The Magic of Christmas...

I have been slowly digging out my Christmas decorations.  Our tree finally goes up today!  I know, it's about time.  I wanted to wait until we finished painting and cleaning out some things.  While I was cleaning out, I found these photo canvases that I made about two years back.  They are photos of Christmas decorations taken by yours truly.  I then added sentiments to them by Create with TLC.  In fact, all of my cards and canvases here have sentiments by TLC.  She has some really great digital sentiments! After photo editing and adding the sentiments, I printed them out on good glossy photo paper then modge podged them to white canvas.

I also made photo greeting cards of some of the same photos.  I've sold a few of the photo cards and given away some of the photo canvases as gifts.

These first photos are of a large wooden santa I bought at a craft fair about six years.  It's about 11x14 in size or about there.  The canvases are 5x7 except for the nativity, which is a 5x5 square. The cards are A6 size.

The snowy ornaments are decorations on our neighbor's tree.  We actually, surprisingly, got a Christmas snow about four years ago and the Hubs and I (with camera in hand) took a wintry walk along with our dogs and I captured some nice wintry photos.  Unfortunately, there's only been one other snow day maybe two years ago that I got some other snow photos.  That's how it goes when you live in the southeast ---- we're lucky to get even an inch.  Maybe in the entire 10 years we've been in North Carolina, maybe we have had a complete total overall of two feet, but that's pushing it!  It's already been 10-20 degrees colder than normal this year so we will see if we get a "true" snowstorm! 

The "Shiny And Bright" is a photo of a beaded snowflake ornament on our tree.  It's one of many ornaments handmade by my grandmother (now deceased).  She made some really gorgeous ornaments --- snowflakes, bells (complete with ringers), angels, stars, icicles, etc.  She even made mini beaded  tea sets!  I think of her often, but at Christmas when I hang these on the tree, I can't help but smile and think of all the happy memories I have of her.

The manger scene is a wooden set I bought for my boys a very long time ago.  It has a lot of hand carved wooden pieces--- lots of animals, the shepards, wise men, etc.  The angel is attached to the top center of the creche.  I just love the rugged hand carved figures!  The creche is three hinged walls that close and serve as the storage place for all of the pieces.  My boys loved setting it up and playing with it every Christmas season.  I think it makes for a great Christmas photo! This canvas is a 5x5 square.

The yellow Santa below is a wooden ornament belonging to one of my boys also.  I thought it made a great photo for a card.  I softened it up around the edges for a more whimsical feel.

Believe in the Magic of Christmas!