December/January W.I.P. and Thoughts on Friendship

Just before Christmas I spent a night in the Clinical Decisions Unit of our local hospital - nothing too serious but initially a bit of a mystery. 

And someone commented that the CDU is where they put people they don't know what to do with.

Which is exactly where, in my mind, I have consigned Finnegan the Fish for the time being, I'm afraid! I could, perhaps, make him into a Pisces birthday card for a start but I think he might benefit from some friends, when I find time - and that could result in a new repeating pattern.

It's not that I've been totally lacking in creativity since my last Work in Progress post. When I took down the Christmas decorations, I realised that I don't have a 'Winter' door decoration so I hastily used the Honeysuckle from my garden to make a little wreath and decorated it with Ivy (also from the garden), some artificial berries and fir cones, a burlap bow I happened to have found in a sale before Christmas and a robin that I've had for years. It's a bit 'rustic' (aka 'rough and ready') but I feel that's somehow appropriate for a Winter wreath to distinguish it from the more festive Christmas door decorations.

I've also been planning birthday cards for three of my family who have birthdays in the next few weeks, starting with one of my grandsons who will turn 15 at the end of January. Always hard to think of something appropriate for teenage boys and I'm wondering whether something with fifteen elephants might work. 

With that in mind, I've been using photos from Google Images as models for drawing as I don't know any real-life elephants, let alone any who are prepared to pose for a portrait.

I'm very fond of all elephants and made 'Heffalump' birthday cards for my family when I was in my teens.
But I particularly love the expression of the one in the bottom left corner !

In between times I've been busy using existing designs to create more gifts for Valentine's Day and St David's Day, for sale in my Zazzle stores.

Zazzle introduce new products most weeks and it's hard to keep up with them all. So it's time to do some catching up to fill the gaps -

Nesting Mugs from my Hearts and Roses Collection

Daisy Chain Hearts Pouf from my Daisy Chains Collection

Welsh Emblems iPhone 6 Plus Case from Posh & Painterly Cymru

Blue Faux Welsh Tapestry Hip Flask to Personalize from my Posh & Painterly Cymru store

During 2014, I noticed that by far the most frequently re-pinned 'pin' from all of my Pinterest boards is a quote about friendship. 

And that's made me think a lot about the concept of friendship for a while; how do we define friendship, especially since facebook widened the definition of 'friends'? What do we expect of a good friend? 

And so on . . .

So I've decided to try to fit in making some illustrated quotes about Friendship of my own. I've begun working on one that has been floating around at the back of my mind for a while. I hope to have it finished to post on the social media later in the week.

There are plenty of 'Friendship' quotes to be found on the internet. But it would be good to have some new, more personalised ones. So I'd also love to hear how you would finish the sentence:

"A good friend is someone who . . . "

(Answers in the Comments of this blog or on facebook/G+/Linkedin/twitter, if you prefer - thank you)