Follow-Up Friday: Christmas Card Day

Due to a number of circumstances, the last time that I was able to post an entry here on Blogger was December 8th 2016 and I'm glad to be back! In any event, last Friday, December the 9th, was a holiday known as Christmas Card Day and I'm sorry to be telling you about it one week after the occurrence! But since Christmas is ten days from now, it is certainly not too late to do something about Christmas cards!

But getting back to last Friday's holiday: according to Holiday Insights (HI), "Christmas Card Day, honors Sir Henry Cole (1818 - 1874) of England. Cole created the first commercial Christmas Card in 1843." For a good number of years, I have made my cards for the Christmas holiday.

A few examples of my past endeavors can be seen in the photos atop this blog entry. The first image features one of my card varieties. The picture may look familiar to you, dear reader, as it is included in a few enties here on Blogger. Additionally, it is a card that I discussed in a radio interview for WBAI, which is posted within the interviews page on my web-site, patriciayoungquist.com (designed by Chris Deatherage).

The second and third images feature Christmas cards that I created based on images that I took of flora growing in my urban garden that is on a rooftop in NYC. The subject of the second image is of my contorted hazelnut and the subject of the third image features a variety of Japanese grass, which is an ornamental grass known as Japanese Forest Grass All Gold (AKA Hakanechola Macra ).

The "back-stories" of how their pictures were rendered into a Christmas card, can be found by clicking here and here respectively.

In the following image, you can see that members of the fauna community (that visited my garden) were featured on my Christmas card for the year (2013), which I blogged about at that time.

And in the year that followed (2014) I also featured pictures of birds (who visited my garden) on my Christmas card, however it seems that I do not have an image of that card. Be that as it may, in recent times, the way that I have been making use of my fauna-themed photographs, is to allow Cam to use them in both the iBook and ePub version of her book, Words In Our Beak, Volume One.

The goal of Cam's book, is to open readers to a simple understanding of the winged world and their environment. Set in a rooftop urban garden (mine) in New York City, the story is told in the voice of Cam, who visits it. Words In Our Beak Volume One, is directed to children and adults who are curious about birds, and want to learn about them from a unique perspective. The book includes hundreds of images of flora and fauna, links to movies, as well as to informative narratives that have been created by the author. Her book make a wonderful gift for the upcoming holidays of Christmas, Chanukah, and Kwanzaa.

Moreover, I've created a line of fauna-flora-insect-themed postcards based on images from her book, and these also make an excellent gift for whatever holiday you celebrate! Currently the fauna-themed selections are being sold in the gift shop at The Raptor Trust, a bird rehab facility in New Jersey.

Additionally, the shop, More & More Antiques, which is located on Manhattan's UWS is selling each of these postcard types! If you want to see what they like, please refer to my post re them that can be found here on Blogger.

ADDENDUM FALL 2018: 

The non-hardcover version (or versions) of Volume One within the Words In Our Beak book series that are mentioned in this entry may only remain available for a limited time, but hardcover versions of Volume One, Two and Three can now be found wherever books are sold. Please click here to go to my blog post that provides details as to where you can get these books...

WORDS IN OUR BEAK BOOK SERIES

...whose stories are told from the point of view of Cam, a female cardinal, whose photo is on the cover of each book. Words In Our Beak’s goal is to open readers to a simple understanding of the winged world and their environment. Set in my rooftop garden in NYC,  Words In Our Beak is directed to children and adults who are curious about birds, and want to learn about them from a unique perspective. The books include hundreds of images of flora and fauna, links to movies, as well as to informative narratives that have been created by the author.

Please click here to go to my blog post that provides details as to where you can get these books.

Additionally, I have rendered some images from these books into other formats and they are available via Fine Art America (FAA). Some of my other photographs (Black & White Collection, Kaleidoscopic Images and the famous Mandarin duck who visited NYC) can also be found on my FAA pages.