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    T Tuesday: Christmas wrap(up) edition

    December 30, 2019 - By 

    Hello and welcome to another edition of T stands for Tuesday! You may have noticed that I’ve been gone a while. I talked about my back saga in the previous post so we are moving on to something more festive and fun!

    Since we were hosting Christmas (because I love it!) I had to lean on the rest of the family to do all of the heavy and not so heavy lifting.

    Even the simple things like getting a cake in and out of the oven.

    The past few years I’ve made a rum cake for Christmas but this time I went for a Fireball Whiskey cake. It was so good. I forgot to take a photo of it with the icing…likely because it wasn’t very pretty.

    We had overnight guests on Christmas eve…Mini-me gave up her bed and slept on the couch. Of course, this meant that she was up even earlier than she usually is. She is my early bird kid.

    It was a long wait…even with me making all kinds of noise in the kitchen.

    This was my favorite present under the tree…it’s hard to wrap arrows. Mini-me needed a new set for archery season which is just days away.

    Marvin had to be a part of the chaos…bows are his favorite.

    I suppose the whiskey cake could have been my “beverage” for T stands for Tuesday but instead, I thought I’d share the tiniest cocktail I’ve ever seen. My BIL brought this over. It wasn’t anything I cared for but the can sure was cute.

    I’ve been working on purging my rubber stamps. I was so frustrated digging through them trying desperately to find a Happy Anniversary stamp since I had promised my MIL that I’d make her some cards. I had a bunch of bases completed they just needed a sentiment and the also requested “shiny butterflies”. Thankfully I have a very crafty neighbor who is willing to share. Thanks, KW!

    The “shiny butterflies” have the big wow factor but are pretty easy to make. I stamped each butterfly on white card stock with black Staz-on ink. I used watercolor paint to colorize each. After completely dry, I fussy cut each and placed on a non-stick surface. I coated each one with Diamond glaze. As they dry a slight curl happens quite naturally giving them an even more “lifelike” appearance.

    I have now looked through every single one of my stamps and alas…I never even had a Happy Anniversary stamp. ugh. Well, now I do…I bought a set of sentiments at Michaels. I’m sure you’ll be seeing some cards in the near future with these words.

    Today is Mini-me’s 17th birthday. I can hardly believe it. 

    I was planning to go out and get her favorite meal… Chipotle…but we are getting a snowstorm. It remains to be seen if we venture out or not.

    Speaking of crazy storms and slippery conditions….have you seen this video?

    The video was taken a few miles from our house. Mini-me had friends on that bus heading to a girls’ hockey tournament.

    T stands for Tuesday
    What are you doing today?
  • Art - Blog - Creativity

    T Tuesday: the birthday continues edition

    May 6, 2019 - By 

    Days like today (and yesterday, for that matter) remind me how I seem to forget or perhaps had grown complaisant in my suburban bubble thinking that my world is very small. For years it really was small. Being a SAHM for nearly 18 years definitely narrows your bubble. Over the past 24 hours I have had the most wonderfully joyful experience realizing that my bubble has expanded more than I ever thought. Texts, social media greetings, cards and emails have come my way. Not that I need acknowledgment to find my place in this crazy world but I’m not going to lie…it feels good. 

    At school today I received these lovely gifts as well as a couple of hugs and genuinely lovely birthday greetings. I’m a people person, so it was really great! You can check out yesterdays post for the lovely handmade book Elizabeth sent me too.

    It also happens to be staff appreciation week at school so we started our morning with donuts, bagel and coffee (sorry no photo). Not bad for Monday morning.

    In addition to celebrating my birthday over the weekend we were in full winter/summer change-over mode as well as getting ready for J to come back from college. Lots of purging, organizing and switching stuff around. Friday, Mr. G and I will go get him and all of his stuff. Then we will definitely be packed to the gills around here. I have to put my sewing machine (which has lived on J’s desk) back away too.

    Since I knew this was pretty much the last time I had for a while I made another stack of embellishments.

    Then I still hadn’t had enough so I made a few more at my craft bench sans stitching, just glue.

    This week will go quickly I think especially with Friday off.

    T stands for Tuesday
    What are you doing today?
  • Blog

    Gifts

    May 5, 2019 - By 

    Today is my birthday. We don’t get too carried away with birthdays around here. The birthday girl or boy gets to choose their meal of choice whether that is out or “mom-made”. I decided on sushi, of course. I love sushi!!! We actually had it yesterday since our favorite sushi restaurant doesn’t open until 4:30pm on Sunday’s. I just didn’t want to wait that long.

    A couple other gifts came my way for my birthday, the first was a handmade gift from my dear friend Elizabeth. 

    We really are terrible at getting gifts to each other…it’s become a big joke between us about how bad we are at it.

    But just look at the lovely handmade book she created. I love the real bird feathers. The texture of the fabric paper is awesome.

    Thank you Elizabeth!!

    I gifted myself with something I stumbled upon as well.

    This lovely ring made from reclaimed glass. So cool. When I read the story behind it I knew I had to have a piece of her jewelry.

    It’s so pretty! It is made from a pink depression glass plate rescued from a glass dump site. I love it!!

    Speaking of not getting too carried away with celebrations…a couple weeks ago we quietly celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. We went out to eat and reminisced about our elopement to Las Vegas. Towards the end of our meal we noticed carrot cake on the dessert menu. We knew we had to buy a piece to have later that even just like we did on our wedding night. The fancy restaurant we ate at that night gave us a complementary piece of carrot cake as our wedding cake.  Sweet memories.