Keep Calm and Sham Rock! St Patrick’s Day – Repost

First Night Design

Keep Calm and Sham Rock! by FirstNightDesign

I’m finally building up my collection of St Patrick’s Day designs.  First up is this humorous take on the ‘Keep Calm’ Ministry of Information posters from WWI, which is also available with a white background.

Keep Calm and Sham Rock! Greeting Cards by FirstNightDesign

Below are a couple of my earlier designs.

Faces of Saint Patrick Greeting Cards by FirstNightDesign

Harp of Erin Greeting Card by FirstNightDesign

Shamrock Fields Post Cards by FirstNightDesign

Take care and keep laughing!

Related articles

• St. Patrick’s Day Crafts: Easy Hand Towels {Dollar Store Style!} (alittleclaireification.com)
• Capital gears up for biggest ever St Patrick’s celebration (independent.ie)

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Vintage Aladdin Christmas Montage Oval Sticker | Zazzle

Make your unique style stick by creating custom stickers for every occasion! From special mailings and scrapbooking to kids’ activities and DIY projects, you’ll find these stickers are great for so many uses. Add your own designs, patterns, text, and pictures!

• 4 stickers per sheet
• Dimensions: 4.5”l x 2.7″w per sticker
• Printed on white acid-free paper
• Vibrant full-color, full-bleed printing
• Scratch-resistant front, easy peel-and-stick back
• Available in a matte or glossy finish
• Use the “Customize it!” button to choose between 7 different shapes

Source: Vintage Aladdin Christmas Montage Oval Sticker | Zazzle

Take care and keep laughing!

Boxing Day Bonanza | A R T L▼R K

To celebrate festive traditions, here is an excerpt from The Book of Christmas descriptive of the Customs, Ceremonies, Traditions, Superstitions, Fun, Feeling, and Festivities of the Christmas Season (1836) by Victorian poet and critic Thomas Kibble Hervey (1799 – 1859).

“Boxing-day is still a great day in London. Upon this anniversary, every street resounds with the clang of hall-door knockers. Rap follows rap, in rapid succession, the harsh and discordant tones of iron mingling with those of rich and sonorous brass, and giving a degenerate imitation of the brazen clangor of the trumpet, which formed the summons to the gate in days of old, and which, together with the martial music of the drum, appears to have been adopted, at a later period, by the Christmas-boxers, on St. Stephen’s Day. Pepys, in his Diary (1668), records his having been…

Source: Boxing Day Bonanza | A R T L▼R K

First Night Design | A Cherub is as a Cherub Does! #Christmas

A Cherub, Detail of the Sistine Madonna – Raphael Greeting Cards

What could be more restorative when I’ve been feeling rather peevish this week than to learn that I’ve sold 50 greeting cards of this detail of Raphael’s Sistine Madonna! Well, it sure bucked my spirits up considerably.

And I’ve just created my first Christmas stocking with the same image.

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Twitter and Bisted! It’s that time of year…

A re-mix of an earlier post. The ‘sting’ is either on the inside of the greeting card or the back of the t-shirt.

Dark Valentine Collection: Carpe Diem… Greeting Cards

Dark Valentine Collection: I’ll Always Find You… Greeting Card

Dark Valentine Collection: Say You Love Me… Shirts

Dark Valentine Collection: Love Me Tender… Card

Dark Valentine Collection: Do I Miss Those Moments Greeting Card

Dark Valentine Collection: Roses are Red… Tshirts

Click here for FND’s full Valentine Collection.

Take care and keep laughing!

Mrs Beeton’s Christmas Feast

First Night Design

Mrs Beeton’s Christmas Feast

Regular visitors will know that it doesn’t take long before I have to go back to the vintage treasure chest and explore.  Mrs Beeton’s Christmas Feast is a montage comprising four pages from Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, published in 1907, pages which I have altered to give a deeper coating of age. These images are from The Old Design Shop, while the ‘compliments of the season’ clip art is from The Graphics Fairy.

Take care and keep laughing!

Related articles

• Before Mrs. Beeton (wordwenches.typepad.com)
• Mrs Beeton (arthurmedforth.wordpress.com)

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Wishing You a Very Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas Post Cards

May all your dreams come true in 2014.

Take care and keep laughing!

Christmas Goodies and Baddies on a Budget

All I Want for Christmas © First Night Design
The name around the Sheriff of Nottingham’s neck,
Iain Duncan Syndrome, is a satirical reference to Iain
Duncan Smith, minister for the DWP, which listeners to BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz , the best satirical series bar none, will recognise.

Christmas may be known traditionally as a time of joy and excess but there are now too many people on the planet who don’t have enough to eat, let alone give presents to those they love. War, civil or otherwise, is devastating the lives of millions. Dictators continue to wield power. Governments in supposedly developed and democratic countries are demolishing the infrastructures our forbears fought and died for. In my country alone, the Tory/LibDem coalition that holds power, and let’s not forget we did not vote them in, continues to pursue a path that has them demonising and persecuting the most vulnerable. And laughing when they hear stories from Labour MPs about their constituents that would break the heart of any decent person.

I never imagined when I began this blog that I would ever post about politics. I save the subject for tweets but I have never felt such anger, frustration and despair in my life.  I am ashamed to belong to the same race as these public schoolboy millionaires who are hell-bent on lining their own pockets at the expense (pun intended) of the rest of the population, particularly the poor (did you know it’s their own fault?), the disabled (did you know that life-long conditions are curable in as little as a year?), and the unemployed (did you know they’re supposed to find jobs where none exist?).

One of the biggest problems is that a majority read the right-wing newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail which toe the party-line and print as fact the mightily skewed statistics given out to them, not to mention the outright lies being bandied about by such as David Cameron, Iain Duncan Smith and Esther McVey. Or they don’t ‘bother’ with politics.

If we don’t wake up to the real world and what is being done in our name, our country will be destroyed for generations to come, if not for good.

I could say more but there are others who are saying these things far better than I ever could and with the facts to back it up.

Vox Political
Pride’s Purge
Jayne Linney
Benefit Tales
Diary of a Benefit Scrounger
A Girl Called Jack
SPeye
Michael Meacher MP (Labour)
The Independent
The Guardian
New Statesman
Daily Mirror

I leave you with these questions:

• Is it right that in the sixth-richest country in the world, there will be 80,000 children homeless this Christmas?
• Is it right that people are committing suicide rather than be made homeless by cruel benefit cuts?
• Is it right that bankers, who caused the crisis in the first place, should go on lining their pockets with massive pay rises and bonuses while the ‘hoi-polloi’ suffer?
• Is it right that politicians should grant themselves a pay rise over the rate of inflation when most people’s wages have remained stagnant and the cost of living has increased I don’t know how-many-fold?
• ‘Why if you can’t get a job and are 5 minutes late for a job interview or work programme do you get ‘sanctioned’ and have all your benefit (for which you’ve contributed all though your working life via national insurance contributions) taken away for 4 weeks and left with no money at all, whereas if you cheat the State through elaborately artificial tax avoidance on an industrial scale (notoriously like Barclays Capital or indeed any big bank) you’re not bankrupted, not disqualified from continuing in the finance sector you’ve disgraced, and not sent to prison?’ [from Michael Meacher MP’s latest blog post.]

Take care and keep laughing!

Related articles

• Cowardly coalition won’t face the fact of food banks |Nick Cohen (theguardian.com)
• Social deprivation? It’s not parents, it’s poverty | Bob Holman (theguardian.com)
• Cameron drugs ‘banter’ angers MP (themexicanpost.wordpress.com)
• Schoolgirls’ Plea To IDS After Foodbank Debate (samedifference1.com)
• Britain’s Ministers Laughing in the Faces of the Poor! (inquiringminds.cc)
• Watch Iain Duncan Smith SNEAK OUT of food banks debate as Tories LAUGH at stories of starving families (mirror.co.uk)

Happy Holidays… from Me to You!

Mrs Beeton’s Christmas Feast

Mrs Beeton’s Christmas Feast

Regular visitors will know that it doesn’t take long before I have to go back to the vintage treasure chest and explore.  Mrs Beeton’s Christmas Feast is a montage comprising four pages from Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, published in 1907, pages which I have altered to give a deeper coating of age. These images are from The Old Design Shop, while the ‘compliments of the season’ clip art is from The Graphics Fairy.

Take care and keep laughing!

Related articles

• Before Mrs. Beeton (wordwenches.typepad.com)
• Mrs Beeton (arthurmedforth.wordpress.com)

Father’s Day Suggestions

I Am Only Listening… Spiral Note Book by FirstNightDesign

Mellow Oak: Cheers to You on Father’s Day Magnets by FirstNightDesign

His Master’s Voice Father’s Day Dry-Erase Board by FirstNightDesign

His Master’s Voice Father’s Day Wall Clock by FirstNightDesign

  Love You Papa Father’s Day Mug by FirstNightDesign Mellow Oak: Cheers to You on Father’s Day Postcard by FirstNightDesign No Matter How Tall, Dad…Father’s Day Postcard by FirstNightDesign

No Matter How Tall, Dad…Father’s Day Necktie by FirstNightDesign

Like Father, Like Son Father’s Day Print No 2 by FirstNightDesign

I Am Only Listening… Kindle 3G Case by FirstNightDesign

Take care and keep laughing!

Easter Silhouette: Mary Had a Little Lamb

I was so charmed by this vintage silhouette from The Graphics Fairy that I had no desire to tinker  and we all know how I like a bit of tinkering!

Mary Had a Little Lamb Easter Napkins by FirstNightDesign

Mary Had a Little Lamb Easter Postage Stamps by FirstNightDesign

Mary Had a Little Lamb Easter Greeting Cards by FirstNightDesign

Mary Had a Little Lamb Easter Cookie Jars by FirstNightDesign

Mary Had a Little Lamb Easter Coffee Mugs by FirstNightDesign

Take care and keep laughing!

Pink Bustier Mother’s Day — New!

Pink Bustier Mother’s Day by FirstNightDesign

The bustier or corset was once a vital part of a lady’s wardrobe, not, as today, a fashion statement that anyone can choose to embrace, whether Madonna, Rihanna or Eddie Izzard. Worn as an under- or outer-garment,  its purpose has always been to enhance female sexuality by narrowing the waist and pushing up the bosom to effect an enticing décolletage.

Woman’s corset, France, c. 1730-1740. Silk plain weave with supplementary weft-float patterning. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. [photo credit: Wikimedia]

But imagine the pain of a whale-boned corset, for such they were until relatively recently when mesh panels became an option. Prior to that, iron had been used; even when whalebone replaced iron, wood was sometimes used.  Imagine, also, the laces at the back being tightened beyond the reach of breath!  Do you remember wincing at the scene in Gone with the Wind where Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) is having the laces of her corset pulled to a circumference of 18 1/2 inches — thought to be the ideal for female beauty — by Mammy (Hattie McDaniel)?

In the 19th century, corsets were sometimes advertised as postural health aids, even though such physical strictures “could lead to fainting and headaches, or even to internal organ damage”. †

Although corsets have been around, possibly since 2000 BC, their popularity was especially marked in European society during the 16th century and later in the Victorian era. The bustier graphic from Digital Kiss probably dates from a Victorian fashion plate illustration.

Take care and keep laughing!

Related articles

• 18 Inches of Fashion (kennesaw.edu) †
• History of Corsets (wikipedia.com)
• Building a Corset – Part One (tulleandtweed.com)

Easter Eggshell Carriage Drawn by Peacocks

Easter Eggshell Carriage Drawn by Peacocks by FirstNightDesign

New greeting card for Easter created with a vintage Easter card from The Graphics Fairy and myriad  textures added to create the look of a Victorian oil painting that needs a little cleaning!

Take care and keep laughing!

Mothering Sunday in the UK—10 March 2013

Beautiful Flowers for Mother’s Day by FirstNightDesign
NEW!

Altered flower clip art from The Graphics Fairy.

Mother’s Day in the UK is almost here — Sunday 10 March.  Click here for other Mother’s Day products.

Take care and keep laughing!