I really love the end of the year blog post. (Here's 2006, 2007 and 2008)
This year the big events around the Griffin house meant a new teenager, a tenth wedding anniversary, every holiday tradition celebrated with family, a new niece, a surprised 60 year old mom, a few little day trips together, meeting a sister (and cracking numerous inappropriate jokes about how many more there may be) and did I mention we have an official teenager? :)
It's fun to look back at the year we've had and forward with lots of hope for the next 365 days.
We'll celebrate tonight at home...Mac planned a menu of sliders, french fries and milkshakes...Sean just informed me he added up his running for the year and it was 1003.57 miles...and I think I might take a few minutes and make a scrapbook page with that 2009 photo collage up there.
These notes were in the mail earlier today...digitally designed (which also inspired my current blog banner) and the printed out on textured cardstock.
Here's the file if you would like to print some out for yourself...
I have a few extra thank you notes already printed so I thought I'd give them away...please leave a comment if you'd like them.
I also spent the day putting together a wintery thank you note kit...a half dozen cards with lots of fun details including some stamping with brand new Hero Arts stamps, a big scallop shaped card and new teal twine.
I also discounted everything else in the shop to clear things out for a new year of crafting.
Our Christmas was really wonderful...it went by all too quickly though.
In the weeks leading up to the holidays I had dreamed of video taping the little bits of happiness and combining them with a new favorite song...my in-laws got us a camera we had really wanted...and I had been planning (and saving) for a good long while to shock the heck out of Sean with a new laptop he needed...but not just any laptop.
So tonight I sat down with 78 minutes of poorly taped footage (I need to learn to continuously focus on people's faces) and put my very first iMovie together.
I cannot tell you how much I loved sitting back when this was finished and seeing a summary of our day...all the little details saved. Like Mac wearing the technicolored jacket he proudly came home in from the Christmas celebration at his dad's house. In addition to being so visually pleasing it has headphones built in...which he insisted on advertising by leaving the explanatory stickers on the jacket all day long. Love seeing his face as he opens gifts...and really loved that he is getting old enough to enjoy the holiday in a much more patient manner...not rushing through and then crashing when it's over.
We are super lucky though that at the same time that we get to enjoy Mac's budding maturity we get to be a part of our nephew and niece's holiday excitement. Whether it was dragging a gift off to ask for it to be opened or carefully tearing off each piece of wrapping paper and putting it in the trash, they were just so much fun to watch.
I also included, towards the end of the video, a brief display of my ability to give looks that can kill...avert your eyes if you don't want to risk bodily harm. :) Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a chastising look from your mom...
Now it's time to enjoy the after Christmas haze of new gifts, a fridge full of leftovers and some downtime together...I'm extra grateful that on this late Sunday night we still have a week off ahead of us.
Sean and Mac have been cleaning the house while I finish a few last minute items. We have three hours until the festivities start (and three side dishes to get made for the dinner we're hosting tomorrow night).
There's some jars of hot chocolate mix to give as a hostess thank you's tonight and tomorrow...
And I couldn't resist trying to make this snack to give too. It is officially a new holiday favorite...
Hopefully tonight I'll be back with a family photo...the Christmas tree, the tripod, a camera timer and us...wish me luck.
You'd think if I started shopping in August and wrapping in October that I might be done by now?
Not quite.
But being not quite done has it's benefits...it leaves me time to figure out a way to use paper I'd been hoarding.
I can wrap the gift in kraft paper and then wrap just a strip of the very favorite paper around the gift...until my complete lack of spatial skills keeps me from comprehending there was no way that strip will get all the way around the box. Then the pinking shears and masking tape come out in an attempt at looking like I meant to wrap it that way. Stamp an office tag (I'm in love with the little deer stamp), adhere it to a Hambly transparency and tie some yarn.
I said I'd share our Christmas cards today and there's about 17 minutes left in "today" so here I am.
Really when you think about it, this is ridiculous...it seems like I've taken more photos of these darn cards than I have taken of Mac this year. I guess I was just so excited they were done and tonight I'm too tired to decide on a few photos so you're getting all the inane details...
All these details seemed like a great idea when I was making one card. 56? Not so much...
I won't tell you how many attempts the photo collage took...however it is much easier to put together the photos that we happen to get throughout the year than to subject some poor soul to trying to get one good shot for the Christmas card...
Oh did I mention these were handmade? Just in case you forgot...
And the reason this card included pink was because I really wanted to use hot pink envelopes. It was fun to carry these bright teetering piles into the post office...
Had to make matching labels...oh and my mom got a card this year...I'm usually a really bad daughter and forget her...
Hi, welcome to my house. I took photos of it all decked out for the holidays so that I could give you a little tour.
Here's the cabinet in the entryway...it's kind of a mish-mash of decorations...a couple of framed Saturday Evening Post covers, a canvas I made a few years ago, and a few other bits of Christmas...
My snowman collection on top of the bookcases in the living room...
The dining room...all the cards we've received are hanging in the window...by now though that collection has tripled...on the dining room table is the wonky advent log my mom asked my dad to make when I was about six years old, a total holiday treasure...
Other holiday treasures include some decorations that were my Grandma's...
Moving on into the family room...
Some holiday photos from over the years...and my Grandma's ceramic tree...
I mentioned on Monday how part of me would love to wrap every gift in kraft paper so when I wrapped this gift for Sean the next day I was extra happy with it...
All kraft, cream and white...I even used masking tape to seal it (which I think will be my new favorite thing when wrapping gifts)
I folded the tag in half and wrote a little note on the inside...then decorated it & tied it shut to avoid anyone peeking.
Sandwich bags and big brown grocery bags. The grocery bag really saved the day because I had something to wrap for Mac that was a very awkward shape...I just folded a 12x12 piece of patterned cardstock in half for the top, punched some holes, and tied some ribbon.
Sandwich bags have been great for the final gift for Mac's school Kris Kringle (a gift card, snowman mug, and homemade hot chocolate mix with holiday shaped marshmallows) or packaging up more homemade candy to give.
Oh and I made the little photo collage and forgot to add one bag...
I think this one is my favorite with the inked a doily on the top. I usually really love gift giving in boxes so I can indulge my endless wrapping paper addiction...but the bag may be winning me over.
This was my craft room ten minutes ago...I spent these last ten minutes straightening up some and now I feel much better...amazing how a little cleaning always helps.
So today was day four of relentless crafting...this time it was teacher gifts. I got his teachers super cozy polka dotted slipper socks at Nordstroms. Mac's school also has three directors that I like to give a little something to so I sewed bags to put some candy cane bark and tiger butter in. I also digitally designed a tag for them which will come in handy to print out a bunch of since next week will be more candy gifts for all of Mac's karate teachers.
It really is ridiculous how happy sewing three straight (okay crooked...really crooked) lines can make me...
I made a PDF sheet of the tags to share (don't worry I took off "Mac & his family") Download Sheet of Tags. I printed them out on textured cardstock, trimmed them down and rounded the corners.
And I have one extra (crooked) sewed bag with ribbon to send to someone in case you need it to quickly wrap up a gift...leave a comment and I'll pick someone on Friday to mail it out to.
I just updated the shop with the final two tag sets. One set includes stitched tags and the other one includes lots of fun little details.
There are still a few sets left that I listed last week too. If you decide to purchase all three sets and type in "tons of tags" in the message to seller box I will make sure to include a few yards of ribbon and yarn with your order.
Orders will ship right away so that they arrive in time to tie onto your packages under the tree.
Thank you so much for all of your kindness and support of my little Etsy endeavor this holiday season. I have felt extremely fortunate every time someone has decided that they would like something from my house.
First I have a public service announcement to make...when I first started these "Starred" posts in August I mentioned wanting to be able to organize the posts from various blogs saved in my Google Reader...well just this week I discovered "Tags"
It's not perfect, but it will help so much to have categories to save stuff in.
Okay here is a Christmas edition since I have all those posts organized together now (too bad the collage of recent Flickr favorites doesn't show all Christmas images)...
I almost titled this post "Holy crap" but I figured "Oh dear" sounded so much more pleasant.
I'm not going to lie, it's pretty stressful around here...however there's some good stuff going on too.
The bad...
Haven't blogged since last Tuesday. Which also means I never picked someone for the couple holly tags...I picked #13 since it's today's date so they go to: Sharon Graham said... I love the tags and lets hope I win a set! December 08, 2009 at 8:51PM
I never got more tags sets made for my Etsy shop (although there are still a few available of what I made last week), but hopefully I can get somemore done in the next couple of days before tag making season officially comes to a close
Hosted the main course house for our neighborhood progressive dinner...hosting is always a good idea up until the last 45 minutes before the party
Have been super grumpy and almost downright bah humbug at times which is unusual for me (the bah humbug stuff at least...I'm often grumpy)
Heard on the news tonight that the post office is saying all holiday cards should be in the mail by the 16th for delivery before Christmas...remember when I said last week that I designed a card with a couple of dozen steps? Yeah, only about half of them are done.
Made tiger butter and candy cane bark tonight...wanted to add chocolate on the candy cane bark to try to make it even better. Kid you not we went through 4 bags of chocolate chips trying to get the right consistency to drizzle. We tried everything we could think of (included several ideas from my mother-in-law) bad words were said and oven mitts were thrown. I have never had this much trouble melting chocolate. If you have any surefire tips please let me know.
The good...
Came up with some good gift ideas for Sean and Mac...hopefully I'm all set for both of them to have a very merry Christmas
Have had too much fun along with Mac planning for his Kris Kringle at school...they were supposed to give hints last Monday and again tomorrow before they exchange gifts at the class party on Thursday. These are her hints for tomorrow which each tucked into each stocking with some candy and strung together on some ribbon. The hints are all about socks and feet to keep with the theme
Last year it was pompom garland...this year I have been entranced by the thoughts of yarn wreaths...
I made one for over my mantle (still need to take a photo) and one for my craft room...
I wrapped thick white yarn all around a smooth styrofoam wreath. Then used six colors of leftover yarn I have. The star I hung in the middle is actually a gift wrapping tie-on from Target.
Although mine is super simple there are great wreath ideas out there...look here, here, here, here and here too.
Don't forget the little tag giveaway in the post below (I'll do a random drawing Friday morning) and there are still a few tag sets available that I would love to mail out to your house :)
I have made a couple of Christmas decorations, but I haven't taken photos of them...I tried to get a photo of the wreath hanging in my craft room but the window light wasn't cooperating...I'll get good (okay decent) photos taken at some point.
I came up with a Christmas card design that only has about two dozen steps to complete each of the fifty that need to be made...don't know what I was thinking...but they'll get mailed at some point.
Like I said I would last Wednesday, I made about forty tags in two different designs tonight to sell on Etsy...planned to list them in sets and make more, but that's not done yet...it will be at some point this week.
What is done is the drawing for the stamp. I had Sean pick a number between 1 and 92...he picked #73 soooo...
Michelle said... Oh I'd love to have that stamp - how fun! December 05, 2009 at 04:13 PM
Congratulations Michelle...please e-mail me your address
The other thing that needs to get done right now is my head hitting the pillow. I'm watching my nieces tomorrow morning at 5am since my nephew is having tubes put in his ears. If you know me at all you probably know I am the farthest thing from a morning person so I need to get to sleep...
Catslife Press has new holiday stamps and I have one of my very favorites to giveaway. I'm pretty sure this super cute stamp will be the star of our Christmas cards this year...I just haven't started on them yet.
So it's time to say "pick me" for the random drawing I'll do on Sunday night. :)
I just listed five more little tag making kits. These will probably be the last kits listed, but I plan to spend some time over the weekend crafting up some sets of already made tags.
Tomorrow's the giveaway I mentioned earlier in the week...tonight is a little Civil War party at our house... Sean went to work dressed like this...
In his defense teachers at his school are supposed to wear college shirts on Thursday's...I'm guessing that this isn't what his administrator's had in mind though.
I'm off to Costco to pick up hot dogs for chili cheese dogs...I've never really made an all beef chili so if you have any tips I'd love to hear them :)
I almost ache to scrapbook...especially when I see these, these and these...oooooh and these
And the next time I scrap I might need to try this
Or I could just do some crafting general...make this or this...or maybe if I really try hard at sewing (because I am not good at it) I can make one of these
I really want to go here and I really want to grow one of these
Oh for the love of Christmas crafts...I want to make garlands or ornaments and I'm already addicted to making wreaths which I'll post about soon
