Thanksgiving

Well hello there! Bet you thought I got lost or something! Had a few computer issues and some family stuff going on, so I'm sorry about my lack of postings. We will take care of that today with not one but TWO posts in the same day.

First up, a recap of our Thanksgiving festivities. Both of my sisters and their families joined us for a day of too much food and lots of fun. This is a picture heavy post, so lets get at it!

 Appetizer table. Too bad everyone hated the deviled eggs!

 Foods on...lets eat!

 View from the other end of the table.

 Jacob loves him some gravy!

 Jacob also went "fishing" in our pond with the brand new ballcap I gave him when he got here and caught one of the crawfish that lives in the pond. Mean 'ol Aunt Sue made him put it back!!

 Brother-in-law Bruce, John, Favorite Only Niece Joy and her dad John.

 The Three Sisters. Janice, me, Kathy.

 Miss Joy sitting on the little stool my father in law built as his high school graduation project.

Centerpiece for the holiday table I made with the burlap flowers I am crazy about making right now!

Lucky

Combining challenges again today. Sneaking in just under the wire with Linda's challenge for the week. Based, as always on the works of t!m!.  This week sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. And also the OCC challenge which is Luck O' The Irish. I used to participate in the OCC challenge and kinda got away from it, but now my friend Anita is one of the design team members, so I'm thinking I'm gonna get back to doing that challenge again.  

Linda's challenge was to use alcohol inks and make a plaid design. And the OCC challenge was to use a BINGO card and green on your design. So I used Lettuce, Oregano, Stream and Pitch Black alcohol inks to make my plaid design. Then embossed with t!m's BINGO embossing folder. I used Gold Paint Dabber and Claudine Hellmuth Studio Charcoal Black Acrylic paint to highlight the numbers and lines on the BINGO card. Pinky helped out by cutting 4 hearts from my corregated paper using the CTMH AP cartridge to make my "shamrock" and I used some of the CTMH papers from the Crusin paper pack to spell out 'lucky" to use instead of BINGO chips. Finally a 17 from my number plaquettes and I've got one more card to add to Debbie's box for the walk/run coming up next month!

Green eggs and ham

With a nod to Dr. Suess on St. Patrick's Day. Green eggs from my Americauna chickens and one brown on from Penguin, the Black Australorp and breakfast ham slices. Yum, yum!

Rock The Block

I decided I'd best get the January CTMH promotion done before January was over. What a concept!! Most people did this with photographs, and there was always someones ear or top of their head or other body part on a different block and I thought it just made them look funny. A sister CTMH Consultant (and I don't remember who) did hers for different holidays and I thought that was a perfect idea, so that was the direction I took. I couldn't do my usual of putting all sorts of flotsam and jetsam on them since they have to lay pretty flat in the box, so I had to rely on Stickles to bling them up a bit. In the order of holidays, I did Valentine's Day and used retired CTMH Cherry-O. Easter is done with CTMH Elemental. July 4 is done with retired CTMH Independence. Halloween is done with CTMH Mishchief. Thanksgiving is done with CTMH Dreamin and Christmas is done with CTMH Wonderland. I used the CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge to cut the alphabets and any other anything that is on the blocks. Hearts, flowers, butterflies, flowers, etc. The Halloween and Thanksgiving blocks have rub-ons from the Compliments Rub-ons. I used red, silver and blue Stickles on the stars for the July 4 blocks. And see if your sharp eyes can find the two letters that dummy me put on backwards! Why do I see that after they dry?! Oh well!

Merry Christmas

We'll be spending the day with the in laws. Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas Day.

Noel

Went to Hobby Lobby the other day. They have all of their Christmas schtuff marked down 50% already. I picked up some things for projects for next  Christmas and I found these little gems! Course I couldn't wait to get paper on them! Kept them pretty simple. I was afraid if I tried to embellish them too much, the letters wouldn't fit on the blocks straight. I used CTMH Wonderland paper pack and distressed the edges with CTMH Chocolate ink.

Tricks and Treats

Jan brought pics of Jake and Joy at Halloween when they were here for Thanksgiving. I used CTMH Mischief pp along with the felt and rub-ons for this paper.

Thanksgivng Joy

It's a pretty sad state of affairs when you take your camera out and put it on the kitchen counter to take pics of Thanksgiving day and forget all about it til the cleanup is done. Suffice it to say, we needed sideboards for the table! Turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed taters, asparagus, green bean casserole, two kinds of cranberry sauce, Monkey rolls, maple glazed carrots and pumpkin pecan cheesecake for dessert. Everyone left the table holding full bellies and one or two people had to find a comfortable spot and check their eyelids for holes while they pretended to watch the football game! Jake and Unka John retired to the man cave to play some Halo on one of the gaming devices. Joy, Jan and I went into the woman cave/scraproom and I taught Joy how to use Pinky to make herself a tag with her name on it. Jan "commissioned" me to make a tag for Jake to put on his viola case with his name on it. He picked the stamp he wanted, a raccoon, and I made him the tag so he won't get any more demerits for not having his name on his case. And I forgot to take a pic of IT! The appointed picture taker for the family certainly fell short of her duties this holiday. I will strive to do better at Christmas! I did manage to remember to get a pic of Joy's tag, so it wasn't a total loss. She wanted an acorn on it and once we had it put together, Jan said it meant Joy was a nut! Truer words were never spoken!

Happy Thanksgiving

Gift Card holders

Needing a few gift card holders for the upcoming holidays, I decided to put Pinky to work. Make her earn her keep!! These are the pillow boxes on the AP cartridge and there have been more than a few of my sister CTMH Consultants who have already used this idea, so I am not the first. I used the CTMH Wonderland paper pack and made belly bands for each and embossed using white embossing powder with glitter added. The glitter doesn't show up so well in the pic. The stockings (which will be the gift tag) are also cut using the AP cartridge.

There is only one small problem. Small being the operative word. I didn't think to measure the boxes once I assembled them and the gift cards won't fit. Well, they fit. You just can't close the end flaps! They were cut at 5.5", so I think I need to go to 6.5" to insure I've got a skosh of extra room. Don't know yet what I'll do with these, but they're too darn cute to throw away.

What's that old saying? Measure twice, cut once.

Halloween Configurations

This is the smallest of t!m Holtz's Configurations box that is now discontinued. Like so many things, it's been sitting in my "to do" pile for a while now. Waiting for the CTMH Mischief paper pack to come along! It's got a little of a lot of different companies and manufacturers in/on it! All of the paper is from CTMH MIschief. There's t!m's bottles with corks that I used Glossy Accents and CTMH Reinkers in Black and Orchid Bouquet and mixed together and poured in and let set up to look like some concoction or another. The labels on the bottles are 7Gypsies. The witches hat I found at Michael's along with the spider, web and candy pieces that I used some Stickles on for shine. The big pumpkin was also a Michael's find and it has a bell in it. The number 25 (and YES, I know Halloween is the 31st. There was no number 31, so I used what I had!) and the "opal" are also from t!m's collection. I used Distress Crackle Paint in Frayed Burlap and Scattered Straw on the front cover of the box, then after it dried, went over it with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. The stamp set for the sides is the set that comes in the Mischief Workshop On The Go and I added Stickles to the candles for some brightness.

So...is it Oct 1 yet? I can't wait to put my Halloween decorations out!

Halloween Houses

I found these Halloween houses last year at Michael's. They were 75% off. So I basically stole them! I brought them home and put them in my "to do" pile. And there they've sat. I guess waiting for CTMH to come out with Mischief paper! They were both supposd to be covered in the paper. But the two tall skinny houses together were giving me ulcers because I could. not. cut. the. paper. right. The wonky angles got the better of me and after I ruined one whole sheet of my Mischief paper, I decided I'd just paint the darn things. And because I get these pictures in my head, they were not turning out like the pictures in my mind. And I couldn't make them look "right" to me. I kept futzing with them and this is what I ended up with. Nothing like the picture in my mind, but good enough! Now the little short, squat one I L.O.V.E! The shingles on the roof turned out just like the picture in my mind. I cut Desert Sand cardstock and used my distress tool on three sides then inked the shingles with black ink. LOVE them! I think it's the best part of the house! And yes, the ghostie came with the house! How cute is he?

Washi welcome

I knew I wanted to make something for JoAnn & Bill for Christmas using the Washi paper she sent me. I thought about making a "welcome" sign using the alterable wooden trays I'd seen at Hobby Lobby but once I got there and really looked at them, I decided they wouldn't work for what I wanted. And since it's already the middle of June, they not only have Fall merchandise on display but also Christmas! OK, I get that they have to get the stuff to the stores, but can't we at least wait til after the 4th of July to display it?! All of their Spring merchandise was discounted 60% so as I was perusing the aisles looking to see what I couldn't live without, I found an already done Welcome sign that I knew I could alter with no troubles. I got it home and covered the letters with the Washi papers and let it dry then cut out around each letter. I had some Japanese embellies that the Japanese family and friend Jill had sent me, so what better use for it. So everything on the piece is Japanese. The ribbons, the crochet flowers and the paper flowers and dots. Debbie had sent me the cutest silver tone sushi platter tchotkes quite a while ago. I've used a couple on other projects and still have a few left. So there is one on the "O" as well. JoAnn moonlights on weekends at a sushi restaurant around the corner from their house taking phone orders, so I thought that would be appropriate.

Wii got moves!

Nothing like being 4 months behind on scrapping pictures! But I have an excuse! My printer was majorly malfunctioning. Every time I'd try to print pictures they would come out overly blue or red or aubergine. We took it to the tech geeks and were told that because it was sooooooo old, it would cost us more to repair it than to just replace it. And they just so happened to be having a "trade in" sale. So we bought a new printer. This one's wireless and we can send pics directly from our phones to the printer. Very cool! Now I have no excuse! So I'm finishing scrapping my Christmas pictures.

This one is brother-in-law John's brother Jim...affectionately known as Unka Him. When Joy was learning how to talk, she had problems with her J's so Uncle Jim became Unka Him. And while Joy can now pronounce her J's just fine, I still do, and will continue to call Jim, Him! After our feast at Jan and John's on Christmas Eve, the kids pulled out the Wii Dance and Unka Him (being the biggest kid of all!) had to show off his smooth moves!

I used some ooooooold Scenic Route papers for this, along with the layout (and stamp set) from the "You and Me" kit again. I just love this layout design! The alpha is a new CTMH product called Newsprint Rub-On's. I did outline it in Cocoa ink to make it stand out a bit more.

Thanksgiving

Although I have no pictures because the photographer of the family (that'd be me!) forgot her camera, I can attest to the fact that there was wayyyyyyy too much food! Youngest sis Jan's Brother in law and his significant other bought a home this past year and they wanted to have Thanksgiving dinner at their place. And they invited OUR family too! Kathy, Bruce and Kyle had Bruce's dad and step mom here from Atlanta and mom had made other plans, so it was just John and I and the PopPop clan. There was probably 20ish or so of us. Jenn and Jim had TWO turkeys and a roaster chicken that never even got close to a knife PLUS a Honey Baked Ham. Two ginormous crockpots of smashed taters, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole and my World Famous soy sauce and lemon juice marinated green beans with sesame seeds, Tastefully Simple beer bread and three other types of rolls, corn pudding, whole kernal corn, stuffing, TWO veggie trays, a cheese tray, a melon/grape/berry tray all with accompanying dips, deviled eggs which the kids polished off in 12 seconds flat! (and I DO mean the kids. Not one single person over the age of 16 got a single one!) They had 5 types of Village Inn pies, plus Jim's oldest daughter baked and decorated a chocolate cake and I made a Cinnamon Chip Banana Coffee Cake and there was ice cream and/or whipped cream to go on/with the desserts. OMG! I thought I saw the Partridge in the Pear Tree running for dear life, but I could have been mistaken! Instead of saying Grace, we went around the room and each told what we were thankful for. Gotta love the kids! One of the nieces was thankful for her IPhone! Joy was thankful for the Beach and Jake was thankful for the Earth. Not too shabby! We ate til we could eat no more. I was miserable and I never even had the first bite of dessert. We all got "go boxes" and I think Jim and Jenn still may not have to cook til mid March of 2011! It was a wonderful afternoon and evening. Family and friends and being thankful to have both. Isn't that what it's all about?

Thanks/Joyful

We have a new item in the Fall/Winter CTMH Idea Book called the Mix and Mingle album. You get 3 clear and 5 white chipboard die-cut shapes along with jump rings to attach them. I've seen different people do different things with them and "borrowed" ideas from each of them to make 5 of these. I've given them to people already as an early Christmas gift. I wanted them to have them to enjoy this holiday season. I didn't want them to hang like my Sue's World Famous Coaster Hangings do, so I used the jump rings to attach them so they can be placed on a table. Once Thanksgiving is over, all they have to do is flip it around and they have a Christmas decoration. And in a nod to sister Kathy who likes "flat" things that store easily from one season to the next, they fold up pretty flat!

I used CTMH Olivia and Mistletoe paper packs along with CTMH Solo Alphabets. There are three or four different leaf stamp sets, which were a major PIA to cut out! I stamped all of the images and cut them out over the course of a couple of evenings watching TV! I used up lots of Christmas themed stuff from my stash as well.