Paper Crafts – Tools and Techniques
Did you get your entry in? If you took a picture of your Christmas card and envelope – there’s still time! Go ahead and enter! Use this Link to the Card Gallery or the link on the right, and pop on over. The cards there are really lovely, and we’d love to add yours to our Gallery! The contest ends at midnight – the judges will confer tomorrow and notify the winners! Good Luck and Happy New Year!!
Christmas Goodies, PC Hugware
This is my favorite Season, and I love the music that accompanies it! I don’t listen to Christmas music throughout the year (even if I secretly want to), but during the Season – it’s all Carols – 24/7!! I went to my daughters Christmas program at school (she’s in the band and the chorus), and I cried my eyes out! DH just looked at me in horror! I kept taking his hand and saying “it doesn’t get any better than this – these are the memories we’ll always cherish!” (No, I wasn’t drunk, just overly emotional!) Dh is the greatest, after 20 years together, he understands me!
If you took pictures or scans of your Holiday Cards and envelopes – I hope you’ll get them entered in the Green Sneakers Winter Holiday Cards contest. There’s still time, but not much! There are some great prizes, and it’s a great gallery for viewing, if you just want to browse through the wonderful cards there.
A Christmas Sampler 2, Laurie Furnell
My family is all gathered watching Christmas movies, we’re still all in our pajamas, and for us Christmas Eve is as special as Christmas Day. We have our traditions already in motion, and we give our gratitiude to Him, for we have so much to be thankful for. We’ll be watching Football all day, and enjoying our Christmas Eve fondue. We’ll watch “A Muppet Christmas Carol”, and we’ll each open one present.
Here’s a toast, wishing you and your family the most wonderful Holiday Season!
A Christmas Sampler, PC Hugware
I love holiday baking. I plan on baking up a storm this Thursday and inviting my whole neighborhood in for a Holiday Open House! I’ll be baking cakes, and brownies, and of course, Aunt Barb’s Famous Fudge, but my favorite cookie – is still the age old Chocolate Spritz Cookie. Fun, easy, and pretty!
Chocolate Spritz Cookie
1 1/4 c Butter
1 c Granulated sugar
2/3c Brown Sugar
2 large Eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
2 1/2 c Flour (all-purpose)
2/3 c Cocoa
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 teaspoon Salt
Preheat oven to 375*. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter, and sugars at medium high speed, until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla. Sift together flour, cocoa, soda and salt. Add flour mixture gradually and beat well. Shape dough into small log and place in the Cookie Press. Press cookies onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 375* for 10 – 12 minutes. Remove cookies from sheet and cool on rack.
I recently received an email asking if there was a limit to the number of entries from an individual, she went on to ask – could she really ‘flood’ the gallery with all of her Christmas cards.
The answer is – Yes! Honestly, if I had just come across this contest, (and I was eligible to enter) that’s exactly what I would do. As long as each entry is complete (a card and envelope, a supplies list and a paragraph on “Why Do We Honor the Tradition of Sending Christmas Cards?”) then, go ahead. There’s only one prize per person, per contest – but mass entries improves one’s odds, statistically speaking.
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Christmas Fun and Games, Laurie Furnell
Boy, the holidays bring out the kid in all of us. I was one of those kids who didn’t want to be a kid. I thought my parents were pretty selfish and kidlike themselves, so I wanted to be an adult, and I wanted to handle the responsibilities. And I wanted to do a good job. I think if I hadn’t had those thoughts in my head as a child, then I would have been very disappointed with the realities of adulthood. There are a lot of hard choices, even sacrifices that have to be made – when you realize you can’t have it all. When you realize that to have a spouse – it means you have to take someone else’s needs and wants into consideration (even if they don’t really respect yours), it also means you have to make them respect your needs and wants! To have children, well, for me, that became the easiest choice to make – when it became apparent that I would have to forego all of my hopes and plans for my own career so that I could care for my handicapped son – there was no looking back, there wasn’t even a second’s worth of deliberation.
My adult life didn’t work out any where near what I had planned for myself – SURPRISE!- but I wouldn’t trade what I have for anything in the world!
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Victorian Christmas, PC Hugware
I’m really a private person. We’ve lived places where my goal was to move in and later move out and have no one remember me. (We were military – it just seemed easier that way). So that’s what makes blogging so ironic – Bonnie asks a question, and I sit here and pour my heart out!! People I know may ask me about how I got all of my shopping done on Black Friday – and I’m thinking “how do you know that?” – and then I realize that they read my blog! So funny. I’m alone when I write it, I don’t picture anyone actually reading it!!
I like blogging, I like adding my art projects, (or clipart) to color up the posts, and I like to put the words out there – they are what they are.
But for anyone who happens to read this: I sincerely wish you a wonderful Holiday Season, and I wish you Joy in the New Year!
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Victorian Christmas, PC Hugware
I grew up watching and loving game shows. The Price is Right, Family Feud, Match Game, Hollywood Squares, Wheel of Fortune, etc! And it is so funny to find my children watching the Game Show Network and the old reruns of those game shows. I’m sure I saw some of them when they originally aired – you know, decades ago! My children love 80s music, too, so we have lots in common! But, when you see and hear your 3 year old baby girl singing “You Gotta Fight For Your Right to Party” – the ironies in life are clear!
There’s joy around every corner – I hope you find that corner today!
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It isn’t just the color but the depth and texture that captivates me. This card and envelope were created using the same technique – brayering on ink – but the color on the glossy paper is so much richer and vibrant. I didn’t want to use glossy cardstock when I made the matching envelope – so I used regular copy paper, and ended up with a more “matte” finish. The cutouts are made by embossing (black ink and powder) on metallic gold paper – then metallic markers were used to fill in. The swirls and stars are from a Rollagraph wheel, and I used clear embossing ink and gold embossing powder. It’s so much fun to play with color – whether in an individual project or, more large scale, designing the whole color scheme for your house. I love the challenge either way. If you’d ever seen my art supplies collection – you’d know I love to have every available color option!
Laurie Furnell, A Christmas Sampler 2
I love shopping, really, but we get almost all of our Christmas shopping done on Black Friday – and then sit back and enjoy the Holiday Season. Little by little there may be things on someone’s list that we have to pick up – or order online. That’s okay, we really don’t mind. But it is such a great thing to know that we don’t have to traverse the malls on a Saturday during the Season if we don’t want to. We may go to window shop, or to see Santa, but it’s all casual and relaxed – no frenzy.
