Tilda With The Most Darling Christmas Piglet at Friday Sketchers77

Happy Friday, everyone!!! I hope that you have had a magnificent week and are looking forward to a fun weekend!! I am so happy that you have decided to visit me today and I always look forward to your visits!!

Today is Friday Sketchers 77 and we are hosted by the magnificently talented Jacqueline of The Netherlands who has definitely given us a holiday sketch this week!! I hope that you will drop over and see the wonderful sample cards of the other DT members and will play along with us this week for a very nice prize! Remember to link your card using MrLinky and then be sure to link back to Friday sketchers in order to be eligible for the week's prize

For my card, I used Bazzill CS for the base, all matting is Bazzill and glittered red paper, and all DP is from last year's BoBunny Tis The Season Collection. I also used Magnolia's Tilda with Piglet from the new Christmas collection which can be pre-ordered at Magnolia-licious right now so you may want to go fast because this collection should be coming in just any day!!

As soon as I saw this image, I thought Tilda was just the cutest thing holding that darling pig but I had no idea why a PIG for Christmas???? We all know that Magnolias are made in Sweden so we have to look a little bit deeper to find the significance of the pig. As it turns out, pork makes up a strikingly large proportion of Christmas fare in Sweden and all of Scandinavia, and visitors sometimes wonder why the Swedes have to celebrate the Christmas season by eating pig meat. The historical reason is that, for a long time, salt pork was the meat ration for the Swedes all the year round. Pigs were slaughtered in the autumn, when they were fattest, the pork was preserved in brine, and would then have to last until the following autumn. One or two "Christmas pigs" were held over from the autumn butchering, however, and reprieved until Lucia. Christmas was the only time of the year when people could eat fresh meat, which in those days was the height of enjoyment. No such considerations apply nowadays, but the tradition of the marzipan pig given for a prize still remains. Families treat children to a special rice porridge and at Christmas an almond is hidden in the mix. The child who discovers it wins the marzipan pig as a surprise--a gift reminiscent of olden times when a peasant family's wealth was tied up in its precious pig. What a wonderful tradition!!!! As a matter of fact one of the national symbols of Norway is the pig!!!!

Now back to my card....all major panels were machine stitched, the snowflakes were cut with the Pink Chirper using Joys of the Season, and Tilda and Piglets were colored with Copics. On the front I also used PTI Pure Poppy dotted ribbon to match the inside of the card, several red rhinestones, and, from the bows, I dangled a couple of cute little pig charms which I bought several months ago with no idea that I would ever use them!!!


The inside of the card is more of the same with the addition of the cutest little Papilio Piglet with a red dotted bow around her neck. Notice that I also added a couple of matching tiny gold bells to the bow above the jotting spot

For those of you who have requested it, these are the Copics I used for this card as well as a tiny touch of Gold Spica for the bells.

My sincere thanks to you for coming by and I hope you will return again and again. May your weekend be a most delightful one and until we meet again, great big Maggie hugs for you!!!!