Merry Christmas Friends!

An Irish Christmas Blessing

The light of the Christmas star to you
The warmth of home and hearth to you
The cheer and good will of friends to you
The hope of a childlike heart to you
The joy of a thousand angels to you
The love of the Son and God's peace to you.

I pray that your holidays are joyous and filled with love! God bless!

I Give UP. Onto Christmases Past.

What is it about this time of year? I swear I claim I do not stuff our schedule with happenings but it seems I do not have the time to continue creating anything. It's a matter of priorities. So, I'm officially giving up on the 12 Days of Ornaments. But I made it 5 days. Last year I only made it 3! Improvement! So maybe next year I'll make all my ornaments in November and save them to share.  (Of course, you know as soon as I say this, I'll be able to get in the studio every night until Christmas and create. It's Murphy's Law. We believe in that...)

So, in honor of my blatant quitting, I'm sharing a post from last year where I made ornaments. (Hopefully you won't think less of me for re-blogging, and lump me in with your feelings toward re-gifters. I mean well. *smile*) They were pretty, plus the post includes my daughter's famous Ginger Snap cookies. They are famous really. Everyone requests them. In fact, this year my father contacted her to make 6 dozen cookies for his cookie exchange at work and he would PAY HER. Being only 11, this was her first job and she knocked it out of the park! She was also paid by her grandma to make another 6 dozen, although we used the tried and true peanut butter w/Hershey's kisses recipe.

Oh! I forgot to mention I did create something recently. A card for my Secret Santa recipient. I hope he/she likes it! (the colors at the bottom are not really red/white/blue. They're more cranberry, cream and aqua. The do actually match the card.)

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Here is the post from last year:

Yes, the Christmas muse is still visiting. But she is getting tired of the same hot chocolate and homemade ginger snaps I'm serving everyday so she is eager to move on to someone else's studio. Anyone willing to invite her over for a visit? She's hogging all the ginger snaps anyway. I'm partial to my dd's homemade ginger snaps (see recipe below.) *smile*



Red Lead has the most adorable Christmas collage sheets (just search by Christmas Collage.) Especially the vintage photos of children with Santa! I'm enthralled! And this trim they carry (blue trim above) is just like that sparkly icicle stuff you throw on the branches of your tree. I've been having fun playing with it!


New Christmas Ornaments for my tree. Is it too early to put it up, at least in the studio (if I ever get it cleaned?!!!)

The Little One's Ginger Snaps


Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup cooking oil or shortening
1/4 cup molasses
1/4-1/2 cup sugar (according to your sweet tooth's preference)
1 egg
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
+ 1/4 cup sugar (for rolling)


Instructions:
Throw it all in a bowl together (except the last 1/4 cup sugar) and mix with an electric mixer. Shape into balls. Roll in the remaining sugar. Place on a greased cookie sheet. Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 8-10 minutes, depending on your oven (ours cooks it to perfection in 8 mins.) Cool cookies on wire rack. Arm yourself with a spatula to fend off cookie hogs, and enjoy! Makes 30-50 cookies.


Let me know if you try them, I wanna tell the little one. She loves to bake and always ruins my low carb eating when she makes these. We can't resist them!

Let's Pretend It's Day 5 - 12 Days of Ornaments

Yeah, ummm okay. Let's just pretend today is December 5th, and I'll be sharing the 5th day of ornaments. I know its not the 5th but Sunday got away from me with church, kids portrait sitting with grandparents, little one caroling with her singing group and the teen running off to sub-work at Game Stop. Busy hectic. I found myself working on my ornament late at night, catching up on Amazing Race. At 11:45 pm I conceded that I would not get my ornament done in time to post, so I resolved to 'post it tomorrow'. Well, tomorrow turned into 2 days, then 2 days of migraines and here I sit on the 9th of December. But you don't really care, lonely blog, what day I post to you, do you? Only, that I visit and post!  So here goes.

But just to appease the blog visitors, I have a special bonus looky-loo show-in-tell for you! After the ornament... 

(P.S. This is not the original day 5 ornament. I still did not finish that one. So you're saved from handsewing skills for the moment.)

OH WAIT! Let me tell you about my evening (it has to do with the ornament.) I have a nice group of local friends who I rarely see but are still my good friends. And whenever we get together there is no awkwardness, we pick up where we left off last time we were together. What makes them so special in my heart is, they're all homeschoolers and Christian women. They were the people who helped me on this journey of homeschooling and every year, even though I've been homeschooling for 10 years now, they patiently answer all my hairbrained questions about the subject. They are a living indispensable fountain of info, that I so desperately need. They are also all artists in their own ways. And that is what makes them even more dear to my heart. 

Anyway, I planned a quick Christmas get together since I had not seen most of them in months. We met at a local restaurant and became fast friends with the perky waitress! We exchanged handmade Christmas ornaments. The one below went to my good friend Trisha. The ornament from Day 4 went to my other good friend, Rhonda (in case you cared what I was doing with my creations.)

NOEL ORNAMENT

(There are no close up step by step pics, since I was working furiously to finish this tonight before my party. It's pretty easy though.)

Supplies: 

scrap of wool

metal letters

brads

lace scrap

sequin trim

collage image (I used one from Altered Pages)

old book page

shimmery spray

gel pen

gaudy hot pink (or whatever color) plasticy leaf piece

sewing machine

This is super simple!

1 - Cut out a rectangle of wool. Could also use felt. I didn't measure but mine was a bit bigger than an ATC's 2 1/2 x3 1/2" size.

2 - Punch 2 holes in the top left and right parts to string your hanger through.

3 - Cut a 5-6" piece of sequin trim (or any ribbon will do) and thread through the holes from the back to front. I lightly glued them down on front to hold them in place for the next step.

4 - Take a piece of lace and run it through the sewing machine, gathering it like I showed you on this initial post as well as this ornament post. Easy peasy.

5 - Take gathered lace, layer over wool (hiding ends of sequin trim) and sew a zig zag all the way across.

6 - Tear a piece of the dictionary paper to fit the middle of the ornament and  spray with shimmery ink . Glue down, centered.

7 - Chose your favorite collage image and glue down in the upper center of the dictionary page.

8 - Draw around the image with a regular or gel pen.

9 - Pick out letters to spell a word (I used the letters for NOEL.) Line up where you want them to lay and put a dot through the holes at the top (if yours do not have holes, just add glue to the backs and adhere, skipping the use of the brads.)

10 - Use the brads to attach the metal letters.
11, Cut off a piece of the sparkly leaves and sew to the collage with the zig zag on the sewing machine. 

This is a great way to use up fabric scraps. If your scraps are thinner, just glue to a piece of cardboard first.

Now for the show-n-tell (all images are from Altered Pages.) I couldn't just take my ornaments to the party wrapped in anything plain. Oh no! Plus the bags I used were blue. That didn't seem very Christmasy to me. So I gussied them up. 

Three cheers for gussying! I thought they came out nicely! And just using regular ole' supplies. I did emboss the bags before making the collages for the fronts and then gluing said collages down (stamped used for embossing was from RedLeadPaperworks.com.) I think my friends liked them...

Okay, that's it for today. Cross your fingers, I get another post up tomorrow. I do have another ornament I finished waiting it the wings!