Bits and pieces from my life and a couple of projects too

Hi Everyone,

How are you doing?  I hope you are feeling less behind in everything this holiday season than I am.  Whenever I think I'm almost done with some project, I realize I need to make just a couple more and before you know it, two hours have gone by.  I swear my little craft corner is a black hole.  Time disappears when I'm sitting there, I have lost chunks of my life in that spot. 

My luncheon that I planned for my Bible study friends got postponed due to the blizzard conditions we had this past week, so now we are going to get together after the holidays in January.  That's fine, but my favors have a Christmas theme.  Oh well.  I made these holders for those little anti bacterial gels from Bath and Body works, and I got the idea from my LSS teammate Tamara.

See...

Sorry this next photo is crap.

I showed off my trees last year in this post, and this post and this post.  And this year when I mentioned my trees, a few people mentioned wanting to see them again, so here are some photos.

I can't believe I'm showing you my out of date mauve carpet. I'm so used to ignoring it, that I hardly even notice it.  We so need a makeover.  If anyone wants to nominate me for one of those TV shows, go right ahead.  My room would be perfect for those designers to sink their decorating genius into.  I don't have a sad human interest story to go along with it though.  Well, maybe just posting a photo for the world to see will be enough to shame me into forcing the redo.

The star fish is from the Cayman Islands and the pretty pine cone cluster is a gift from my Aunt Inge.  My favorite is the popcorn garland. I love this one home spun element on a mostly formal tree. 

This ornament was given to my mom from her sister, my Aunt Erika.  Both are now passed away, so it is that much more special to me.  I like that it matches the popcorn garland....Looking at it now, I can picture a Christmas card with gold embossed trees and little red birds.  Hhmmm, an idea for stamping...lol.

These next ornaments are from the tree in my family room. It's fake, so it pretty much looks like it did last year, so here are just the ornaments.

This one I made a few years back. Cross stitch is cute, but it takes too long.

I usually buy an ornament when we go on vacation as our souvenir.  I like the memories they invoke every year when I unwrap them and hang them on the tree.  This is the one I got from our cruise this past September.  Unfortunately I was sick as a dog this day, and I remember being in the gift shop just grabbing anything I saw for the people I hadn't purchased anything for yet. Hopefully as time goes by, this isn't the first thing I think of when I see this ornament. lol

This is my Alaskan Spirit Frog from our trip there.  It's not really an ornament, but it was actually carved in Alaska (Not China!) and the tag says something about it being good luck.  It's right at home with the rest of my weird ornaments.



My blogging friend Karin ( Another Karin with an i,  who is originally from Germany) posted a picture of her Chimney sweep ornament, so I thought I would post mine.  They are a lucky symbol for the new year in Germany. 

And last I thought I would show off my German wooden Nativity carousel, just because it's a unique item . The heat from the candles makes the windmill up top spin and the center part then turns.

Wow, if you have made it this far congrats, I was beginning to bore even myself.  I guess if you made it to the end, I should reward you with another crafy tidbit. 

I made 3 of these cards for my personal use.  It's a Z Fold card and it uses an image from the You're the Perfect Package set of digi stamps from Amber Ink. 


Don't you just love that little present?  It really is perfect :)

Here it is opened up.

This fancy schmancy fold is super simple.  After you have made you regular A2 card, just fold the front part of the card in half and decorate :)

Well, I hope your Christmas and New Year holidays are shaping up to be good ones...Thanks for dropping by the blog today.  If I haven't mentioned it lately, I really do appreciate you.