Hello!

I just wanted to let you know I am still kickin' around, and that I've survived Christmas. I hope all of you had a great holiday and were able to spend some time with the ones you love. I got to do that, and I was spoiled with Christmas gifts too! I'm a very happy girl!

Currently we are up in Collingwood, visiting family and skiing. I went out skiing today for the first time in about 15 years. Uh huh, I am crazy...how did you guess? LOL Ok so I played it smart and I had a lesson today so I could remember what I am supposed to do on skis. It felt weird to have them on my feet-like my size 10's aren't big enough, now I had to contend with ski feet! I did ok at my lesson, and only fell four times. In an hour. That's once every 15 minutes. Is that bad? I actually had a headache when I was all done, because every time I fell on my tush, my head hurt a bit more. I guess we know where I keep my brains! That explains a lot, actually....

Anyway, I didn't bring my stamping stuff up because I figured the car would be full enough with the girls' and my hubby's ski stuff(and when I pack stamping stuff, I am not a light packer!), and because for Christmas I received the last two books from the Twilight series, and I brought one with me. I should have brought both! I'm already 3/4 of the way through number 3 and I am going to want to read number 4 right away! And it is getting really good! I can hardly wait to see what happens, but I don't want to give anything away for anyone who hasn't read it but wants to. You have to hurry to read it so I can talk about it, ok? I am restless, not knowing what happens!

I would like to send out a big Happy Birthday to my friend Jacqui! Hope you had a great day! I've been thinking about you today-yeah, thinking about how hard you'd laugh watching me trying to ski! LOL I would have laughed at me too, I bet it would have been hilarious to watch! Anyway, I hope you were treated well and spoiled rotten!

Have a great day!

Festive Friday #3!

Happy Festive Friday! I hope you're having a great Friday so far...of course, Fridays get better with each passing minute, because you inch that much closer to the weekend! Even though I don't work outside the home, I love Fridays because it means my girls are here for the weekend, and every other weekend my husband is here Saturday and Sunday (not just Sunday). Also, on Friday mornings I volunteer at my girls' school with the reading program. Every Friday, I have the same 5 children, one at a time, who sit with me and we read. Of course, I also like to chat with them about their siblings, their plans for Christmas, what they're asking Santa for...and so on. I could just sit there with them for an hour and just chat, they are all so adorable! Now that I've been doing this for almost two months, they've started to come out of their shells a bit, so they open up more and have fun. I really look forward to my time with them every Friday.

So, for today's Festive Friday, I've decided to showcase a cased card I made. I know we've all seen a Christmas card or two, but I thought this one would be appropriate because it is elegant and quick to make, which doesn't always happen. I love the Dasher stamp that SU has this year, he is so beautiful. Of course, all of those swirly things around his antlers are just screaming for some kind of bling, which as you may know, I love to use! As you can see here:

I stamped Dasher in plain old Real Red, and didn't emboss him (because he looked pink by the time I was done with the embossing gun). The white embossed piece was done with SU's pointsettia embossing folder. I like SU's folder a lot (and hope they come out with many, many more!) because unlike some other folders, this one embosses the entire card, and there are no un-embossed borders left on the outer edges. It's true! I trimmed down the white piece for this card, but what I trimmed was all embossed!

Well, I'm done patting myself on the back for being on time this week, I'm off to run errands. Have a great weekend!

Donna

An Ode to Mugs...

I'm very sorry for not posting last Friday. I didn't forget, I just didn't have anything to show. The weekend was a bit of a blur, too. I'm just now catching my breath, and only because my youngest is ill, which makes me homebound for the day. Otherwise I'd be running about, working on my Christmas shopping. So it's stamping, cleaning and hopefully baking on the agenda for me today! Oh, and blogging!

The idea for this mug came from the SU mini. They had a picture of a nice white mug with a silver snowflake rub-on on it, and it looked gorgeous! So of course, the next time I was out and about, I checked out the coffee mugs to see if there was one that would fit a snowflake or two on it. I found these ones, and they weren't that costly-always a plus! So I picked up a couple, washed them, and put the rub-on snowflakes on them. The pictures above are of the front and the back of the mug.

This is what it looks like all decked out. Unfortunately, I still have to spray some acrylic (?) spray on it, so the mug can be washed without the snowflakes falling off. I think what I'll do is put tape around the top of mug so no one is putting their lips on the spray stuff, and then wrap it back up.

I'm thinking I'll put a gift card in it and the girls can give this to their bus driver. She is very sweet and the girls love her. When I rode the bus in elementary school (a loooong time ago!), my driver was this whacky lady who used to talk to herself! LOL And every once in a while she'd try to shift gear and the bus would groan loudly. I don't know if she forgot to use the clutch, or it was fussy and only worked when it wanted to.

When I went to high school, I had the same lady, but she didn't seem so whacky. I came to understand that when she talked to herself it was a kind of road rage (I'd be lying if I said I never complained about other drivers, especially when I'm late for something. Which is always! People in glass houses, you know...). Of course, it was a mild, 80s version of road rage, not the scary kind we hear about now. She was, all in all, a sweet lady, and was complaining to herself more than anything else. I don't think I ever gave her a gift, which she would have definitely earned, dealing with some of the kids on our route! And because she came to know my sister and I, and how we were always late-even in high school I was not a morning person! There were many a morning my sister and I got in our workout for the day by running to the bus stop as she patiently waited for us! LOL My sister always got to the bus before me. I always blamed that on the fact that my books were heavier and I had to take home more of them, since I was older and had more homework! LOL That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

So one gift down, lots more to go! I'll be posting some of my Christmas cards on here this week, too. So stay tuned! I will be back this week!

Take care!

Donna