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).

Jingle Belles - Banner Inspired Holiday

December is creeping up on us and there is just enough time for me to get in my card(s) for the last official Jingle Belles challenge of 2023 - using their blog banner for inspiration

Would you believe that I have been thinking about this since February?  Yes, it's true.  I was shopping in $Tree back in February and saw that they had rolls of what I call velour ribbon in two shades of pink and also in white and it immediately reminded me of the Jingle Belles banner.  I must have been working on a challenge before I went there to have it so fresh in my mind.  But the wheels started turning......I'm sure if thought bubbles were real, you might have seen them flying around my head.  How could I use those ribbons to make trees?  Could I cut them out of the ribbon?  Probably.  Could I maybe use a tree die?  More likely.  Do I have a tree die?  Seriously(!)  Surely I must.  Those ribbon rolls were so enthusiastic they jumped right into my cart.  And then were stashed away until November at which time it was necessary to start producing some more of those thought bubbles.  

I found a tree die set that I thought I could use and started playing around with it.  The first thing that I knew I had to do was to add sticky paper on the back of the ribbon because the tree limbs were very delicate and plentiful and it could become messy using bottled glue.  Then I proceded to die cut them with the die on top of the fuzzy side.  I ran it through the Big Shot several times to hopefully get through the ribbon and the paper backing but it didn't seem to get through enough for me not to have to also use a scissor to cut it.  Then a lightbulb joined the thought bubbles and illuminated the solution for me...........it's a tree.....it doesn't have a right or wrong side...........cut through the paper and see if that works.......so what if it's a little smushed.  Well, lo and behold, I should have turned that light on sooner because it sure did enlighten me.  The only thing that I regret is that I tend to be so frugal with my supplies and tried to fit as many trees as I could on a piece of the ribbon that I did not take into consideration that the ribbon had a nap to it and cut my trees out in both directions.  So you may or may not notice on the card that those of the same color look different if they were cut out in opposite directions.

I sorted through my stash of paper to try to find something suitable for the background and came up with two possibilities.  The top card has the large chenille-like snowflakes already as part of the paper pattern but I flipped the trees and sentiment.   The one below has a little darker background with some preprinted white snowflakes already there.  Both have the Jingle Bells sentiment cut from pink glitter paper and added to a white word frame.  See how the dark pink becomes even darker just because the nap is the other direction.  You can see it too with the white trees on the bottom card.  

Whilst I was working on those I had another thought bubble escape.........there's always a late comer.  I had been seeing some artists on IG using things like cookie cutters, jar lids, and TP tubes to print the shape onto watercolor paper by first dipping or painting on the edges of the shape and stamping that onto the paper.  Then they take a wet paint brush and pull in the paint to the center of the shape giving it that watercolory effect.  Hmmmmmm, could I do that with a die?  It was worth a try.  So I set myself up to paint the raised edges of the die and press it down onto the paper.  The results were eh.  There wasn't much paint that transferred but I still used the paint brush to catch what I could and make the shape look like a tree.  I recently had brought home my old heat gun from the condo and used that to dry each tree before going onto the next one so they all didn't puddle together.  Tree shapes are very forgiving because they are all different and sometimes wonky.  I chose a different background altogether for this going with the pink vibe and added a swatch of tri-colored washi tape near the bottom of the trees. 

Then I listened to some more bubbles and found some small snowflake dies and added them on top of the washi tape.  And as if that wasn't enough, I die cut "peace" from the pink glitter paper and added that on top of the snowflakes.  White gel pen and a silver marker added snowflakes and stars. It's one of those cards that is better appreciated IRL.  

Well, there you have it.  The last of the Jingle Belle challenge cards for this year.  I do so appreciate having this challenge throughout the year to keep me somewhat ahead of what I need to have prepared for the holidays.  It makes it so much more doable and a lot less frustrating.  There were a number of challenges I didn't get to this summer because of one reason or the other, but I always try to keep that goal in the spotlight and will continue to do that again next year.  Hopefully, our Jingle Belle hostesses will be back in January with some fun challenges for the new year, and it's a leap year so we'll even have an extra day!  Thank you to Lauren and Steph for all their time and effort to make our Christmas cardmaking more fun!  

First Half of November....... (with a little more forgotten October)

(Some of this post was in a draft I overlooked at the end of last month.  I'll save that for the end.) 

We pass this tree on Princeton Pike when we go to the condo.  On this particular day it was nearing sunset and at the light just before we reached this point, I got my phone ready and rolled down the window.  HWNSNBP took as long as he reasonably could when the light turned green so that I could snap some shots as we passed.  He even noted that the car that was on our right seemed to notice that I was taking pictures and slowed so they wouldn't photobomb it.  This is a black oak and it has a title - Champion Brearly Oak - because it is the largest tree of this type in New Jersey.  It looks a little sparse here because of the time of year, but I can assure you that when it's in it's full glory it is majestic.  I typically nod off when HWNSNBP is driving us to the condo (about a 2 hr. drive) but try to stay alert long enough to get a glimpse of this beauty.  You can see the limbs are so long and powerful - some of the lower ones rest on the ground.  There are two lightning rods attached to this tree to keep it safe in case of a lightning strike.  And despite the commercial growth of the area surrounding it, they keep this fence around it.  You can read a little more about it here.

We got to spend time (separately) with two of the grandsons recently.  GS2 came and spent a couple of nights at our "other house" in Branchburg.  (He calls the condo our "tall house" because of all the stairs to get in.)  We have boxes of cars and trucks that were once our son's that he loves to play with.  And he is a little fascinated with the little fairy garden planter that I have that is full of little characters.  He does ask if he can play with them and I don't mind as long as he's careful and doesn't bang them on the table or throw them around.  If something does break, it breaks, as long as he doesn't get hurt I tell him. 

He surrounded the little glass dish of glass piggies so they could be protected he told me.

He and Papa drove their tractors up and down the hill until the little one's battery ran out.  (Papa wasn't going to try to keep up on foot!)

He wasn't interested in any painting this time, or any Grandma projects, but he got a lot of outside time here and at the park with Papa.  Trucks, cars, and blocks kept him busy inside.  

Meanwhile, this little guy got some daddy time while his mommy spent some time with friends.

We visited with GS1 at his house and got some time to play some games.  Papa played Battleship and I played Sorry and GS1 won both!  Battleship has come a long way since I learned to play as a child.  My father would draw the grids on a piece of paper for us, that's how old I am.  Our kids had a folding case with plastic inserts, and this one is even more streamlined.

We ate at a new place in Barnegat called the Waterview Cafe.  It's fairly new to the area and has an art gallery of sorts set up inside.  It was a rainy Friday afternoon when we stopped in, the only one's there for lunch which turned out to be very good.  We had a lovely chat with the owner/hostess after our meal.  They are and will be doing painting/artistic events and I've read a lot of good reports on them.

Some tangles that I've done recently using some YouTube videos.  This is by Eva Wu - a variation of the tangle Tangnie.

This one by Tangle Yogi - Hurry Flower she calls it.  I haven't gotten to shading or adding color to it yet.

And this one might be the inspiration for a couple of Christmas cards if I do it in color.  It's called Wyfore Tree by @yukoxzen.  The scroll-like segments of the tree are the tangle Wyfore filled in with other tangles leaving it great opportunity for personal preferences.  

And what I had forgotten to get to posting in October.........

I know Halloween has come and gone but I wanted to post the pictures of some of the decorations I did manage to put out.  These little things fit nicely in the clear jars that I have on the pie safe.  They'll get filled with Christmas items soon.

When you have a box marked "Pumpkins" and don't find any pumpkins in it you can't help but shake your head.  Thankfully, with some detective work, the pumpkins were located and arranged in front of the tv where they'll stay until Thanksgiving weekend.  I will, however, remove the Halloween birds that I did manage to find at $Tree after looking for them in at least 8 different stores.  I also added some mushrooms that I found at $Tree to this display.

This will stay out a little longer also.  I found the pumpkin (that lights up) at a $Tree Plus when we were looking for the $Tree Halloween birds.  The gnome came from Target and the bird (with the candy corn beak) came from a local nursery that has a large gift store.  The charger it's on is one that I got at $Tree when I was looking for ideas for wedding centerpieces.  (Oh dear, I still haven't posted the wedding pics!!!)

I started physical therapy for my back a couple of weeks ago and it's going well, but it's just a precursor to surgery I'm pretty sure.  The PT is only going to add strength, it will not eliminate the stenosis that I have that is causing my spinal canal to narrow and put pressure on the nerves.  And I better get going now for my session today.