WWDPXmas

I am in Cheltenham this week for the Annual Planning Conference of the Women’s World Day Of Prayer [having been on the National Committee since September] I confess that I am a little apprehensive – not altogether sure quite what is expected of me.

However I have been asked to take one Christmas card with me, addressed to ‘my friend on the Committee’. Apparently these are all put in a basket and then we each draw one out [presumably not the one we just put in!] This is, quite sensibly, a way of ensuring we all get a card, but we only have to give one each, rather than two dozen. It is a large committee. But I got the distinct impression that this is a Significant Event [mainly because at least 6 people made a point of telling me about the custom!] So clearly we are not meant to hand out a cheap Poundshop greeting! What to do?

I began by turning the WWDP logo into a cross stitch design

This logo represents women kneeling in prayer all round the globe – N,S, E, W, with the cross at the centre.

I mounted my stitching onto a tag made from Christmas paper, and put a hole and eyelet at the top. [I frayed the edge of the rectangle of Aida, and stuck it down using double sided tape]

Then I made four more pieces of stitching, with the themes Love, Joy, Peace and Hope and mounted them on tags too. I wrote appropriate Bible verses on the reverse.

Then I took a piece of card, which had a different Christmas print on each side. It measured 30cm x 15cm. I folded up the bottom 4cm, then did ‘concertina' folds, to get a card 7½ x 11cm, which had four pockets. I strengthened the pockets using very narrow strips of double sided tape down the edges and the folds.

I stuck the Logo tag on the front, and tucked the other tags inside.

I wrote a greeting on two pieces of paper to put on the back

And finally attached ribbons with brads so that the card can be tied neatly to slip in the envelope

I hope ‘my friend’ will like her card, and have a happy Christmas

[yes, I have checked, we do put our own name on it. If we signed it ‘from your friend on Committee’ it feels rather like a 10 year old sending an anonymous Valentine!]