Jingle Bells & Ten Cent Stamps

Theme music.  Warning, it is that music you hear over and over this time of year, but it's Glenn Miller!  So it swings.

You know that tatty old holiday corsage, the one that looks like it's made of a bottle brush and pipe cleaners, trying to be a fir tree and peppermint sticks?

Retire it!

Here's a replacement that I came up with:  a 1974 Christmas stamp (10 cents) with a Currier & Ives  gliding over the snow, held in a rustic frame made from a cookie tin, with a hand dyed ribbon bow and antique bell.  I made the pin from steel wire.

That sort of bell is actually known as a "crotal bell," meant to be worn on harnesses of horses or reindeer to jingle and sound a warning to people on the roadway of approaching traffic. Way better than blatting horns and rude gestures, I'd say, although "crotal bells, crotal bells, crotal all the way," doesn't seem to work very well. But then, it might make it so much less popular you wouldn't have to tolerate it in every elevator and grocery store for two months until the season passes.

I made another one of these with the 1973 stamp, only 8 cents, Raphael's Madonna and Child from the National Gallery of Art.

On both, I used encaustic wax and resin to cover the stamp, and in the case of the Raphael, I added a little fine canyon dirt around the edges for the look of a fine old thing that could perhaps use a touch of restoration.  And around the edges of each I added some faux gold foil for a little bit of shiny bright.  Just right for a sweater, coat lapel, or vest.

And here's Abbie, who is getting better every day and wants to get out of the pen where she has to stay to restrict activity while she heals.

She is wishing our friend, Kumiko, a happy birthday, even though she has to be at work today.