Monday, October 27, 2014

And a Partridge in a Pear Tree for Freshly Made Sketches



 I was at a Papercrafting Retreat this past weekend and had gobs of fun doing what I almost never get to do - experiment with products.  Just before I left for the weekend, I got a special delivery.  One of my stamp sets had been backordered, but it arrived as I was packing up the car.  The Partridge & Pears stamp set was not one that caught my eye at first, but after seeing other creations with it, I decided I needed it.  After putting it together at the retreat, I felt it would be the perfect "circle" on the Freshly Made Sketches challenge 159 sketch.

I think that pears were the driving force behind the colours I decided to use for this sketch. I confess that ripe pears fresh from the tree are one of my favourite treats each fall.  Few fruits are as juicy and as tasty as Bartlett Pears.  Look at the yellows, greens and golds.


Here's my take on the sketch:


  • Since I was planning on using my Old Olive Blendies for colouring the leaves, I decided to use Old Olive cardstock as my card base and Old Olive Designer Series Paper Stack Fancy Fan design as the background panel.
  • The Gold Foil Sheet panel is the perfect panel to highlight the main image.  You can stamp on it with StazOn Jet Black ink without fear of it smearing!
  • I stamped the main image in Memento Tuxedo ink on Whisper White and started using the Old Olive Blendabilities Markers to colour in the two tones of the leaves.  The Daffodil Delight assortment of Blendies was perfect for the pears and I added a little highlight of the Gold Stampin' Dazzle Marker on them as well as on the little "berries", whatever those might be???
  • The sentiments are also both from the same stamp set, Partridge & Pears.  The banner and the tree itself were hand snipped using Stampin' Up Paper Snips.  The tree was mounted with Stampin' Dimensionals. 
Then, there's the partridge!  What exactly is a "partridge" anyway?  And why is it in the pear tree?


The song, Twelve Days of Christmas, was thought to have been a children's game played on the Twelfth Night, where each person added a verse and the next singer had to remember all the past verses plus create a new one.  And the Red Legged Partridge from France where the song originated, would perch in trees, pear trees as often as not!

So I have a lot to share with you from the retreat over the next few days, but I also have all my craft gear to put away and a Christmas Stamper's Dozen tomorrow night to prepare for, so I'll leave you with the lyrics to the song:

On the First day of Christmas my true love sent to me
a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

On the Second day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

On the Third day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Three French Hens,
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

Subsequent verses follow the same pattern, each adding one new gift and repeating all the earlier gifts, so that each verse is one line longer than its predecessor:

4 Calling Birds
5 Gold Rings
6 Geese-a-Laying
7 Swans-a-Swimming
8 Maids-a-Milking
9 Ladies Dancing
10 Lords-a-Leaping
11 Pipers Piping
12 Drummers Drumming


or variations of the same.  Did you know that if this song was actually played out in real life, the recipient of the true love's gifts would have received 364 gifts, most of them running around on 2 or 4 legs!  Hope they had a big house or property!


Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today!


Product List

4 comments :

  1. I love all of that gold on this card! Thanks for joining us at Freshly Made Sketches this week!

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    1. Thanks, Amy. Me, too! I like it with the Old Olive especially.

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  2. Fantastic! Your coloring is lovely and I the gold is perfect! Glad you joined us this week at FMS!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, Jen! I always find colouring very soothing!

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