Jingle Belles Take II - An Orange in Your Stocking

Wouldn't you love to get closer to that tree to see the decorations?  I know I would.  This is, once again, the photo inspiration for this fortnight's Jingle Belle challenge.  

The closest I've come to an out-of-the-box, non-traditional Christmas tree is the skinny, candy apple green, metallic tree we've had for our Merry Fishmas in July.  

I was playing around with some Mermaid Markers in a teal and coral shade and it reminded me of the beach and then I remembered the stamp set I had bought - SU's Beachy Little Christmas.

And this was born. 

A tree kind of like our Merry Fishmas tree (but in very different colors).  You can't really see in the picture, but the shells on the tree and the ornaments have a little Wink of Stella sparkle on them.  

I'm going to head on over to the Jingle Belles blog and check out all the other "orangy" creations.  You can join me by clicking here.  

Merry Fishmas 2016

We celebrated our second Merry Fishmas at the end of July.  Truth be told, we actually put this tree away decorated.  We cover it with a heavy duty contractors garbage bag and away in the closet it goes.  This year I added those red and white striped fish and the turtle near the top.

We did manage to get out to fish after a brief rain storm.  You can see the sky in the first picture (east over the ocean) was pretty clear.

But facing south and west there was still a dark sky, yet we all sauntered out to the dock.

This is what happens when you cast with the bale locked and the bobber pops off.  You find a friendly fisherman on the dock with a long net and you ask to borrow it so you can rescue the bobber!  Sadly, the bobber was the only thing we caught!

We were so happy that Chris and Michelle came and brought Ryan to meet our Table 7 gang.  The ladies played "Pass the Baby" and he was so good about it.

We had a nice meal from Olive Garden catering home delivery which made it so easy.  I made three batches of cookies for dessert and we had a watermelon too.  Flourless peanut butter cookies, Gluten Free Lemon Crinkle cookies, and my new favorite Browned Butter Brown Sugar Cookies. What wasn't eaten was sent home with the guests.

Our friends added to our ornaments on the tree.   They're so cute!

And the guests went home with goody bags filled with fishy stuff.  I stamped the bags .......

and cut out some stamped fish to add to the scene.

Since it rained and there was still a threat of storms, the concert at the dock was moved to one of the local school gymnasiums, but we weren't going.  Instead we were able to catch the sunset in back which looked like a little fireworks show.   

Our Beautiful World is looking for outdoor activity pictures so I will be sharing our fishing pictures with them.  

Merry Fishmas!

Merry Fishmas! (Our Beautiful World, Anything But a Card, July Photo Challenge too)

I had this idea about 4 years ago when I purchased a skinny, apple-green metallic Christmas tree in the after holiday sales that fit perfectly on the landing of the stairs of our condo.  Since we don't celebrate Christmas there, I thought it might be fun to celebrate Christmas in July when we are there or as we are calling it now Merry Fishmas!  I have been collecting "pins" in my Christmas in July Pinterest folder for that long, and just needed the opportunity to finally go through with scheduling it. Social obligations and then last year, my back injury kind of stood in the way then, but this year, since we didn't have a big celebration for my 60th birthday, we decided to finally do this.

First, e-mail invites were issued back in the beginning of spring and then a few weeks ago I mailed out these reminders.  I had this fish die that I used to make into a little card and then took a stamp set that had several different sized fish and made them into a tree shape.

The message was hand-written. (Oh, and that's a little starfish on top of the fish tree.)

The tree was brought down and decorated and so were we in our Merry Fishmas shirts (via Cafe Press).

Company arrived and after some chit-chat, we got out the fishing poles and headed across the street to do some fishing at the dock.

First fish was caught by HWNSNBP (thrown back in - too small and yes, he insisted he had to change out of his shirt because he didn't want to get it fishy, but he put it back on later).

Then I caught a little non-keeper.  We took up quite a span of the dock as you can see Rachel and another friend at the rail.  (Sheesh, I really need a haircut!) And one more fish was caught after that.

I just had to take a picture of my daughter's hair.  It looked so pretty in the sunlight and you can barely see the pink highlights she had at the ends.

We had people as well as the gulls watching us.

After a bit we went back to have a bite.

Lasagna and a meatball sub accompanied by this cucumber, strawberry and feta salad with poppyseed dressing in Christmas colors.

For dessert I made a strawberry and grape Christmas tree that sat atop the fruit salad. There were Santa hat brownies, and of course, Christmas cookies.

Nutella Sugar Cookies

Sea Salted Cinnamon Graham Cracker Pralines

Then we played some Go Fish.

Some friends brought little gifts including this Hallmark cupcake crab - so cute - that I immediately added it to the tree.

And while the sun set behind us, we ventured out onto the front balcony to listen to the concert at the dock across the street - the band playing hits from the 50's and 60's had us singing quietly along.

I sent our guests home with a little goody bag that included Swedish Fish, Goldfish crackers, and a Go Fish game all their own, and a little lunch box full of some of those leftover Christmas cookies.

Inside the bag was also an ornament that I made using these little denim canvas squares, rope, shells, and polished stones.  

It was a small group yesterday as some of the other's invited had obligations they couldn't get out of, but it was fun and we might just have to do this again next year. 

I'm using some of these photos for:

Our Beautiful World - our Gold Fish Game for the Game theme this week

Anything But a Card - my shell ornaments for the Anything Goes theme

My photo challenges for July 25 - Colorful (the salad) and July 26 - Black and White (the gull)

MERRY FISHMAS!