Canty dame wi kindly looks,

Ye hae fairins in yer neuks,

Aipples reid, or aipples green,

Up, and gie's oor Hallowe'en!"