New and Blue to End the Year

I hope everyone survived Christmas with their sanity more or less intact and that we are all ready for the New Year that is rocketing towards us... Christmas in our house was pleasantly mad and full of sun and laughter and shameless cheating at Jenga and Monopoly, bowls of lychees and cherries and Swedish pear cider, and of course the all important Christmas Haul of pressies... now people say that Christmas is all about family and love and sharing and all that, and I agree with this, but let's be honest, it is all topped off by a good old fashioned pile of goodness under that tree! It is wonderful when you open a present that is so perfectly picked and there is a special joy in seeing someone's eyes light up when they see what you have found for them...and we all seem to get that one random gift that makes us scratch our heads, but that is all the fun of it isn't it...

Now this year the haul was magnificent.... fragrance reeds, tea and a tangine, great books and smelly things, beautiful wedgewood plates to match my cake stand, Donna Hay mugs and cake plates in her nostalgia pattern, and to top it all off a perfectly formed tea pot from my great friend  Tracey Grigc Potter. Yes I am spoilt, but I am soooo worth it, and to pay homage to the level of wonderfullness of some of these gifts I thought I would make them the centre of attention today and embarked on a little creative therapy to help regain some equilibrium... haven't painted for over a week and it was a touch dodgy in places, but then it came flowing back and I found myself sitting happily humming and getting messy... perfect way to end the year really...

Wouldn't these little beauties inspire you too... I am sure it will take many tries to get them just right,and you will all be sick of drawings and paintings of them before long, but they are just perfect and I am seriously in love... of course in a nicely serendipitous moment the challenge over at Inspiration Avenue is something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, so I am cherry picking just the new and blue part and saying these little paintings meet the prompt, new mugs, with blue on them is close enough I think.... I am off to make a cuppa now so I can spend some time checking out what others have been submitting, and also heading over to the last Paint Party Friday for the year.... can't wait to hear and see what everyone has been inspired by at this time of year and need a huge hit of looking at and catching up on all the inspiring blogs to end the year.... Happy New Year to everyone!!!!!!