Ornament Exchange 2022

I was asked again to participate in an ornament exchange through a group on Facebook.  I was assigned a partner who lives in Nevada this time and our ornaments had to be in the mail by November 17th which I was able to eek out.  This time I chose to share this ornament....

I made several of these last year and in fact, have them still hanging on my light fixture in the dining room because I thing they're not only useful as a holiday decoration, but they are a neutral decoration not necessarily tied to a holiday.  They are made from circles punched from a salvaged children's dictionary that are folded and glued together.  I had a box of wooden drapery rings that someone passed on to me and I removed the hooks from them and painted them white to use as a center.  I finished them off by adding a white wooden bead on some mossy green suede cording.  While I was punching and folding I prepared enough to finish off a few more and use up those wooden rings - we'll see where they end up.

The hostess asks us to take a picture of the ornament before we send it out so she can post the pictures on the Facebook page.  This above photo is the one that I sent her.  I had it hanging on this little $Tree tree since we don't have our Christmas tree up yet.  When I was putting the package together (the ornament and some little treats) I had to figure out a way to protect this from getting crushed in the box during transit so I found a holiday themed paper cup that it fit perfectly in and tied a piece of tissue paper over the top of it so it kind of looked like a holiday treat on its own.  A couple of days passed and I had to contact the hostess to let her know that I received two packages with the same contents from my exchange partner and wondered if she possibly meant to send one of them to someone else but inadvertently addressed both to me.  She reached out to my partner and was told that both were meant for me.  The hostess also sent me a picture of my ornament on my partner's tree..........

I asked her to let my partner know that the cup was for packing purposes only unless she liked it better that way.  The hostess said she would gently let her know because she knew from my photo that there was a bit of a disconnect.  Here are the lovely ornaments that I received. The trees are painted on both sides.  There were two stockings in one package and one stocking in the other each with a tree ornament.

I had enclosed the card below with a little note inside with the package I sent.  

These are some of the other ornaments that I've been working on. They were made from kits I found at the Dollar Spot in Target.  

I had these black paper tags from $Tree and saw some rock mandalas on Pinterest that gave me the idea to try it on paper as opposed to a rock.  And I used paint pens on these.  I did use a circle protractor to lightly draw those circles before I colored them in.  I do have the dotting tools, but I have temporarily misplaced them.  I've found some other patterns to give a try.  There were 6 tags in the package.

I've got a couple more ideas in the works - we'll see what gets done in December.

Jingle Belles - A Banner Holiday

Well, here we are again at the end of the Jingle Belle challenges for the year.  That is not to say that I am done with my Christmas cards, although I should be if I had kept to the challenge schedule.  I have a few more to do, but they'll wait until I've posted my card honoring the beautiful blog banner that hostess Lauren created (click here for details).  

  

I gathered up some possible supplies including a Holiday Floral stamp and die set from Reverse Confetti, a company which sadly went out of business last month.  Luckily I found some cards on Pinterest that helped me with the color pallet.  The Santa I chose is a new Unity stamp I hadn't used yet, and the sentiment die is a mystery to me as far as where it came from.  The background music paper is from a prize I won last year on the JB blog.

Sometime between Friday and yesterday morning I stamped, die cut, and colored all the pieces for two cards plus more of the foliage.  I wasn't sure how much I would be using for this design and also figured since I was taking the time to color, I might as well do a bit more to have on hand for those cards that I still need.  Between Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas movies keeping me company I just kept coloring away.  I was doing the coloring at the dining room table so HWNSNBP could get into the storage area adjacent to the craft room and pull out the Christmas decorations.  I thought it best to stay out of his way.  He usually manages to hit his head at least a couple of times going in and out and he's never, how shall I say.... unreactive when that happens. 

When he was done I went back up there to start putting things together and discovered that one of the sockets in the outlet that I use for my table lights wasn't working which was odd because it worked the day before.  When I told HWNSNBP, even though the other socket in the outlet was working, he went to the basement to check the breakers and they were all good.  So I switched things up in the power strip and got the light that I needed but it was a mystery that would have to be solved soon. It turned out it needed solving even sooner because when I went to turn on the tv that was in another outlet in the room it did not turn on.  I don't need the tv, but two outlets with problems was not good. Neither one of us relished the thought of having an electrician have to come in to figure this out because that would mean having to clear out the area next to these two outlets (or more).  As he stood there in the doorway shaking his head, he noticed the wall switch and asked if it was supposed to be up or down.  I told him I didn't know because I don't use it.  There's no overhead light in the room and I turn on my lights individually.  But he decided to try the switch and lo and behold, the tv came on and he insisted that I, who work in that room all the time must have tried to turn the lights on with the wall switch, not he, who had just been going into the storage area.  Did I mention that he usually hits his head a couple of times?  I'm going to put a piece of tape over the switch so this doesn't happen again.  And maybe I'll suggest that he wear a hard hat when he goes in the storage area again. 

I had a couple of other dies on my table that I had quickly cut out and put these two cards together rather simply.  I don't remember where I saw it, but I liked the way another card maker had posed those Dala horses together and wanted to do something similar.

Well, it's time to head over to the Jingle Belles blog to check out some of the other creations.  Lauren and Steph have outdone themselves with their examples which you can see by clicking here and here.  I'm so thankful for their weekly inspiration and all the work that they put into the upkeep of the Jingle Belle community!

Happy Thanksgiving

 

The card above was created with stencils from The Greetery to create that scene.   I used Prismacolor pencils to add details and shading.  The sentiment was die cut and popped up.  The same sentiment was used on the card below.  The pumpkin background was colored with Copics.  I have used this background 3 times this fall - an anniversary card, birthday card, and now a Thanksgiving card.  

This little turkey is ready for Thanksgiving. 

I'm wishing everyone a very happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate it and to those that don't, a very happy Thursday.  I'm thankful to all of you for stopping in to visit here.  

Jingle Belles - Funny Ho! Ho!

Everyone has their way of celebrating the holidays and one of them can be with a little humor.  This fortnight the Jingle Belles have tasked us with coming up with a humorous holiday card.  I've had this Reinbeer stamp set for a bit and hadn't used it yet.  It is a little cheeky.

And here's a lesson that I should have learned before because it's happened to me in the past - try your stamps out when you get them.  Sometimes they are not made correctly or have a flaw that won't be detected by just looking at the uninked stamp.  You'll see what I mean below.  Fortunately, this flaw was easy to cover up.

I like to think that I can help put people at ease by injecting a little humor into the situation.  Of course, I'm not talking about life or death situations, but those everyday sometimes sticky situations.  Those times when a little humorous distraction can lighten the situation.  Like last week when I was getting my hair cut.  I was almost done in the chair when my hairdresser's next customer came over to tell her she was there.  This little woman was 94 years old and walked with a cane, but was rather chipper and was chatting away.  My hairdresser went to help her sit down in the chair next to mine and the woman lost her balance and fell backwards and lightly hit her head on the floor.  Well, that was enough to cause everyone to come running.  She wanted to collect her wits and just sit on the floor for a bit, but the salon personnel were all around her trying to get her up.  They wanted to call her daughter and let the daughter know she had fallen.  The lady told them not to call, that her son-in-law was in the car waiting for her.  But they called anyway as they left her to sit on the floor for a bit with just me to talk to.  She said she wasn't really hurt and was more upset that they were calling for help.  I told her that I was impressed with how graceful she fell and rolled with it and she laughed.  I then told her that she should probably get checked out at the emergency room because she might have a mild concussion (relying on my prior experience with such).  I think that little bit of humor about her rolling diffused the situation a bit and she thought about and agreed to get checked out.    While she was waiting for her SIL she continued to chat away and  I learned that she had had polio when she was 5. She shared a little of her experience of being sent away to a sanatorium as a child and how they were forced to go into the cold ocean water and told not to cry or they wouldn't get dessert.  I told her that she earned her dessert that day and she laughed again.  I'm pretty sure that she'll be okay but you have to worry with those frail little women.

Time to head over to the Jingle Belles to get a few giggles and Ho! Ho! Ho!'s!  by clicking here.

Celebrating in November Part 1

I went through the calendar on the wacky holiday website and made note of some of the days that we could celebrate this month (and next month too) on a Google calendar template.  While there are a lot of events to choose from, some of them are a bit more obscure and wackier than others so I tried to stick to thinks that we could pretty easily do and to intersperse the food events and non-food events.

November 1 - Calzone Day - We got calzones for lunch from Trattorio Uno.  And that was plural (calzones) which was way too much for lunch.  One was enough to share and HWNSNBP had the second one over the next couple of days.  It was also Clean Your Brush Day and I did clean my hairbrush, but I won't show you pictures of that.  Short as my hair is, I do use a round brush when I blow dry my hair and it does need to be cleaned out from time to time.  I usually clean our combs at the same time.  And the filter on the hairdryer that collects dust.  Check that off the list also.

November 2 - Look for Circles Day - I signed onto the ornament exchange I did last year again and the ornament I'm choosing to send involves lots of circles.

November 3 - Smart Home Day - We are finding more useful functions of the Amazon Alexa device we have that was a Christmas present last year from our daughter and son-in-law.  It wasn't until they visited this summer that they were able to help us "technically challenged" seniors set it up.  But it is actually quite helpful even with crafting.  If there's a recipe or pattern that has measurements that are not US standard I can ask Alexa to do the conversion for me very quickly.  We set up a smart plug with her that we can control from an app on my phone when we're away.  And we've had a remote controlled thermostat in place at the condo for a few years now which is very convenient.  We just need to get smarter in ways to use our smart devices to make our home smarter.

November 4 - Common Sense Day - It was a running joke at work that you could make a fortune selling common sense at a flea market, but we all know that it's something inherent and not to be bought.  I can see why someone would want to celebrate common sense because it seems like there is a very sad decline in it.  

November 5 - Donut Day - HWNSNBP treated me to a jelly donut from Tim Horton's but not without some aggravation on his part.  He went to the drive-up window and asked for a frosted jelly donut.  They told him that they don't have frosted jelly donuts.  He told them that he had gotten them there before.  They told him again that they were sorry, but they didn't carry frosted jelly donuts, only sugared and glazed whereupon the lightbulb went off and he amended his order to a glazed jelly donut.

November 6 - aside from it being Daylight Savings Day and garnering an additional hour of sleep, it was also National Nacho Day.  So nachos were on the menu for lunch.

November 7 - Hug A Bear Day - I didn't hug a bear, but I do have a bear joke - Why are teddy bears never hungry?  Answer at the end of the post.

November 8 - in addition to being Election Day (we voted by mail earlier), it became known to us that November 8th is also National Christopher Day, so I was sure to reach out to our son and wish him happiness on his day.  I also told him to look it up on Google to confirm that it was real and not something I made up.

November 9 - Chicken Sandwich Day - After a little explorative journey to a store in Morristown called Just Jersey, HWNSNBP and I got chicken sandwiches for lunch.  One from Popeye's and the other from Panera and did our own little in-house taste testing.  They were both good.  The sauce and pickle on the Popeye's sandwich give it a distinct flavor we enjoyed.  And the Panera sandwich comes with parmesan crisps (of which you can ask for more to be added) that add a little extra crispiness and nice flavor. The picture makes one look larger than the other, but when I cut them in half, they matched up in size.

November 10 - Area Code Day - Just a little art journal addition.

November 11 - Veteran's Day celebrated by wearing red, white, and blue.  Also Origami Day and I tried this 6 piece fold which I didn't realize was going to be glued together as opposed to interfolded so it's not officially origami.  And, truthfully, it didn't turn out like the video as it doesn't have the twistability shown in the finished product and seems to have an extra flap.  I did use origami paper, but perhaps it needs something a little heavier to twist easier.  Here is the link to the diretions.

November 12 - Chicken Soup for the Soul Day - it seemed, at break of day, that it would be a good day for making chicken soup begin a little overcase and cool, so I added the ingredients to our shopping list (Alexa) and sent a copy to HWNSNBP to pick up on his morning coffee run.  But by the time the afternoon rolled around the sun had come out and the temps rose to almost 70º and we got a late visit from our DIL and GS1, however, I had already put all the ingredients in the pot on the stove so I went ahead and made the soup anyway to have during the week.  As it goes, the temps went back to normal and will be thereabouts for at least the beginning of the upcoming week.

And I'll end with today.....

November 13 - Kindness Day and also Tongue Twister Day.  My kindness will be letting HWNSNBP have the tv to watch his Giants football game whilst I disappear upstairs to do some cardmaking.  But I'll drop some tongue twisters here should you decide to celebrate Tongue Twister Day.  We used to have a game called Passout, purchased in our late teens/early twenties at a store in the mall called Spencer's Gifts.  It was effectively used as a drinking game.  It game with a stack of cards, each having a tongue twister on it and if you could recite the tongue twister you had to drink.  Well, needless to say, the more you messed up, the more you drank....... I think you get the picture.  But there were some good tongue twisters in there:

A tutor who tooted her flute, tried to tutor two tooters to toot.  Said the two to the tutor, is it easier to toot or to tutor two tooters to toot?

Of course there's this one:

She sells sea shells by the sea shore.

And this one:

Theophilus the thistle sifter while sifting a sifter full of thistles, thrust three thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb.

And if you were of my age and watched Wonderama on Sunday mornings with the host Sonny Fox there's always this one:

Sonny Fox wears funny sox.

Or:

Unique New York (said three times in a row)

Okay, be kind today (as I know you always are) and have fun!

(Teddy bears are never hungry because they're always stuffed.)

Tangles and Tangents

As I've done in the past, I participated in Inktober this year using the tangles list provided by Stephanie of 7F5R and the template for this year's Stellar Challenge provided by Pilar Pulido @Zentrarte and Sara Ponce @Manosaltangle.  The previous two years involved the Lunar and Solar templates and this one is supposed to be the constellation Zentangle.  However, I went ahead and connected all the stars instead of only having the connections form a "Z".  But that's that, and no one would know unless I spilled the tea.  

I didn't have 9 plain tiles to work with and luckily found the 4 tiles that I had watercolored in preparation for a previous project.  I thought they would be okay in the corners and I immediately, on the first day, second-guessed my judgment of using blue ink, but I went ahead with it anyway.  

Here are some close-ups.

There were a few  "celebrations" during the month of October - you know I like to celebrate the wacky holidays.  

October 10 - Angel Food Day and I made this two ingredient cake that I had been meaning to make all summer.  It's just an angel food box mix (the kind you only add water to, but you don't add water to this cake), and a 21 oz. can of lemon pie filling.  You mix that together and bake in a 13 x 9 pan for between 35-40 mins.  It turned out great but I didn't take any pictures.  We put a dollop of Cool Whip on it.  I've also seen this done with pineapple instead of lemon. 

October 11th was Sausage pizza day so we ordered that for lunch.  I like the sausage that's ground up so I relied on my in-house pizza afficionado to pick the pizza joint that made it that way.  This wasn't sliced sausage, but it was a little clumpy for  ground sausage.  It was good though.

October 18th was Chocolate Cupcake Day - we were at the condo to take care of something and made a quick stop at Anna Banana's Bakery where I got this chocolate nutella filled cupcake.  It was a real treat.

October 21st was National Pumpkin Cheesecake Day and HWNSNBP surprised me with a slice of pumpkin cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory that we split for dessert.

October 25th was International Artist Day - I worked on my tangles.

October 26th was Pumpkin Day and I thought these tangles were very pumpkin-like.

I've looked ahead at the holidays for the months of November and December and have picked out the ones that I'll be celebrating.  That will be my challenge(s) for November/December as we get closer to turning the page on 2022.

I checked back on my posts and realized that I didn't post my Zebra pen, marker, and pencil finds at the Dollar Tree earlier in October.  I like the Zebra line of gel pens and had found the black ones at Dollar Tree a couple of years ago which I used at the sign-in counter at school.  I got a lot of good feedback on those pens and always kept a few extra in my desk drawer because they had a tendency to disappear from the counter.  They came 3 in a package so it only cost me a couple of bucks to supply them on my own.  I've always kept my eye out for more of them and they had a special display of them with the school supplies this fall.  Not only did they have the gel pens in different colors, they also had fineline markers and mechanical colored pencils.  You know I had to try them all. Plus, there was a cool partial zebra graphic on the packaging which I fussy cut.

I used those zebras for this in one of my art jourals.

And I took some pineapple rub-ons (also from Dollar Tree) to make this pineapple mandala.

That's probably enough tangents for now.  There's another Hallmark Christmas movie coming on soon, or is it on Lifetime.  I'll have my pick for sure from now until Christmas.

Jingle Belles - Not a Creature Was Stirring

The Jingle Belles challenge for this fortnight is to include creatures.  I had a few creatures that I wanted to use, but these decorating ducks won out.  The ducks are fussy cut from a Penny Black stamp appropriately called Duck the Halls.  I gave them a tree from a Cottage Cutz die to decorate and planted the whole scene on a hillside die from The Greetery.  I think that they may need a few more decorations (or at least an electrical outlet) to get that tree decorated though.  

We had some creature encounters today.  On our way back from the Great Swamp Nursery where we picked up our amaryllis bulbs, we saw a party going on that just didn't want to break up, even as we passed through.  They were feasting on something and definitely did not want to be disturbed.

And I coaxed HWNSNBP to take the back road home instead of Rt. 78 which was heavy with trucks on the way there.  We passed this alpaca farm and he even caved-in to turning around so I could take pictures.  See that one that looks like it has a white face.  It's actually some kind of mask and that one was keeping a steady eye on us as I was taking the pictures.  The others were oblivious - or so it seemed. 

I wish I could share the recording from our front door camera from this weekend that had us wondering what kind of creature or creatures were in the front yard at 4 in the morning and what was going on.  Thankfully, with the windows closed, we slept through it. You know that it had to be pretty loud for it to cause a sound notification - there was only darkness on the camera.  Kind of apropo for Halloween.

Well, I'd best be off to check out the other creatures featured on the JB blog.  You can too by clicking here.  They should be a lot less scary.