Oh Yes! Happy New Year!

Since I'm into process and sharing process and January 1 has rolled by, it's okay to share a story about this year's holiday card-making.

For more than 16 Christmases my husband and I have made our holiday cards. Our friends and family tell us that they anticipate it's arrival and that it's collected by some.

It’s a collaborative project for us. Sometimes we work in a series. The year big Louie, a handsome 97 pound mixed breed rescue dog, came into our lives we started a family portrait series. The next year we continued the family portrait series including Louie's twin, Archie, a 14 pound tweener dachshund. (Danny Devito and Arnold Schwarzennegger’s canine counterparts.)

This year as every year, we began the process on the eve of Thanksgiving, because the cook doesn’t have enough to do already, and that’s when panic is beginning to set in as the mailing date approaches. We started by taking pictures on a huge blue tarp on the back lawn. Our yard still had remnants of fall color and the temperature was 50-ish, snow was not in the forecast. Dressed in full winter regalia, down jackets, boots, hats and gloves for the shot, we each took our turn on the tarp demonstrating snow angels as the other one climbed the ladder with the camera. Archie and Louie had already been captured mid-snow angel a month before and archived. In between Thanksgiving preparations the work began on our respective computers to manipulate this snow angel imagery for the Holiday card. 36 hours later it still wasn’t gelling, it wasn't working at all. Set the pictures aside. Dump the snow angel idea altogether.

At this stage, and we usually have this stage, I turn to my stack of origami books for inspiration. As I opened the first book, it dawned on me that I could search online for any origami fold I could think of. I had an inkling of an alternative solution for the card, using an origami component and a card stock base like a series of cards we had produced years earlier. I wanted a fish fold and I found a great little video of a fish fold. Watched the video a few times with paper in hand and figured it could work. Dennis agreed and we started designing the fish paper and the card base.