Just Make Stuff

What we've done...

We made Thanksgiving dinner and funny faces as I tried to take photos...

 

 

We set the table with little felt napkin rings that we literally crafted about an hour before dinner...

 

 

 

We ate lots of the delicious pies my sister made...she made something like seven pies which just further ensures her the title of super-mom...

 

We made a gigantic mess in the kitchen...

 

We snuck in a tiny nap...

So that we'd be all ready to decorate...

 

and decorate some more...

 

and we did the random number drawing...so the two stamps go to...

I love them all...but especially the one with the little house..they are all wonderful-thanks for the inspiration!!

Posted by: Cat Geiger | November 28, 2008 at 08:03 AM

you are always so generous>
love your tags!
tara

Posted by: tara pollard pakosta | November 30, 2008 at 01:27 PM

and the two envelopes of tag kit leftovers go to...

Nora,
You are such an inspiration. I stalk your blog daily. Love your style and love how genuine you are!!!

Posted by: Tana P | November 28, 2008 at 08:32 AM

ALWAYS wanting a piece of your creativity! Love the place cards too.

Posted by: Tracy | November 28, 2008 at 03:54 PM

Now I just need addresses e-mailed to me please so I can get to the post office this week.

We're off to run a few errands and finish up the ever-present Sunday night responsibilities. I'll have the annual Christmas decoration photos to share sometime soon...

12 weeks of Christmas...

It's officially Christmastime! :) 

By the end of this weekend the house will be full of Christmas lights, decorations, and I'll be able to move my pile of gifts under the tree.

Those gifts will have tags from last weekend's class...here are some of my favorites...

 

I have put together two envelopes with various class leftovers to share and I have two of the "To...Love," stamps to give away also...so just tell me you them and I will pick four random numbers on Sunday.

Happy holiday weekend! :)

Grateful...

...for the two boys I get to spend my life with

...for the home we get to live in

...for the friends and family that will fill it tomorrow

...for the food I get to prepare

 

...for my very favorite holiday :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

A bit of this...

I finally have a little crafting to share. Earlier in the month I was asked to participate in this and put together a few things with the supplies I was sent to work with...

 

 

 

Then today I did the "warm-up layout"...you know the first one after not scrapbooking for awhile...the one that reminds you "Oh this is what that's like"...it's not your best stuff but it just feels good to make something...yeah that. :)

 

Except I don't think I'm really going to get a chance to warm-up to doing anything else...instead I'll need to be making other things...like a mess in the kitchen... 

Sunday happiness...

Just some things that made me happy today...

 

The turkey Mac brought home on Friday hanging on the fridge...I usually don't hang things on the refrigerator so even Mac noticed it was a special occasion

Speaking of the fridge it is full...so is the one in the garage since we did the major Thanksgiving shopping trip today. We ended up buying two turkeys (18 & 19 pounds) to ensure plenty of leftovers next weekend. We split the cart into two separate purchases to get two of the "spend $25.00 get a turkey for cheaper" deals. My purchase consisted of 8 packs of cream cheese, four pounds of bacon and two bottles of wine...sounds like a happy (and fat) Thanksgiving to me. :) Oh wait it's not that I manage to cook all that cream cheese and bacon into Thanksgiving dinner...I was just trying take advantage of good sale prices. Don't want you thinking, "What the heck does she make with all that stuff?" :)

 

And speaking of making me fat...here's the chocolate croissant and tea I had for breakfast when we got back from taking my mom to the airport this morning. She and my brother went on vacation to Oregon with my mom's best friend's family...I just talked to her and they are already having so much fun. They have plans to meet up for lunch with Sean's mom tomorrow and I was "helping" a.k.a. insisting them with the idea of stopping by a cupcake place I'm dying to try next time we're up there.

Anyways back to the croissant...it's one of those frozen ones from Trader Joe's that you set out over night before baking and one of my very favorite every-once-in-awhile-on-a-weekend-morning indulgences. 

And since we're watching my mom's house I decided we should capitalize on the opportunity to surprise her by hanging Christmas lights for when she gets back. She hasn't had them up in a few years and last year right before Christmas it occurred to me that we should do it for her so we took over some of our extra "Charlie Brown" Christmas lights (that's what I always call that style for some reason it just reminds me of Snoopy's dog house) and Sean & I got them all set up while Mac walked her dogs around the block.

You know how you visually plan a photo you want hours/days ahead? (Please tell me I'm not the only one who does this) This is the one I wanted...no, not of Sean's butt...but of hanging lights by her cool script address that's been hanging over the front door since we moved in in 1984.

And what made me happiest today was that these piles of Christmas tag supplies got used up last night...(oh and speaking of setting up a photo I totally stole this one when I saw someone in the class taking a photo of the pile from their kit I went running over with my camera to get one too)

I'm SO lucky that I got to see everyone crafting up such great ideas last night...they put together the tags in the cutest ways and even added stuff like glitter which is a supply I'm totally afraid of using...so it was extra fun to see how brave they were. :)  

I plan on sharing the tag ideas on Friday for a 12 Weeks of Christmas post...it also occurred to me to have a couple extra supplies on hand to share with you guys as a thank you for helping with my school survey...which I'll be spending a lot of time working with this week to get ready for my presentation. Oh and before I forget Thursday's ribbon giveaway went to comment #26...

Posted by: ~Kim | November 20, 2008 at 07:46 PM

Kim please e-mail me so I can get your address.

So I have big plans for these few days before Thanksgiving...a bunch of school work and a little scrapbooking...it has been too long since I made an actual page of anything and I'm dying to figure out something good.

Thanks for hanging in there and reading this endless rambling...I guess I'm just all chatty with happiness...food, Christmas, and craftiness will do that to me. :)

Chaos...

 

That's what it kind of feels like around here...piles of stuff covering most of the room as we finish up getting ready for class tomorrow. I'm not gonna lie, it has been driving me CRAZY that I cannot stay on top of the mess in this room. I guess that's just what happens when you're preparing the supplies for 720 tags...yikes.

But I did get a chance to laugh today as you'll be able to tell from the shaking camera...Mr. Griffin agreed to dance in the school spirit assembly...look closely he's in the back right in the center of the screen in all his terrycloth head-banded glory (he usually will wear them when he's out running...trust me it's quite a look)...

Have a good weekend. :)

12 weeks of Christmas...6 to go...

Six weeks till Christmas? Where is time going???

I did a little Christmas shopping today since I needed to run out of the house to pick up a stamp I needed for class this weekend. I got my mother-in-law checked off the list and a very good friend and her daughter...I am so excited about the gift Igot for them and would love to share the idea, but it occurred to me she might read this so it'll have to wait until we get together (hopefully sometime really soon).

I have a ton of wrapping to do now and I will be putting the obscene amount of ribbon I bought a couple of years ago to good use...

I have discovered that I love just simple knot of grosgrain ribbon a package...

 

So I thought this week I'd share a few yards of my solid colored grosgrain ribbon with someone...if you're interested just go ahead and leave a comment saying so...oh and if you would like to share a very favorite appetizer recipe I would love that as I plan for my progressive dinner party...but with all the recent class project survey requests I'm sure I have asked plenty of you guys lately. :)

What to read...

 

I have been happily piling these up as they arrived in the mail in the last several weeks waiting to dive into all the photos, articles, and recipes for Thanksgiving since it's my very favorite holiday.

Today though I inadvertently found out about other things to read.

So yesterday you dealt with lovey-dovey...tonight it's all about woe-is-me.

I just happened to stop by the Sociology graduate school adviser's office today since I had a meeting with one of my professor's in the office next door. I introduced myself to the adviser and explained that Iwas eager to be a new graduate student in the Spring of 2010. She didn't hesitate in telling me that because of the order of the classes there would be no way I could start in the Spring that I would have to wait till Fall 2010...9 months later than I had planned. I was in shock...I mentioned later in our conversation that my face must have really been something when she told me the bad news and she confirmed that oh yes it was.

I am just so frustrated and disappointed. A few weeks ago I thought I was ahead of the game when I'd finish up my two degrees next Fall, but now I'm left dealing with 9 months of empty time.

She tried to be helpful and suggest I use the time to shore up my knowledge in Sociology listing off a bunch of books I should use that time to read. She tried to reassure me that in the grand scheme of things that it was no big deal.

Technically she is right, in the grand scheme surely I will survive...but honestly tonight all I feel is defeated.

Wiser?

 

Okay bear with me as I go all lovey-dovey here for a minute.

I love him.

But most importantly I am really starting to love us. We have worked hard...really hard over the years to get to the place were we are now in our relationship. That place happens to be where disagreements and frustrations are resolved quickly and in a fairly kind manner...as opposed to the days-long destructive fights we used to have. We no longer try to out-stubborn one another for the sake of "winning". We are forthright about wanting to end the consternation and get back to everything being okay. We actually listen and admit what we do wrong.

In all honesty most of "our" problem was me...I'm pretty vicious when I'm hurt and angry. I always knew from a practical standpoint that the issues should just be resolved, but I'd always let emotions take over and turn most simple disagreements into utter disasters.

For some reason in the last year everything has started to shift and we both have found new commitment to making this an 100% happy relationship instead of 90% good 10% awful. Now when we argue I have a completely different perspective and I can see that Sean does too...I don't know if it's a symptom of a little growing up...maybe we're wiser or more patient...but whatever it is it's working. 

So I just wanted to celebrate a little "us" success tonight...surely we'll have more issues in the future but we can stay on this same path we'll be just fine....and I feel so lucky that I can say that.

Uneventful...

 

Beyond Friday night's party hosting for my brother's 26th birthday (if you're keeping track that would be hosting 4 parties here in two weeks) this weekend was pretty boring.

As for the party it's not really fair to say we hosted...it was just at our house and we helped my mom prepare a feast...wilted spinach salad, pork chops, potato casserole, strawberry pretzel salad, candied carrots and homemade applesauce. We teased her pretty ruthlessly for cooking for like 50 people instead of the 11 we were having. My brother brought really good cheese from the fancy grocery store he's been working at and my sister baked a Bart Simpson cake...so all in all we probably looked like the slackers in our family.

The rest of the weekend was spent running a few errands, working on school work and putting together more of the kits for the tag class next week...like I said kind of boring as far as sharing fun stuff on the blog, but there really is something to be said for good old fashioned productivity.

Speaking of which I was able to get through all of the surveys (with a lot of help from Sean)...142 of them. Thank you all so, so much for giving me such great stuff to work with for my project...and if you're reading this and haven't gotten a chance to fill it out (Download Survey Final Draft) I would love to be able to get the count up to 200 surveys before I start running some of the statistical analysis...had to get one last pitch on here. :)

12 weeks of Christmas...7 to go...

 

This week I thought I'd talk a little about gifts...our pile is slowly growing and hopefully will start multiplying rapidly since this weekend our holiday savings account is due to cash out for the year...I've decided that this year we're taking it out in cash and spending it that way so I get a much better idea of where (and how quick) it's going.

I think some of my very favorite gifts to give have been whole family gifts...I got in this habit from sending gifts to my dad and his family...in the past I've sent them a collection of board games...or sent everyone cozy new pajama pants...but my very favorite whole family gift idea is sending a collection of Christmas movies. I'm so excited to put together another movie collection this year as a gift for other family members of ours.

Day off...

 

Sean and I are off today and I am hellbent on getting everything known to mankind done...you know those kind of moods? He is kind enough to really start making a dent in all the class kit preparation (those are the bags waiting on the couch ready to be stuffed with lots of crafty contents) as I work on schoolwork...which means I have the survey done and ready to go.

I am resisting the urge to make some dramatic announcement that involves me pleading for your help, but suffice it to say...

You are my project dear blog readers.

My idea will not work without your input...I kind of have a crazy pipe dream about getting hundreds and hundreds of responses and would LOVE for you to be a part of it. You'll see when you download the survey that I am incredibly curious about the subject matter and that I have an innate ability at rapid fire questioning...just ask Sean he'll tell you. :)

Here is the survey...

Download survey_final_draft.doc

and here is the e-mail address to send the completed copies to...

[email protected]

If you have any questions please feel free to ask...the survey is for anyone who is reading this and is willing to participate whether you have children or not...I am SO ridiculously eager to hear your thoughts no matter what age and stage you are in life.

Okay I'll be officially holding my breath until I see lots of responses start to roll in. :)

Victory...

 

I just might have done a little victory dance in my kitchen last night when it was confirmed that this 23.7 bird was cooked perfectly which was such a relief since I had worried about it all day long...and why was I cooking turkey almost three weeks before Thanksgiving? Because of "Friendsgiving"...a tradition with one of our groups of friends.

We hosted again this year which meant we were officially on turkey duty (and soup and stuffing duty too). This meant we rearranged the dining room and living room furniture to make plenty of room for everyone...

 

 

It also meant I couldn't resist an attempt at craftiness...with some place-cards and mix CD's as little favors...

 

 

Then our friends filled our kitchen with food and wine so we could stuff our faces all the while talking and laughing...and reminding me how incredibly grateful I am to call these people my friends.

 

 

 

Now quickly shifting gears... I have some important business to attend to. If you are reading this please keep your eye out this week for the post about a school project I mentioned weeks ago. I am working hard to put together a survey and I am hoping to gather lots (and lots) of responses...thanks so much. :)

12 weeks of Christmas...8 to go...

What is about a square and a triangle? It always makes me happy to put together these two simple shapes to create a little symbol of a home...

These are the invitations for our neighborhood's annual holiday progressive dinner, this will be our fifth year so I decided to make that my little holiday preparation theme for this week.

We have organized our party several different ways...one year with a house to have a champagne toast, one with appetizers, one with salads, then a main course, and of course finish with dessert. This year we're going to do three houses to simplify a little...appetizers, main course, & dessert. We will spend two hours at the appetizer house (which happens to be mine) to give plenty of time for us to congregate since we all seem to run a little late. Then an hour and a half at the other two houses. In the past we have done crafts for the kids and even did a neighborhood Secret Santa.

By hosting appetizers this year it will mean that I have done every house...one year salads...one year desserts (Can you see that I'm big on having a make-your-own bar type of serving? My mom taught me that.) and last year I did a main course meal.

I know the holidays are busy, but this is such a great party to plan...to open your home and only be responsible for one part of a meal...and it's still potluck because everyone who is not hosting a house brings dishes to one of the courses. By planning this one party five years ago we solidified that this street is a neighborhood...we have gone on to develop other traditions too...and most importantly have become true friends.

Still can't believe it...

I will be teaching a holiday gift tag class at Scrapbook Oasis on Saturday November 22nd at 7pm...and in each class kit will be one of these...

a perfect stamp for tag making that I was lucky enough to get Catslife Press to design especially for this class...the package came on Saturday afternoon and I've repeatly gazed at the pile in disbelief that I had an idea and two weeks later it's a little crafty reality.

I would love to have you join me in stamping with these at the class but if you can't make it I know the Oasis is always happy to ship class kits.

The weekend review...

Oh my goodness was this a nice weekend...just not long enough, but they never are.

Before I forget to explain it was crazy hair at Sean's school and he clearly got into the spirit...it was fun to run a few errands with him looking like that...thank goodness it was Halloween.

First we had the Halloween party...it was so much fun to chow down on some pizza and then head out to take Mac trick-or-treating...I usually only walk our street with him and then send him on his way with Bryce and Sean but this year I did the whole walk with our neighbor's, Bryce and his girlfriend, and my sister's family...so cute to see Caleb holding tight to Mac's hand as they made they way from house to house...

 

When we got home they had to dissect the bags of candy...

Then about 12 hours later we hosted another get-together...

 

I set the dining room table full of colorful mismatched place settings so I was already to host our annual neighborhood planning breakfast so we could work out the details for our holiday progressive dinner.

Then I wrapped up a couple of birthday gifts to send off to my dad and his wife...coffee for her and my very favorite tea for him...

 

 

Sean and I spent the evening running some errands...mostly accomplishing some Christmas shopping. At Target I made a point of grabbing a little bottle of hand sanitizer to have in my school backpack...I thought it be a good idea to start using as I hear more and more people with colds and hacking coughs especially since I have two computer classes and have my hands on the keyboard and mouse. Wouldn't you know I woke up with a cold this morning...and by this morning I basically mean the middle of the night because I kept waking up from the congestion and sore throat...how's that for irony?

Hot tea, a hot shower, and some cold medicine got me feeling okay so thankfully it didn't really interrupt all the usual Sunday domestic responsibilities...including a little more work with the contents of that basket I mentioned last week...

 

I will hopefully get a chance to share what it's for tomorrow, but I'll leave you with a hint...it pretty much starts with a "c" and ends with "lass" :)