The Fourth and Fifth Days of Christmas

Christmas Around Our House


December 29 -30, 2011

 Some of my mother-in-law's angel collection - a little Angel Choir!

She always set them all up for Christmas, so now we do too. 

Have to watch our cats, though, so they don't knock them over!

 Lovely Christmas ornament purchased from Kimberly Laws 

at Art, Joy, Stuff.  She always wraps everything so beautifully, 

and includes little extras too!

 Cute little Christmas trees - a gift from a dear friend.

Look what happens when you switch them on!

 They change colors!

More colors!  Aren't they cute?!

The Second & Third Days of Christmas

Still enjoying Christmastime with family and friends

BUT WAIT!

I said I'd read at least 50 books this year ----

and I still have SEVEN more to go! Have read 3 the past two days, but will really have to hunker down to read 7 more by Saturday night!!!  Better find some really, really quick reads pretty fast! 

Should magazines count? 

Read, Jane, Read!

December 26, 2011

Boxing Day

Sad to miss my niece's annual Boxing Day party, but worn out from Christmas Day celebration (and the preparation) at our house yesterday. Three naps today - so far!

All was calm - during Christmas Dinner, at least!

Our colorful Christmas table

Grandson Adam put the candy cane reindeer together while spending  a day or two with us earlier in the week.  Thought it would be fun to use them in the place settings.

Little wreath light set added some colorful light to the sparkle on the table. Oops, looks like someone pulled out the wiring - it had been tucked in so it didn't show so much!

Our Menu

Assorted Appetizers

 Cheese & Crackers, Fruit, Vegies, Olives, etc.

Wine, Soda, Water, Juice

Roast Beef au jus

Mashed Potatoes

Green Beans with Almonds

Broccoli

Ambrosia

Assorted Rolls

Dessert

Mincemeat/Apple Pie

Apple/Cranberry Pie

Assorted Cookies

Coffee 

Hope you had a very Merry Christmas!

More to come - 

Celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas!

Christmas Day 2011

Merry Christmas

from our house to yours!

Thanksgiving Day 2011

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

Thank you,  Red Lead, for this Thanksgiving graphic!

Projects Galore!

Our Little Turkey Factory

Turkeys, you say?  They look more like peanuts!

Peanuts with legs - green legs, at that!

At least they have "googly" eyes!

250 paper plate turkeys for one school's kindergarten and first graders to complete as a follow-up to the Thanksgiving stories in the school library/media center! 

VERY rough sample! Partly finished turkey - wattle, but no beak yet - and without the 'googly' eyes.

Note this one has orange legs. With over 700 students coming to the library/media center each week, and no budget, any crafty little projects must be simple, quick, and very low-cost. (Of course it's mostly the kindergarteners and first graders who get to do things like this.) When I went to buy the 250 chenille sticks needed, there was a limited selection in the 'giant, economy size' packages - green, white, or assorted. I knew better than to get 'assorted' because everyone would want a different color than the one they received and they don't have that much time.

Of course, the stories, library skills, and book selection/check-out are the main events of a library/media class.  This was a "just-for-fun" project for K & 1 to work on the last few minutes while taking turns selecting  books to check out.

After all that gluing and realizing Mr. A-J had punched 1000 punches for the legs & hangers, we wondered if perhaps we were the real turkeys! The children all loved their turkeys, though,  and were so happy to have something to take home as a gift for Mom or Grandma.  Seeing how much they enjoyed coloring in the tail feathers made it all worthwhile.  Wish I could've taken photos of some of the children at work!

Might do something similar with gingerbread men during December, but I need to get busy with a few swaps too! Not to mention housecleaning and all that :)

11-11-11

11-11-11

November? Already?

Falling for Fall

Thanks to The Graphic Fairy for this beautiful pumpkin label!

What happened to October?  Seems it went by in a blur: five family birthdays plus a few friends', swaps, special times with all 3 grandsons, visitors, skin cancer surgery, cough & cold (yuck!), meetings, volunteer work, and Halloween too!

What's in the box?

My "Falling for Fall" tags!  Thanks, Jonnelle, for hosting this tag swap! Can't wait to see  the others!

Now on to a few other swaps - in progress!

Happy Halloween!

HA PP Y  HA L LOW E EN !!!

So much going on this month - lots to show, but haven't managed to post any of it!

October is our main family birthday month - 

5 in the immediate family! This year we had two parties, 

one at my brother and sister-in-law's and one at our house

(Thanks to "A Nostalgic Halloween" for the postcard image!)

Halloween cards to our grandsons included some little treats!

(Thanks to Kimberly of "Art, Joy, Stuff" for this special envelope idea!)

Our special treat table looks so spooky - but colorful!

Had lots of fun making special Halloween treats with skewers, tiny cupcake papers,  and all kinds of goodies - pumpkin & ghost Peeps, Halloween Oreos, licorice bits, Allsorts, & orange gumdrop pumpins - and more!

Back Soon!

Have a Happy and Safe Halloween!

September School Days

School Days - School Days

Learning our ABCs!

Last year Marian Ballog had the fantastic idea of making a Vintage ABC Book with our Tag Swap Group. She put an amazing amount of time, energy, effort, and creativity into making this project a giant success!  Hooray for Marian - and all who made the pages - 27 of each page! Whew!

Marian found great vintage books and made each participant a set of covers, including the individualized 'flashcard' titles - and a lot more!  If you look closely at numbers 4 & 12, you can see where she drilled the holes for the binding ribbon.  (I forgot to take a picture before I took the book apart to take pictures.)

Here are the outside front cover, title page, extra colorful BOOK bingo page, and the inside back cover complete with "check-out" card and pocket.

The Table of Contents pages. Marian asked each participant to send her a childhood photo to use. She listed the letter - Miss A, for example - and then the page creator's name & state along with the photo. The pages are all 4 x 6, about twice the size of the tags we've been swapping for a year or so. The pages illustrate the person's letter, using items that also start with that letter: color, fabric or background material, a flower, a sentiment, an attribute, etc. We included word lists - and sometimes more - on the backs of our pages.

Miss A - Alisa Noble (lifeisabeautifulplacetobe.blogspot.com); 

Miss B - Marian Ballog (meballog@hotmail.com); 

Miss C - Wendy H. Robrecht (wendy-hue.blogspot.com); 

Miss D - Judi Andersen (www.pinkpersimmon.com)

Miss E - Kim Schaefer(www.craftytriathlete.blogger.com)

Miss F - Kimberly Laws (ArtJoyStuff.blogspot.com)

Miss G - Gina Grable (http://embraceyourbliss.blogspot.com)

Miss H - Pearl Hooper

Miss I - Amy Malaise (http://www.craftingbycandlelight.blogspot.com)

Miss J - Jane Palmer (that's ME!)

Miss K - Kathleen Kelly-Pardo (kathleenkellypardo@gmail.com)

Miss L - Terri Kolte (TheGypsyMagpie.blogspot.com)

Miss M - Wanda M. Clark (www.wandamai.blogspot.com)

Miss N - Natalea Kandefer (kandeland.typepad.com)

Miss O - Linda Olstad (www.fancylinda.com)

Miss P - Priscilla Cloud (pkcloud@cox.net)

Miss Q - Debi Martin (Martin19@cox.net)

Miss R - Roxane Berenbeim (berenbeimn@comcast.net)

Miss S - Susan Murtagh (suestelle@aol.com)

Miss T - Grace Palazzolo(http://graceinthecity.blogspot.com)

Miss U - Marian Ballog (meballog@hotmail.com)

Miss V - Christine Nay (changeofheart56.blogspot.com)

Miss W - Sheryl Simpson (Whimzy!Whimzy@sbcglobal.net)

Miss X - Marian Ballog (meballog@hotmail.com)

Miss Y - Terri Kolte (TheGypsyMagpie.blogspot.com)

Miss Z - Rachel Velder (www.rach-ology.blogspot.com)

While looking over each page as I finally get  the pages photographed and posted - after all this time - I'm simply amazed again at all the creativity and beautiful work involved!  Thank you so very much, Marian, and all the participants!  This had to be the best swap EVER!

And NOW would you believe we're doing another book?!  

Vintage Christmas ABC this year!!! 

Better get busy - my pages are due very soon!

Falling for Fall

Fall Tag Swap

Went to a little craft show last weekend and couldn't resist

buying a few cute pumpkin items!  

Can hardly wait to try the Pumpkin Jelly - 

I've never heard of that before!

All these cute pumpkins inspired me to start working on my tags 

for the TagSwapper group's

 "Falling for Fall" 

fall tag swap, hosted by Jonnelle (www.mommy2alex.blogspot.com)

Contact Jonnelle if you'd like to join this swap. I think there might still be a few openings. The tags aren't due until the last week of October, just before Halloween, so there's plenty of time to make them. It's been lots of fun swapping tags with this group for a couple of years now, with several different hostesses and a variety of themes. 

Here's my tag with a 'skirt' added! I wanted to see the difference between the digital photo (first one) and the scanned version (this one). It looks like the photo is better and that my tag needs more work! Usually the final tags are quite different from the first one!

I love Fall!

Where Has Summer Gone?

September Already?!

 Gone Fishing!

The photo I meant to leave just before we left town - oops!

Hard to believe it's already the middle of September! We went out to Montana for a while, but I'm not sure where the rest of these past few weeks have gone!

Lake MacDonald - Glacier National Park

Visiting deer on shore of Lake Five at our friend's cabin

Going-to-the-Sun

Can't visit Montana in the late summer without enjoying the huckleberries! Huckleberry Pie - Yum!  Huckleberry Jam - Yum!  And here's something new - Huckleberry Italian Cream Soda!

Wizard of Oz ATC Blog Hop - Two Crazy Crafters

Today's the day to post our Wizard of Oz ATCs for Twyla & Lindsey's August blog hop. I've been running around all day, so just now getting to post mine. I've already seen some really good ATCs!  These blog hops are such fun! Thanks Twyla and Lindsey!

I love Graphics 45 papers, so was really happy to get this set!

Last October Karla of Karla's Cottage hosted a "Dorothy" Tag Swap. It's about time I show the tags I made and received for that fun swap!

Dorothy Tag Book

Debra's Tag (http://flittingandflying.blogspot.com)

Erica's Tag (www.ZunkyChic.com)

Holly's Tag (www.paperpiecesofme.blogspot.com)

Janet's Tag (janetsartplay.blogspot.com)

Karla's Tag - the Tag Book Cover (Karla's Cottage)

Sadly no name on this lovely tag!

Wendy's Tag 

My Tag!

We sent 6 tags & received 6 back + the cover.

Since I used the "bad witch" for this swap, I thought I'd use the "good witch" for my ATC for the blog hop. These faces were cut from a piece of Wizard of Oz fabric, stuffed a bit, poked through the "Over the Rainbow" sheet music & sewn around to look like they were bursting through the tag


Note: 9:30 pm Followers disappeared earlier today, but now they're back :) Isn't that strange?! 9:45pm - Now they've disappeared again!