Snowman Family...

Happy Tuesday!

I'm thinking I am developing a "thing" for snowmen. Over the weekend I went to three local thrift stores and I picked up two adorable snowmen to help decorate my home this winter(no pictures yet, but just you wait...LOL).

Then there's this little family of snowmen (snowpeople?) I created from a freebie pattern I picked up at Michaels.

I've actually had the snowpeople crocheted since before Thanksgiving weekend started, but I had to go find my felt to create the scarves, which I just did today. LOL The girls have had fun with them scarf-less, though. They are supposed to have smiles and arms embroidered on them, but I find it difficult to stitch on crochet pieces and have it look good, so I decided they still look super cute without the stitching (please agree with me so I don't feel silly for not stitching them).

I'm busy creating away when I'm not shopping for the holidays. But some of what I'm working on is going to have to wait a bit before I can share.

Thanks for stopping by!

I sure appreciate the visit.

*Ü*

Counting My Blessings Today...

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

—Melody Beattie

Happy Thanksgiving to you!

On this special day

(one that feels sort of forgotten with all the hoopla over the Christmas Season)

I want to express thankfulness for the blessings in my life.

Of course, that includes my family.

I'm thankful for a husband who works hard providing for his family.

I'm thankful for two little girls who bring light and joy to my days.

I'm thankful for my friends, in real life and in the computer.

These are givens.

I'm also thankful for

A strong body, that, while not physically perfect, allows me to work hard creating

a clean and comforting haven for my family.

Two hands that allow me to create items from the heart.

Items I hope bring a sense of joy to others like they do me in the making of them.

Two eyes that see the potential and fun in different creative endeavors.

I may not be inherently creative (coming up with original ideas) but I am thankful that I can see something I like and use my abilities

to execute those ideas to bring joy and happiness to myself and to others.

I'm grateful for my curiosity.

It allows me to remain open to new ideas, to try new things, to see things from a different perspective.

I'm thankful for the computer (and the internet).

Silly as that may sound, the computer and the internet have opened a whole new world to me.

A world full of wonderful friends I would never have known otherwise,

of ideas I never would have been exposed to,

information that I might have otherwise missed.

I'm thankful to wake up each morning

full of joy and comfort in the potential that comes with each new day

(with no mistakes in it yet <-----Anne of Green Gables reference *Ü*).

I hope you have a wonderful holiday with your family and friends.

(I also hope the Broncos win today!)

*Ü*

Thank you for stopping by and for always sharing your thoughts support and encouragement.

I am truly blessed.

How About A Little Turkey?

First of all, I have to share this beautiful card I received in the mail today from my friend, Barb of The Buzz. Not sure if you can tell, but the sentiment is embossed with a gorgeous glittery embossing powder. Thank you so much Barb!! I'm so blessed by my friends!

I sure hope Barb doesn't mind "sharing" this post with the project the girls and I worked on this afternoon. This is totally not something I came up with on my own, but when I saw it on the Econobusters blog, I thought it was such a neat idea, I had to have the girls and I try it. (I've subscribed to this blog for about a month or so and enjoy the tips and ideas shared there.)

Behold a tiny turkey dinner!

Can you stand it??

You can find the information about it here.

It's all sweet stuff, no real food here. LOL

I made a few modifications to make it work better for me.

I chose not to make the cupcakes.

I used generic vanilla sandwich cookies (fake Oreos).

I found the Brach's Maple Nut Goodies at Walgreens.

Instead of melted chocolate chips, I used caramel syrup

I found the green candies (peas) in a package that had 3 other colors as well at Walmart.

I bought vanilla frosting and tinted half of it with yellow food coloring.

I used yellow gel icing for the "butter."

And here's the final result. I had the girls make enough for each of their classes with some left over. I didn't use the entire package of cookies.

Jessica got tired of doing it after about 10 "dinners," but Amy stuck it out with me until we got them all done. Yay!

They enjoyed the project and are looking forward to sharing them with their classmates/teachers tomorrow.

Just a little fun we had around here this afternoon. LOL

Thanks for stopping by!

Busy Week

While I may not have any photos to share, I was pretty busy this past week. Steve had a business trip that took him to the east coast on Monday. He got back on Thursday. Because I don't watch tv during the day, I had no clue about the nationwide computer glitch that messed up flights. I did know about the detour I'd have to take to get to the airport though, thanks to the signs on Monday. Steve's flight was only an hour late getting back to Denver, so it wasn't too bad.

Tuesday was a whirlwind kind of day. The girls went to school, then we had swim lessons and Amy had Brownies (which was a finger food potluck). Amy wanted to be dropped off because"she's a big girl now," so Jessica and I did and errand or two while waiting to pick Amy back up. We had to do something I really wish we hadn't, as it just symbolizes being too busy to me. We had to go to the drive thru for dinner that night because there wasn't enough time for us to get home, make dinner and get to Brownies. I hope that doesn't happen too often. Of course, the girls loved it! LOL

I rented a rug doctor to clean the carpet in the one room that has carpet in our house. This is not something I normally do. I leave the carpet cleaning to Steve. But, I thought it would be nice to surprise him (and it was over due to be cleaned). While it didn't look as nice as when Steve does it, it looked better than it did when I started-dang I had to change the water so often!). I think he appreciated the gesture. And he gave me some pointers on how to best do the job (for future reference-should I ever decide to surprise him again *Ü*).

The one decluttering/organizing project I was able to start this week was working in a cabinet/cupboard in the kitchen. I pulled everything out of it and had it covering the kitchen floor. Just how do we managed to stuff so much into a small space is beyond me (and I didn't think to take pictures this time, sorry). I shifted around some items into the top shelf in the pantry, sorted through the rest and cleaned the floor of the cabinet. I put back what I wanted to for the moment and stashed the 8 million cookie cutters I found (not really, honest) until I can sort through them and put them into ONE storage container. I spent a little longer than I thought on this one space, but when I open it now and see space instead of stuff, it was well worth the effort.

*****

Friday was kind of special.

Amy's teacher has a Mystery Reader come to the class once a month to read to the students. The Mystery Reader can be someone from the school staff or a parent. When I got the paper detailing what she wanted to do and that she needed volunteers, I immediately said I'd sign up.

Friday was my turn.

Amy's teacher had me write 5 clues as to my identity and she read them one at a time to the class in anticipation of the arrival of the Mystery Reader. The clues started out general and by the last clue the identity should be pretty clear. At the designated time, I knocked on the classroom door and heard a collective gasp that the Mystery Reader had arrived.

I walked in and immediately saw Amy with a huge grin on her face and tears rolling down her cheeks. She was SO excited to see that I was the Mystery Reader. Her reaction made tears come to my eyes as well. You see, Amy's gotten the short end of the Mommy volunteering stick most of the time (because I had Jessica at home). She's been very understanding, and it's not that I don't volunteer, but it's mainly been for parties and such.

This was something I did just for her

and it didn't involve Jessica at all.

I think that meant the world to her.

So, I sat down and read one of Amy's very favorite books,

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.

And she loved it.

The class loved it, too.

Amy's teacher is fabulous and she guided a great discussion on what was so appealing about the book. And I got to tell the kids I liked it too, because I had heard all the things the pigeon says from my own girls and it made me laugh.

It was a special time that I am thrilled to have been able to share with and for Amy.

*****

I've been thinking I might have to ease up on the household stuff until after the holidays. I've got several handwork projects in the works and the best time to work on them is during the day while the girls are at school-so they don't know what I am up to. We'll see how that goes.

*****

I am not sure how I did it, but I managed to sign up for three very different online classes that have been running at the same time. And I've not been able to focus on any of them. Sigh.

I'll get to it at some point.

Yep, it's been a busy few days, but it's all good!

Hope you have a happy Sunday!

Half Finger Gloves~Crochet Project

I did some crocheting yesterday while I watched the Broncos self-destruct during their game with the Redskins. I've been working on these for a week or so. I found the pattern in the same Crochet Today magazine issue as the Gingerbread House I made earlier.

You can see the sample here.

I started the first one using the size hook called for (but was too lazy to do a gauge swatch) and I realized that it was going to be too small to wrap around my wrist. You can't see it, but each glove needs two buttons to close the wrist area. I might have forged on, but these are going to be a gift, so I pulled it out and started again with a larger hook. (note to self...doing a gauge swatch is not a waste of time) The second time worked much better. I got the first one completed the other night and started the second one. I pretty much finished it during my football watching session yesterday. I knew the pattern pretty well by then and it worked up very quickly. What's kind of neat about this pattern is that it is reversible, meaning I made the two gloves identically and simply turned one inside out to make it fit the other hand. Pretty cool huh? I still need to put the buttons on, but I have to find some that I like first. I didn't find the exact color yarn in the sample, but this color worked out well. It's called Razzle Dazzle and it's by Red Heart, the Heart and Sole line (the yarn has aloe in it and was designed to be used to create socks).

And for those of you who have asked how Jessica's big ouchie is healing, I took a picture for you.

Here it is as of yesterday morning. She wanted to pose with her new Beanie Baby Bear that I picked up at the thrift store on Saturday. I got a bag of something like 4-5 stuffed dolls for a buck. I also found one of the cutest giraffe dolls I've ever seen for Amy for the same price.

Anyway, as you can see her ouchie is healing very nicely. Thanks for asking.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Hope you are having a good start to your week!

How About Another Digi Layout?

I couldn't resist the lure of the Sweet Caroline page kit by Kristin Cronin-Barrow over at Sweet Shoppe Designs. First off, the name of the kit brought back a ton of memories. Sweet Caroline is a song sung by Neil Diamond, who was my mom's very favorite singer. I grew up on his music. She and I would sing this song together all the time. Then when I saw the colors in the kit, I was just smitten. So I had to buy it and I had to scrap with it today.

The template for this layout is by Jacq Delphin and was a freebie from Sweet Shoppe Designs. They regularly offer freebie templates as part of challenges in the Community. This one is from 9-17-2008 and is called Cookie 51. The challenges are called Cookie Decorating.

All of the papers and elements are from the Sweet Caroline kit. I recolored one of the buttons to have each one colored differently.

The font is CTMH Fountain Pen and I reduced the opacity so it would look a little more vintage.

I added a Photoblast action to make the photo Sepia.

I really like how this one turned out.

Thanks for visiting. This was post #3 today. It's starting to snow again, and it was the type of day that one likes to hang out inside by the fire creating. So that's what I did!

Did Some Digi Scrappin' Today...

And thought maybe you'd like to see what I worked on. LOL

First up is Jessica's Big Ouchie layout.

For this one I used Kay Miller's Template from Collection 30 and Mary Fran's page kit appropriately called Ouchies. The font is Pea Jane.

And here is Amy and her pumpkin named Jack.

For this layout I used Cindy Schneider's Freebie #4 template and Mary Fran's Eerie-sistable page kit. Journaling font is Pea Jane and the title fonts are CK Ali's Writing and a DJ Inkers font(forgot to note which one I used, and I simplified the layer, so it's not one I can double-check anymore)

You should be able to click on them to enlarge the layouts if you want to see them larger.

Thanks for laughing with me about my cleaning {mis}adventures.

For those who don't know what Jello Jigglers are, I found this link. I don't usually cut mine into shapes because I don't want to mess with "scraps." So I just cut them into squares. They are a hit with the kids. And just so you know, I've got part of the old Jello Jiggler jingle running through my head...watch it wiggle, see it jiggle...sigh...

Hope you are having a great day!