Snow and Stamps in March

It is the 8th of March, but this morning, we received a light covering of snow. A little unusual, but refreshing, for March. It has now turned to rain, but I managed to snap a few photos of the snow, such as our Japanese Maple, with its dripping canopy of reddish branches and bed of beige croci below (a bit hard to see against the snow). Behind it is our front porch, with its Hardy Island granite. I've erased the neighbour's house to the right, with a few brush strokes. What a friendly neighbour am I. :-)

Today the new "garden" booklet of 8 self-adhesive 51-cent stamps arrived in Canada Post outlets. I bought as many booklets as I had cash (a whopping $30!) in my wallet. I should have written "bring cash" beside the note in my calendar that the stamps were to arrive today! I will return with more cash, before they are all sold out. These are wonderful stamps, photographed by Andrew Leyerie and illustrated by Jeffrey Domm, of "shade garden", "flower garden", "water garden" and "rock garden".

On the back of the stamp booklet is a reminder that you can create stamps of your favourite photo of your own garden or favourite people, at http://www.picturepostage.ca/. A Keepsake booklet of 20 stamps and a larger photo is $24.95 + tax, less for multiple sheets ($16.00 each for 100 or more). A booklet of 40 stamps is $39.95 ($26.00 each for 100 or more, which is 65 cents per stamp). Cute idea, it would be nice for weddings or birth announcements.

Another cute idea is to create your own Custom Confetti - Made from your own photos. Pretty cool, you upload up to 30 of your favourite images, and they send you a bag of custom confetti, which includes around 3200 pieces of confetti, for $19.95 US dollars. That's 800 double-sided pieces of your photos, plus up to 3 accent colors. One bag will generously cover an 8 ft round table. This would make a great keepsake for birthdays or anniversaries. They can also be sprinkled into gift boxes or envelopes.