Christmas Eve Eve and More

This is the first time I think we've ever had one of our amaryllis bulbs blooming for Christmas.  Usually, if we were lucky, we would get a flower about a week to two weeks after.  So, HWNSNBP must have calculated this correctly this time.  I only hope I wrote down the date he planted them on my calendar for reference next year.  This was a new bulb and we picked it because of the stripes.

I loved how the sun came through the window to illuminate part of the tree on Christmas morning.

A fuller picture of the tree.

This is my lemon tree temporarily located in this part of the room.  I hung my garland from Nanette in the Netherlands and the new ornaments that I had made this year including all those gnomes.  GS2 helped for about a quick minute.  I have three other trees I'll post pictures of soon. 

These were the best presents under the tree this year.  We were able to get together on Christmas Eve Eve.  The weather held out and even though there were snow flurries, it wasn't bad enough to deter the kids getting here with their families.  Rachel and her family stayed overnight and left early Saturday morning.  These little guys were great.  They played well together and we even got them to sit at the table and eat with us. They only had one dust-up but no harm was done.

I don't remember what exactly was happening here but it just cracked me up with the look on HWNSNBP's face and the way the boys are standing.  I think he was trying to put batteries in a new toy and they were a little anxious.  Though it may look like it, there was no yelling involved.

I had a few ornaments that I had saved for the little ones to put on the tree and forgot to do that when they were both here.  So I gave GS2 the chore the next morning and he obliged willingly hanging all but one of the 6 on the same branch.  And with such concentration.  

More pictures to come.

Merry Christmas 2022

Christmas blessings to all - far and near!

Santa's Helper in the Woodshop

HWNSNBP, aka "my elf" as I used to refer to him when I was working, got a request from our` daughter for a project from his workshop - a coffee table. She gave him the basics - size, style, color, etc.  He spent many hours on this beauty.  Picture is taken at our house in front of our tree but it was delivered as a surprise mid last week.  We coordinated with our SIL so he could turn off their doorbell camera and meet us at the house during his lunch break to help get it into the house.  Needless to say, she was definitely surprised and extremely pleased with the results.

He made night stands couple of years ago for her that are similar but each time he claims to learn a new skill.  In this case it was the way that he installed the drawer.

I asked him to help me out with a little project too.  It involved cutting these wooden triangles from some scrap wood he had that I subsequently painted and turned into......

These gnome ornaments. They're hanging off of the metal mesh pencil cup that's atop the checked cup just so you know there's no body to them.  I only wanted a couple of triangles and he gave me 14 so I have a whole family of them.

There's another woodworking project in the works but I can't show that off yet.  

A Busy December Beginning

Yikes, it's almost the middle of December and I haven't posted anything this month yet.  I feel like for every step forward I take this month, I'm taking two backwards.  Things are getting done but I think I need a little escape time from what has to be done to what I want to do.  I know it will all shake out in the end.

There were more cards to be made before they went in the mail and I was able to come up with a couple of quick (or so I thought) designs that I could duplicate.

Having these buffalo checked card bases really helped.  On the first two I used a square of glittered paper that was actually a set of small gift cards from IKEA I purchase a few years back.  I wasn't going to use them in that respect so I used them to back the puffy mason jar snowglobe stickers that I also found in my stash.  Some little bits of die cut greenery in the corner and a quick little sentiment completed these in little time.  Die cutting the greenery took the longest.

This one took a bit longer because I chose to color the Unity snowman and also because I decided to add that die cut bow made from glitter paper.  I spend the most time preparing the paper for die cutting as I've found out that the die works much better on glitter paper if you remove a layer of the backing. But that backing was really on there and took quite a bit of effort peeling it apart.  Die cutting the foliage also took a while with all it's delicacy.  But I was pleased with the outcome and was glad to be able to make a few of them. 

I still had my circle punches downstairs and thought I would try reusing some brown packing paper to make an ornament that I saw recently.  I punched sixteen 2 1/2" circles and folded them in half.  Then I used Tombow multi mono liquid glue to first glue the folded circles once in the middle.  Then I started to layer them together adding two lines of glue - one near the top and the other near the bottom so when you pull the last one around to meet the first it looks like a honeycomb ornament.  The paper was wrinkled from being used, but it didn't affect the look of the ornament. I had some lengths of jute twine in my stash and used that and some leftover round beads to make the hanger for the ornament.  I managed to get enough circles out the piece of paper that I had to make 3 of these.  

I don't know why, but from the bottom it reminds me of a pine cone.

Another ornament I tried my hand at was this quilled star.  I found a youtube video with the instructions as recommended by another blogger that I follow.  I have several quilling kits with the tools needed to do this - a quilling comb and a needle tool, but I did order the gold gilded paper strips that I used for the center of the stars.  This is really not that hard to do.  What helps is having a glue bottle with a fine tip like the Bearly Art Precision Craft Glue.  The bottle of glue comes with a special cap that you can used to interchange the specialty tips with.  There is a fine tip and a very fine tip long with a cap and a pin that can be used to clear any clogs in the tips.  It is recommended to rinse out the tips after each use which I remembered to do.  

There seemed to be a plethora of Advent calendars advertised this year.  I've got several that I was gifted along with our family one that HWNSNBP and I have continued doing even after the kids have grown up.  A blogging buddy of mine has gifted me the Jacquie Lawson Sussex Advent calendar.  This is an interactive calendar that I've uploaded to my laptop that not only gives you a special scene to celebrate every day but is full of other activities that are a lot of fun.  This year there is a little elf hidden to find each day also and there are games too, like card games, jigsaw puzzles, etc.  

HWNSNBP gifted me (after I hinted about it for the last two years) the XO Marshmallow Advent calendar that has a different flavored marshmallow for each day.

And I gifted myself the Unity Stamp Advent calendar this year.  

A fellow stamper was nice enough to create and share a pdf chart that you can use to keep track of the stamps.  I'm looking forward to using these soon.

I like to open the "doors" of the day while I have my cup of Chai tea after I eat my breakfast.  It's a nice way to get the day started.

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.)