Until 120

Happy New Year! Looking back, 2010 was a pretty productive year for me and I hope that this year will continue in much the same way. The last couple of weeks have been quiet ones yet it has given me the opportunity to catch up a little, tweak my online pages and refill my boxes of cards. A few orders here and there have now begun to trickle in and I anticipate more.
We all have goals for 2011. One of my main ones is to develop my Etsy shop further. At the moment it serves as a wonderful online gallery but thank goodness the sales there are not representative of my overall yearly sales! Maybe this year I will be able to change that a little. I'd love to widen my audience and send 'Handmade in Israel' artwork all over the world! Stay tuned.

The cards above were actually being sent a little further afield. One of my local customers was travelling to the UK over the Christmas period so, before she went away, put in her order for family birthday and anniversary cards for December and January. Some of these are staying in Israel and quite a few of them travelled with her to the UK. I created cards for a variety of ages here and hope that they were all well received.

I don't make many of these cards! In fact I think that only once previously have I been asked to make a card for a 100th birthday! Listening to a piece on the BBC World Service the other day I learned about a report from the Department for Work and Pensions in the UK that said one in six people in Britain will live to celebrate their 100th birthday. Improved diets, living conditions and medical technology are driving the dramatic demographic transformation, so it looks like I may be making more 100th birthday cards in the future!
"Auntie Rae" (who I am pretty confident is not an online blog reader so I feel comfortable, just for once, naming her here!) is a very talented artist and, I am told, in years gone by has painted some beautiful landscapes and intricate floral paintings. I do hope that she liked the special card that was requested for her. I decorated it with a small box of watercolour paints, a  few brushes and paintings and of course, the special age that she has reached, in big silver numbers! Many congratulations and, as the Hebrew expression goes, "ad meah viesrim", (until 120).