FOTD – December 3 – Christmas Cactus
I didn’t think they’d make it. For nearly a year, these two re-potted cactuses looked nearly dead. And then, one day, they came alive just in time for the holidays. These and my Anthurium are my only blooming flowers right now, probably until spring when I hope the orchids will bloom. The colors are seasonally perfect.

Categories: Anecdote, Cee's Photo Challenge, Christmas cactus, Flower of the day, Flowers, FOTD, Gallery, Photography
These are lovely. You could use them for Christmas cards.
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I could. We’ve gotten very lazy about cards, so I just send Jacquie Lawson’s cards most of the time. I used to make my own, but we don’t mail them anymore. Between the incredibly slow postal delivery and the price of paper cards, it got to be a bit much. But maybe I’ll do something electronic this year. I’d better get to it pretty soon. Time is galloping along!
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I don’t send physical Christmas cards either. The mail from South Africa is really snail mail.
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One of the many things that got ruined under you-know-who was the mail. He intentionally hired someone to reduce its service so no, it take a week for a first class letter that used to take one day.
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International mail takes three month to get here. Our system is just a mess of administrative incompetence.
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Love your artistic flair today 😀
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Sometimes, when I’m taking pictures of the same flowers — again — I figure I should do something different just to be different. I also am very fond of that “painted” graphic look — when it works. It’s also good at covering white patches from too much sun on the petals and outlining so you can see the differentiation between parts of the flower.
Photoshop has always offered a lot of choices — and the Topaz filters offer even more choices. I can get a bit carried away, so I have to be careful — or I end up having to redo the photographs because they get really distorted. At least I try to do something different.
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These are beautiful, Marilyn.
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The colors came out exactly like the real colors. That’s the hard part with red flowers. When the sun hits them, the translucent parts of the flowers look white in photographs. I love the sunshine, but the gleam on the petals can ruin a picture. This let me hold the colors — and sometimes, I like doing something different because it IS different.
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I remember you writing about the difficulty of red photographing well. These turned out great!
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I love Christmas cactus!
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They LOOK like Christmas 😀
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They do, don’t they?
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