Thank you

Hello and welcome to... everything. New year, new month, new challenge over at the Alphabet challenge blog. With my traditional delay, I'm trying to keep up with life, especially since many things came crashing down in 2024. For the majority of the year, I felt like being overwhelmed with every single aspect of everyday's life, and I think that pretty much sums it up. I had a wonderful rehabilitation stay recently to help me reset and re-focus, and figure out where to go from here. 

The "Thank you" challenge is quite fitting for the season, and I'm trying to be thankful for things that come my way, but I also feel a deep sense of being fed up with running into walls over and over again. I certainly hope that the new year will allow me to focus on my health more thoroughly, and spend more time in my crafting corner.

I did enjoy some crafting hours during the rehabilitation, and while doing so, I created a little DT inspiration for our challenge. As I didn't have many materials available, I had to improvise quite a bit. In my mind, I had the vision of a pendant, so I used one of the macrame circles as a base (for imagination: the circle is about 10 cm in diameter). Instead of the intricate weaving and brading, I just covered the metal with the rope to create a thick(er) white circle. I then used a thin white yarn to create the hanging loop. Once that was done, I planned to use vellum with snowflakes for the background, but I changed my mind to go for napkin decoupage. As the napkin itself would be way too fragile to work with, I glued it onto a piece of cardboard first. I then cut out the circular shape that would cover the back of my circle to create a pendant. I like how the stars in the napkin line up to fill the space. 

Since the pendant now had a bit of a warm tendency due to the soft yellow/beige center, I added more warmth by adding a red bow to the top. To incorporate the "Thank you" message, I again used some improvisation, namely: a hand-cut piece of paper, a red felt-tip pen, and coloured pencils. To add a bit more red, I placed a wooden heart next to the sentiment. 

On the back side, I added a small inscription of date and place, leaving the majority of the panel empty for well-wishes and/or words of thanks.

I like how the pendant looks festive, but it doesn't lean too much towards Christmas even despite the stars on the napkin. That way, I figure it would be possible to have it on display all through the New year holidays - especially since those napkin stars could be interpreted as fireworks. 

challenges:

- krafty chicks: CAS

- 613 avenue create: ATG
- a place to start: ATG

- allsorts challengeblog: ATG

- C.R.A.F.T.: ATG

- card free zone: ATG but a card

- classicdesignchallenge: ATG DT 

- crafty catz: ATG

- creative inspirations: something old or something new (old: napkin, red bow, wooden heart, cardboard, coloured pencils)

- do-all kreatives: ATG

- lil patch of crafty friends: ATG handmade

- love to craft: ATG 

- moving along with the times: thank you
- my time to craft: use a sentiment

- scrapping4fun: ATG

- vesela hiska: ATG

- wortartwednesday: ATG