Almost a New Year!

The year is almost over and I haven’t posted as often as I would have liked.  One of my resolutions that I hope to stick to is to post more often.  I certainly make enough stuff to be able to do that!

I know Christmas is over but I didn’t show off a couple things I made because I didn’t want my sisters peeking before they received their gifts!  Every year we choose a name and we have to make that person something hand-made and special.  For the other two sisters we can make something small if we want to.  This year I made an ornament for all three of my sisters:

 

I saw this in the Somerset Holidays & Celebrations and thought it was so cute!  Mine is a little different, but essentially the same.  The little bottlebrush tree is mounted on a small tart tin that has music score in the center and silver tinsel around the inside.  I decorated the tree with little glass beads, then brushed on some glue and sprinkled the tree with coarse glass glitter and mica.  The tree stand is a small wooden knob from Home Depot that I painted and distressed, then put a little bit of lace around it, tied a little red bow (mica on it also) and put it all together with hot glue.  The star is punched cardstock and glittered.  Lots of glitter – which I think makes everything look special!

I made this ornament for Matt and Jen:

 

 

 

 

 

I would like to make them an ornament every year.  I started out thinking that I would use the traditional anniversary gifts as a guideline so last year, their first married Christmas together, I made an ornament out of paper (you can see this in my post from last Christmas.)  This year the traditional gift is cotton.  I had fully intended to, and I did try to, transfer the photograph to a piece of muslin.  However, it was not looking like I had hoped so I gave up and just used the laser photo on the silver coaster.  I punched a hole in the top and the bottom of the coaster with the crop-a-dile, put a ribbon for hanging in the top and hung a Tim Holtz facet from the bottom.  Glitter, of course, was added around the photograph.  This photograph is of Matt and Jen on their first anniversary with a little cake Matt made for Jen.  They are so cute together!

Last project to show today.  The sister whose name I drew for this Christmas was Lesley.  This past summer she and Ernie got two Sheltie puppies, Mischief and Sassy.  Of course, their lives are now all about the dogs!  So I thought I would make her something with some photos she has taken of them:

 

I purchased the shadowbox frame this fall when we went to Archiver’s in Buford, GA on the way up to North Carolina.  (Don’t I wish we had one of those here!!)  I’ve had tons of dog stuff for years, fully intending to do some scrapbooking about my dogs, but haven’t quite gotten around to it yet!  Anyway, I thought it came out quite cute and Lesley really did like it.

Now – on to a new year, lots of projects, some home organization and a few more resolutions!

Happy New Year!

I can’t believe. . .

it’s almost  Christmas!  I apologize for not posting since late September.  I have been busy and will get some photos up but probably not until after the holidays.

Thanks everyone for your kind comments about my 12 Tags of Christmas with a Feminine Twist!  You can imagine how shocked I was when I realized that Tim mentioned me on his blog! Such an honor!  I too love that reindeer tag – so I decided to do this year’s Christmas card using that reindeer in a similar design:

The reindeer, from Tim’s “Reindeer Flight” die, is cut from brown suede paper.  He is standing on “snow”  (a Martha Stewart border punch) which of course I had to “glitter up” a bit, and the background is Stampin’ Up Crumb Cake embossed with a snowflake Sizzix embossing folder which I swiped with a white craft ink pad.  I cut out the banner manually and stamped Merry Christmas in Stampin’  Up Chocolate Chip.  The holly on the reindeer’s neck is a Martha Stewart punch.  I used Michael’s rhinestones for the eyes and the holly berries are Swarovski coral pearl flatbacks from http://www.artbeads.com.  I don’t usually use the standard red/green theme on my Christmas cards and I liked using the browns and whites for this one because I thought they conveyed a “woodland” theme.  I like the way it turned out and I’m now in the process of addressing them and hopefully will get them in the mail by the middle of next week!

This weekend we are back in NC getting Christmas trees!  No snow this year, in fact it is pretty mild and has been in the low 50’s all day today.  Nine trees are in the truck waiting to go back to Florida.  Here’s a photo of Rylee and Cody before we left on Friday and one of the guys baling the trees.

We are so happy we’ve made this a yearly tradition to go back and cut trees.  We never know what kind of weather we’ll be in and we’re glad to be able to get back to the house again.