Merry Christmas!

 

Pre-Christmas Treats

I wanted to visit Hens & Honey before the end of December to be able to try their Grouch Flight so HWNSNBP made an adjustment to his work schedule and we headed out to our destination lunch on a Friday a couple of weeks ago.  We had a delicious artisan toast lunch and shared this treat.  When the box is delivered to your table, each one has different Grinch-related treat. We got a bookmark that we passed on to GS1.

On the way home this car was in front of us on the highway for a while.  I don't think I've ever seen one decorated like this.

The following week, we made another destination lunch trip to the Flying Pig Tavern.  I remembered that the waitress that we had during our visit there in the summer told us that at Christmas their tree was decorated with flying pigs, so you know I wanted to check that out in person.  

This was a small Christmas tree they had in a corner with a few pigs on it.

Their main tree had more pigs on it, but it was a little difficult to photograph with the sun where it was at the time.  

I had brought a flying pig solar dancer (I still have a few in my stash from a few years ago) to add to their flying pig collection.  The waitress was the same one we had before and she remembered us once we got to talking and called the owner over to show him what we brought.  Even though we were already done with our lunch and had just paid the bill, he insisted that we choose dessert on the house and we opted for the salted caramel apple pie tartlet which was definitely a nice treat.

I've been busy trying to pull some last minute projects together and getting ready for family to visit and have once again found myself without the time to complete some of the things that I wanted to try but I'm glad that we made the time for these two excursions.  There is still one more new place that I want to visit and maybe we'll get there next week.  

It seems, although I try to stay ahead with my Christmas card creations and usually do, there is an onslaught of new ideas that hit the "airwaves" in November and December and I find myself wanting to try some of them out.  I did manage to get those little bell gnomes done and I have a couple other things that I'll be posting after Christmas, but I also have lots of ideas (along with some purchased supplies) that I did not get to.  I will have to refocus for next year and be like my blogging friend MaryAnne who adds to her Christmas box year round instead of putting things off until the fall.  

What Can You do With a Bell?

Found these little wooden bell shapes in $Tree and saw an idea posted somewhere to make them into little gnome ornaments, so of course you know I had to give it a whirl.

I painted the body of the bell red, the clapper a light fleshtone, and the hanger white.  Both sides.

Added some faux beard fur and a metallic cord hanger to finish them up. (The fur is what I looked for for 2 days before ordering again and then finding it an hour after I placed the order.  Thank goodness for returns.  I still have several sheets from the original package to use up!)

I'll have some to gift and some to hang on my lemon tree with the triangle gnomes I made last year.

My dining room table is currently overflowing with "ideas" as I'm simultaneously trying to get the house in order.  The trees are up and decorated.  Well, the lemon tree isn't yet, but I'll get to that today hopefully.  There always seems to be more to put away each year....... things that I don't mind having out like books and craft supplies that seem to multiply but need to be hidden away to make the place presentable.  And therein lies the problem of remembering where such things have been hidden.  Yes, I have a craft room, but that's upstairs and I keep a lot of stuff downstairs so I don't have to climb those stairs so it's my own fault.  

We finally were able to find the cinnamon candies I use to make my marshmallows so that will be put on the agenda for either tomorrow or early this week.  I have one cookie recipe that I want to try that uses a cake mix and a container of Cool Whip which I have waiting in the wings.  Whether I get to make any other cookies is left to be decided.  My kids don't particularly like to have a lot of sweets around for the little guys contrary to what they had growing up which was a smorgasbord of holiday cookies and candies, so we've really cut back on that aspect with just a couple of special things.  It makes it easier with less preparation but more difficult in the choice of what to make.  We all have different favorites.  

So I'll close with a question - what's your favorite Christmas/holiday treat?

Christmas Card Round Up

There it is.  The pile of this year's Christmas cards.  Thank goodness for the Jingle Belles keeping me on track throughout the year so I only had a few to make this month.

I dipped into my box of duplicates and scraps and cobbled some cards together.  These birds and snowflake wreaths found a home.  One on some patterned paper and the other on a stamped background.

Extras of these little houses and die cut trees paired up on some die cut panels with the little sentiment.  (Those buffalo plaid card bases bought a couple years ago on clearance have come in handy also.)

This one is really cobbled together but it's among one of my favorites.  I found this index card in my stash that had the lines of washi tape across it and I must have been practice punching those stars for another project on it and trimmed it up to be a background to the die cut patterned trees in the scrap box.  I sponged on some blue ink above the tape and then cut a piece of yellow card stock to give those punched stars some shine.  Peace is handwritten in gold gel pen on the blue card base.  

These two used an embossed panel that had Peace on Earth already stamped on it.  The nativity scene and the dove were in the scrap box leftover from a few years back.

The pieces of these cards (I made 6) took me way back.  The background, snowman, birds, and even the torn paper snow were extras leftover from swaps that I made when I attended my first regional stamping workshop.  (And I still have a few more of those snowmen and birds believe it or not.)  This wasn't the exact duplicate of that swap  but it came together pretty easy.  I just added the glitter paper diecut snowflake spray in the corner.  

The image on this card was stamped onto kraft card stock and colored with my Prismacolor pencils.  There is a little sparkle on the package ribbons which prompted me to put it on the gold card base (another clearance purchase from the past).  The sentiment was stamped and embossed in gold - "I just want them to remember YOU - the greatest Gift".  I did a few of these also.

This card started with a die cut you'll see in pieces further down.  After I assembled them, I found this background paper in my stash and chose two different colors for the card bases.  I also did them in 2 sizes so I could use those background scraps accordingly.

Here is the motif unassembled minus the white pieces for the letters.  You may not be able to see that I used 3 colors of green paper for the little branches and leaves that are simply glued over their place on the background.

And lastly (I think), Rachel asked me to make a card for her school secretary with blue trees and there's a little message about being blue and dealing with grief on the inside.  The poor woman's son was murdered this year and the holidays will be hard I'm sure.  

I'll have to get that one in the mail to her today so she gets it in time before school ends for the holidays.  I made a couple of fumbles with getting my cards out.  I decided to order my postage stamps on line and usually they come within a day, but I guess they can't keep up with their orders because I'm having to wait longer than expected.  Also, I very rarely include pictures with my cards, but I wanted to send a print of our family picture from the wedding to a few of my cousins who weren't there, but they won't come in until the 21st and I really didn't want to wait that long to get them out.  Decisions!  

Now to find my labels so the envelopes will be ready when the stamps get here!

Is it a Cake or is it a Card

I used the wing from a bird punch to make a stencil for a flame and spaced them out on my base so that 10 would fit on each.  There were going to be 7 sections for this part.

After I traced them all, I fussy cut around all the flames leaving them connected at the bases.

Color was added with paint pens to make the flames look like flames.

I chose 5 different shades of yellow for the candles..........see where I'm going now? ........ and left a little extra space on one end to make an attachment flap.

There had to be 2 more panels.  One for the front and one for the back.  I cut out the letters from yet another shade of yellow and added some wonky line work.  I had to add some faux sprinkles to the O to hide some errant glue spots, but I think it added a little interest.

I couldn't get the entire card as it was open in a picture but hope that you can see it accordian style here.

This is for a friend who turned 70 recently and contained the message not to use real candles as he might burn the house down with that many - these would be safer (one would hope).