'Thank you'

 Happy New Year from the me and the Belles, Unstampabelles that is!! I hope it will be a healthy and peaceful one for you all. Where did Christmas go and for that matter  where did 2014 go. Didn't it whizz by? I hope you all got the pressies that were on your Wish List . With this is mind we are thinking about Thank You's for all those lovely pressies that you did receive.

 My trip to Vienna was my best present from my OH. We had a wonderful time but sadly no snow. We really wanted it to snow as we never get snow here in Cyprus. Well not 'proper' snow as it's really only sleet. So we were longing for the lovely, crisp white stuff. I know many of you will that's crazy as you're probably knee deep in the stuff at the moment!!!

This months challenge at Unstampabelles is to make a Thank You card with a twist. The twist is to show a view from your window and blog about it. My views here are two fold as one shows the swimming pool and a view of the Medditeranean and the other is our orchard which is full of fruit trees. I chose to show you one of our olive trees from the orchard. The olive branch is also depicted on the national flag of Cyprus to indicate peace. So another reason to choose it.

 The olives here are harvested in October. They say to leave them until after the first rain but we could wait forever sometimes if we have a dry Autumn.

The card is a kit from CUP designed by Valerie Dawes but I have tweaked it a little. It comes with a choice of three window designs. I chose the lattice one which took a bit of cutting out with my craft knife. A slow job but I got there in the end. The original had one flowerpot on the window sill but I wanted to show the window open so I made two matching pots with white card and added the provided decoupage flowers and placed them at each side. The  'Thank You' sentiment is from a CD but sorry can't remember which one.

These are some of the olives that we harvested. This year's harvest was fantastic and we got 40 litres of olive oil from them. Not too bad for five trees and three of these trees are very young.

 

After harvesting we take them to a local olive press and from there the oil is put into a large container. When it's brought home it's decanted slowly through a filter and then the oil is left to settle. This is a bottle from last year's yield as the new oil is still being kept in the dark until it's ready.

 

 

 

So that's my take on a Thank You card with a twist for Unstampabelles. Susan will be providing a  prize for the winner to the value of $25 (Australian dollars). It's a gift voucher for Stampin' Up products and note that it will include the postage to where-ever the winner lives as well. So off you pop to Unstampabelles and see the views and creations my teamies have to offer. We all live in different parts of the World so there are a lovely array of views for you.  

 

Have fun creating your Thank You card. I look forward to visiting you and look forward to seeing where in the world you live.