Something to smile about

Well after a mammoth weekend of card making i have completed all these christmas cards. 27 packs of six cards in each and a few single cards left over!

I have used up a load of envelopes that my mother had for god knows how long!  Coloured card that i just can't face using in any other type of card has been used up! Oh am

Nd some dratted glitter card that covered me and the room, the cats and half the house in glitter!!

I have used digi stamps from pink petticoat and digistamp boutique.  My spellbinders dies got some heavy use and my poor big shot is wondering what happened lol.  Finally my poor friskars circle punch died. Poor thing, but it died for a good reason!

Anyway having had the home where my mother is now living selling my cards for 25p........not happy at that, but what can you do after donating them for their summer fair, well i digress.......i decided that i needed to mark the cards up with a price that people would pay, but make it obvious.  So i decided to use the image from handmade harbour, colour it and make it into a label, stating the cost of the card packs.  If i say so myself they really look the business.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfullness

John Keats. 1795–1821

627. To Autumn

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,	5
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,	10
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;	15
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;	20
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,	25
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;	30
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

As we harvest our garden my thoughts turn to the above poem that i had to study and learn so many years ago.  Whats sad is how much i had forgotten.  We have a bumper crop of grapes and a good number of apples.  Today even saw me dashing through the rain to pull rhubarb to make crumble.