Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

(Below is the Christmas card I designed for this year)

Christmas Quizical

I always see these cute little Q & A's on other people's blogs and I think they're so fun to read. I came across this Christmas one and as I found myself answering it in my head as I was reading, so I decided to hop on that train...

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper, all the way. I rarely give gifts in bags (I first typed this bags in gifts...Christmas Eve nap necessary maybe?) Wrapping gifts went up a notch this year with crafting pom-poms and stamping (see a few posts below).

2. Real tree or Artificial? I think I may have a slight allergy to real, but definitely real.

3. When do you put up the tree? I don't have a tree, but for me no decorations of any sort before Thanksgiving. November 25--game on.

4. When do you take the tree down? Decorations down by the 1st ideally.

5. Do you like eggnog? Don't love it nor hate it. There's just something slightly off-setting to me when I pour something in the glass, and go to rinse it out and it leaves a film that only soap takes off. However, I am making an eggnog cake today.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? My mom was (is) a great gift giver. Christmases were fun!

7. Do you have a nativity scene? No! :( I do not have one yet (nor many decorations). That being said, starting with a clean-decorating slate is exciting for me, and I love getting to choose just what I want. I remember my family's generic nativity scene as a child (which my barbies would visit) and I know that I really want to find something a bit more meaningful for me. I would love to pick up a nativity scene from Israel or Africa, or this GORGEOUS scene made out of driftwood that is at a store downtown. But until it is 75% off, it won't be mine.

8. Hardest person to buy for? Male cousin and nephews; they are all teenage boys. That's all I have to say about that.

9. Easiest person to buy for? Roommate and my mother.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Nothing is coming to mind...blocked out maybe? I do remember one of the more shocking gifts as being an anatomically-correct boy baby doll when I was young.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Elf, and Love Actually. And How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Dr. Suess version, not the Jim Carry version. Yikes).

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? When I see something on sale. Or that's just right, so usually in the spring.

14. Ever recycled a Christmas present? Nope.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Peppermint-Mochas from Starbucks. And only in the red cup. With half the chocolate. And non-fat milk. And no whip. And no foam. Yes, I'm that girl when ordering at Christmas time.

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Depends.

17. Favorite Christmas song? O Holy Night and O Come O Come Emmanuel.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay home.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Prancer, Comet, Cupid...Blitzen?

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas morning.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? This year: yesterday, when taking a trip to Trader Joes and Publix for a few ingredients and it turning into a 2.5 hour trip (which is usually a 30 minute trip).

23. Favorite ornament, theme, or color? Classic.

Hiking

One more thing that happened in the past couple months is that my birthday twin and I turned 26! We spread out our celebrations over 2 weekends (I have learned from wise people over the past few years that it's good to spread these things out), and we started the celebrating with a hike up Blood Mountain. While in hometown we had been enjoying unseasonably warm weather, for a while it was cold. And it was COLD the weekend we went hiking. The bulk of N.'s and my conversation on Friday night involved how many layers we were going to be wearing. 5:30 a.m. came early enough (to a remark later of, "why do we never do anything late?" [see HH trip]) and we were off! We drove and drove, parked, and got going.

Well, we got going after N. saw the sign about bears in the area, "what do you do?!?!" and trying to sort out the way, N.-"are you sure this is the trail?" Me, "no."

But we made it! And it was beautiful!

All the pictures from this trip were from N.'s iPhone; I was advised by N. to not bring my camera. Something about "falling" and "breaking it." It's like she knows me or something.

P.S. Final layer count: 7

catch-up.

Hey, blog. It's been a while. Oops.

What's been going on...

-some design gigs for some friends and photo-shoots (some even paid!)

-planning & running a women's retreat (yeah!)

-traveling north because of a family member's death

-reconnecting with some family because of said incident above

-house sitting (wee!)

-Thanksgiving

thanks Moores!

-Christmas crafting (see post below)

-indulging in my love of Pinterest, where amongst many jewels, I have found:

the recipe for my new Sunday morning staple, Greek Yogurt Pancakes

and inspiration on how to make a Halloween toilet monster for my roommate:

-Also, I recently discovered Jane Eyre. OMG. The newest version of the movie...OMG. This sparked me reading the book (late, I know), which is calling to me now.

black friday wrapping party

I feel so accomplished when I do things on my Pinterest boards, don't you?  It's just so satisfying that the hour+ I spend searching results in something tangible.  My friend Mary took it a step further recently and organized a Christmas present wrapping party based on ideas that she had gleaned from Pinterest.  I know, I wish you had been there too because it was SO MUCH FUN.  :D

Enough of talking, more of the showing.  The basic ingredients in this craft party were brown postal paper to wrap the gifts in and then festive and fun paraphernalia (stamps, yarn, paint, candy canes) to decorate the gifts and handmade cards with.

I discovered a love of making pompoms.

Some of Mary's masterpieces:

 

Some of the favorites I made:

Collage of Mary's work:

Collage of mine:

AND there will be a round 2 soon!  Woo hoo!  This party went on as long as you had presents for, and I hadn't done my Etsy orders yet.  They are on the way though and I can't wait to make them pretty!  

Looking for some great handmade gifts?  You should check out my friend Katie's beautiful work here, http://www.etsy.com/shop/LinenLaidFelt.   She makes books:  guest books, photo albums, journals...they're beautiful!  I have a custom photo album order in for a family member for Christmas and I can't wait for them to get it!

Looking for a skirt?  My friend Catherine makes them!  Here is her website.

There are not pictures of it (crafting is hard work!), but we also made handmade Christmas cards.  Again, it was such a fun day!

Closet overhaul.

A new guy got hired at work. In the two weeks he set up shop, he managed to decorate the kitchen space more than my entire dwelling space had been decorated in thirteen months. Cue some external motivation to get to decorating. And what do I start with? The hall closets. Right when you come inside, there are two closets on your left. Up until a couple weeks ago they were a disorganized mess without doors. One of those, "I'll take care of it later" projects.

A few pictures (I'm almost embarrased to show this level of disorganization...):

I know. BAD.

Every wall and the bigger furniture in the house is cream. The doors to the closet that were waiting to be hung up are cream, and that's just a little bit of too much. And it's a tight space, so I really wasn't super keen on the doors. Fortunately roommate didn't care too much in either regard and she didn't balk at my suggestion of curtains for doors AND she liked (too strong a word maybe...tolerated? okay with?) what I found on super sale at T.J. Maxx so yay for curtain doors:

It's ridiculous. I grin almost every time I see them...they make me THAT happy. They're a pretty blueish-green color. They brighten that space up a bit in a subtle way. Decorating hit.

The inside got a revamp too. It started with the space just being sorted properly. I put some shelves and baskets in there, and covered a bit of cardboard to put down on the wire-shelf to be able to support shelves on top of it:

Please disregard the scruffed up wall. I can't see it with the (pretty) curtain-doors closed and I don't care enough to magic eraser it.

"actually good"

Achiever is one of my top five strengths on the Clifton strength finder test (along with empathy, developer, discipline, and responsibility). It inspires me to do things at work like say to myself, "oh, that bulletin board hasn't been changed in a few years, let's offer to re-do it!" Yep. I wasn't told to, but there was this display that hadn't been changed in a number of years and it just needed a make-over.

My canvas:

I spent some time on Pintrest hunting for ideas. I got the main bit of inspiration from some great vintage travel posters. The board was about international missions and had had a map on it with push-pins on it where the international students had traveled from. That element had to be retained, so I spent time hunting down maps from the different continents and then listing out the countries.

Add some 3D art with some letters, panels, burlap, and a little word art,

and voila!

My favorite part of constructing this thing was when main boss man goes, as I'm showing him a panel, "that's actually good." Thanks.