This is not going to be a very inspiring post. My cold has decided to take a turn for the worse, and I am not a terribly good patient. Didn't sleep very well last night, and have spent the day shuffling about, sneezing, coughing, eyes watering, neck aching and generally feeling like death warmed up. I've postponed my physio session tomorrow, as it's not fair on him, and I feel awful anyway.

This evening, I made a stack of get well cards, mainly as virtually everyone I know seems to be ill or recovering at the moment. Illnesses range in severity but I can't remember a time when I have known so many people to be poorly simultaneously. I don't generally like photographing get well cards - in the same way I don't with sympathy cards after a bereavement. The subject matter generally seems to be too sensitive to be placed on a blog and the card dissected. Maybe this is a bit over sensitive - I don't know. Sympathy cards are hell to make, not just because of the subject matter, but it almost seems wrong to be sending a beautiful hand made card - it feels like I'm saying "Look at the card" rather than concentrating on the sentiments it should convey. Recipients of card have often told me that in fact they value and appreciate a handmade card, and the skill conveyed, but it still doesn't stop me feeling awkward, and in the very rare times I buy a card, it is always a sympathy one. One other consideration in favour of a hand made one, no matter how sombre, is that the range of sympathy cards on sale (like get well cards) is surprisingly limited. When I had cancer, I was surprised by how many duplicate cards I received, and I know this is also the case for sympathy cards. I hasten to add this in no way diminished my appreciation of the sentiments, just an observation.

Anyway, after all that kerfuffle, what did I do today? I sat and cross stitched, that's what, swaddled in layers of fleece blankets, while Andrew went running with the dogs. I did have forty winks on the sofa, mainly because I didn't sleep very well last night. I made a small "Thank You" design - it's not destined for anyone in particular, but I like to keep a supply of these types of cards made up, ready for when needed. I used a variegated thread, in hues of blue and lilac for the main circle and added some seed beads to the centre of the flower. The original pattern suggested using black thread for the backstitch (for the lettering) but I thought it would look far too harsh so used a deep petrol blue thread instead. I then mounted on a little card blank (one of the set received free from a magazine) and added a row of adhesive ribbon along the bottom and voila! All ready.

Once that was complete, I stitched a very small design on 16 count aida (I normally stitch on 14)of three rosebuds. These are going to be mounted on an ATC for a Valentine's swap, so I will photograph these when fully loaded, so to speak.

Regular readers will recall my friend Leila for whom I made a quilt last year. Scarily, it will soon be her birthday again, so I attach a photo first of the birthday card I made for her. The design is taken from one of my recent cross stitch magazines and as soon as I saw it I thought of her, as she likes to cosy up on the sofa, under her quilt with a nice cup of tea. On the original design, there are French knots on the ends of the letters in red, but I substituted seed beads. I'm pleased with how it turned out and have mounted it on a little card, which was one of a set that came free with another cross stitch magazine.

For her birthday, I will be buying her some goodies, but after Christmas I bought myself a little LizzieKate pattern with charms attached, called "Stitching friends". The design was quite small, and like all Lizzie Kate designs, has no backstitch and is nice and simple. It was a pleasure to stitch. On the colour illustration, they showed it on green fabric, but I stitched it on a pretty blue fabric with a "cloud" effect, and instead of the centre of the flower being stitched, I added beads. I bought the beads just before Christmas when I needed some thread and fell in love with the colour, without at that time having any clear idea what I would be doing with them. Anyway, this pattern is just perfect. Instead of stitching with two threads, I used three, as this gives a fatter, denser look to the design and colours. Now all I need to do is find a little frame to pop it into, wash and press it, and away it goes.

I also attach a picture of another little card I made, which is going to be a get well card, but at the moment, there is a multiplicity of candidates for its receipt! Again, another little design from a magazine, featuring daffodils in a pretty blue vase, which I mounted on another of the free cards from the set featured above. This one featured butterflies, which chimed nicely with the butterfly and flower sequins I stitched onto the card design. Finally topped it with some pretty adhesive ribbon along the base of the card, and a couple of adhesive butterflies along the sides of the card.

Am feeling rather fraught today for a variety of reasons. My other blog explains tonight's culinary disaster, my post- Christmas bank statement arrived today (ggaaargh), the dogs have been tracking mud EVERYWHERE in the house, and I realised I was nearly missing a deadline for an ATC swap. Sometimes you just have one of those days. It's generally a glum time of the year anyway - loads of people I know have been struck down by the various flu bugs that are circulating and Andrew has had a cold, which he does seem to be getting over. The weather is cold, wet, windy and squelchy. Anyway, enough moans. Even a nanosecond of reflection is enough to remember that I am immeasurably privileged compared to many - I have a roof over our head, we live in peaceful times, we have enough to eat, warmth, access to healthcare and transport and a whole raft of freedoms. So, on with the show.

Tonight is all about that ATC swap. This is another Do Crafts one, and is one of the regular colour swaps that I enter frequently. This month, the organiser's choice is "Tartan". I've done two cards. The base card is taken from a Blossoms and Butterflies stack, and is glittered - one is a bright fuschia pink and the other is a cheerful fresh green. I cut these out to regulation size. Then I had some fun with shrink plastic. We went to a Scottish wedding a couple of years ago, and I made a thank you card with a thistle stamp. I dug that out, feeling that a Scottish vibe seemed appropriate. So a number of thistles were stamped and I used some of the Sakura Gelly Roll pens to colour the green stem and the pinky lilac for the flower head. Then came the fun bit - switching on the heat gun. The plastic wriggles and curls as it shrinks, and you find yourself convinced it will stick to itself and be ruined but after a moment it magically straightens out, and you have a perfect miniature thistle. I mounted three of these onto a piece of fuschia card with trimmed curvy edges and this was put onto the main card base. Finally the whole was trimmed with some shriekingly loud tartan ribbon. On the green one, I added a square of blue and green tartan check card and layered onto it a picture of a pot of blue flowers and a little blue bird. Alongside I added a blue butterfly, then finally I added highlights to the butterfly wings, leaves and petals with a silver Gelly Roll pen. Labels written on the back, photos taken (one with flash and one without) and then into the envelope for first class posting tomorrow morning - hopefully making the deadline by the skin of my teeth.

So - this time it's all about Sarah. My oldest friend Liz and I were brought up together - she literally lived across the street from us, and my parents were friendly with her parents before we were all even born. Anyway, Liz's eldest daughter is called Sarah and earlier this week she turned eighteen. I'll skip lightly over how old that makes me feel, and the fact that her birth seems like yesterday. Anyway, she has grown up into a bright, beautiful young woman with lots of exciting possibilities ahead of her. For her birthday, I have made her a scrapbook of photos of her going back to her birth. Liz lent me a couple of old albums so the pictures are a combo of ones I've taken over the years along with some of hers. I also uploaded a set to the Photobox website and have ordered (and received) a nice photo collage for her of lots of lovely pics. It needs to be framed, but it's just great. The scrapbook I chose is one I bought over a year ago, as when I saw it, I knew instantly it would be perfect for Sarah. The whole kit is a range called Once upon a time from Die Cuts with a View. It features gorgeous papers with dragons, unicorns, castles and lovely Gothic castles. These are all things that Sarah is mad keen on - especially dragons. When I bought the kit, it came with assorted matching ribbons, epoxy stickers, chipboard shapes and card shapes. Some of these got used in the birthday card. I'm very pleased with how the whole album has turned out and I'm hoping to see her over the weekend - it'll be fascinating to see how she feels about it.

Time for another post. January means one thing - THANK YOU CARDS. When I was growing up, the school Christmas holidays was when we would carefully create a pile of Thank You letters to assorted generous relatives. One of the things I would often receive as a present would be a new pen, so invariably that would be used. If I was very lucky, sometimes there would be a Parker pen from my grandparents. I didn't start using a fountain pen till secondary school, and was never taught to write with it the way my parents and older relations were. Now of course, the straightforward letter has morphed into cards and I doubt if today's teenagers would do anything like this, probably preferring to send emails or texts. This year, one thing continued though, I did receive two lovely gel pens in my stocking. Anyway, nostalgia moment over, and back to the cards. I've cross-stitched two which are illustrated above.

The first, for my great-aunt, is a vase of tulips, a happy, simple design, that was straightforwardly mounted into an aperture card, with a Thank You stamped inside. The design is taken from a spring edition of Cross Stitch Card Shop last year. The other little card is a sweet Joan Elliott gift tag design that I mounted in an aperture card. The card was then decorated with some glittery ribbon, and is destined for my aunt. For my uncle, I used a card I had prepared earlier (in best Blue Peter tradition!). This is a cross-stitched iris mounted on some green papers and mesh with a green ribbon at the side, to look fresh and springlike.

I also made two virtually identical other thank you cards, one for a dear friend and the other for Andrew's sister, husband and children. In this case, a simple striped pre-printed card was layered up with some lovely cheerful magenta card. This was taken from a DCWV stack called Blossoms and Butterflies, a gorgeous stack of happy bright colours and zingy flowers, with masses of foil and glitter. Yippee for bling! The corners were rounded then I added self adhesive green spotty ribbon - the colour picked up on one of the narrow stripes and the spots echoed the magenta card pattern. Finally, I used my pokey tool to make a hole just above the ribbon, then added some layered silk flowers,in pink, then white and green, fastened with a green brad in the same shade as the ribbon. Hooray! A happy, cheerful card to brighten the new year.

And on this note, I will just finish by reminding all readers that if you'd like a birthday card this year, handmade by yours truly, just drop me a line. My pokey tool and needle are poised!

I tried to upload these pictures last night but Blogger was being temperamental. Not only could I not upload pictures but it was refusing to display them on my blog and several I visit. So, without further ado, here they are.

Lots to update on. I've decided I'll need to do another post tomorrow during daylight as I need to take some photos that won't come out very well in the darkness. Scrapbooking first, and I'll begin with a big Hoorah! for a company called Photobox. It's nice to be able to praise them wholeheartedly. I used them before Christmas for a number of photo related gifts such as calendars, mugs etc. and was incredibly impressed by their excellent quality goods, speed of service and prices. Anyway over the holiday break, I noticed they were doing photo credits for the year ahead, so stocked up. After all the visits and celebrations finished, Monday was the official "Back to School" sort of day when DH went back to work, and decorations came down, very sadly. I uploaded my festive piccies to the website and ordered a batch. Tuesday an email to say they were on their way and this morning they were delivered by Carwyn our trusty postman. Beautifully wrapped in a neat plastic folder, in a funky silver envelope. Good photo quality, and perfect for my plans.

Firstly, I made a minibook for my in-laws, who visited us over the New year for a few days. This was the last one from the bottomless Brenda Pinnick kit, and it's lovely with a shimmery ribbon at the top and pages in cool tones of lilac, blue and grey. Some pics attached of the book with the pages made up. I've popped it in a Jiffybag and it will hit the post tomorrow. The visit was particularly special as it was my mother-in-law's 65th birthday just before Christmas so we were also belatedly celebrating that with a special meal out at a lovely place called the Felin Fach Griffin. In Welsh, Felin Fach means "Little Mill". Imagine all the things you want in a country pub. Roaring fire. Aga, with tea towels airing in stacks over the front, and bread warming in the top oven. Home made soda bread. Dried flowers. Real ales. Squashy comfy sofas. Big wooden tables. Glowing candles. No jukebox or slot machine (hurrah!). Spotless loos. Friendly bar staff. Lots of nooks and crannies. Yes, all that in one place. Bliss.

The rest of the prints I ordered are going to be used in another of the BP kit bits - a 12 x 12" scrapbook, with a much fuller series of pics about Christmas and the New Year together, probably about 50 pics in total. That will take a bit longer to do, but I'm looking forward to getting my teeth into it.