Saturday, December 31, 2011

Last Post of 2011 - year end wrap up

When I look back on this year, I can't believe what a busy year it has actually been. At times, I wondered what I actually got accomplished and if I was just spinning my wheels. Turns out, I was more productive than I thought! Here is just some of what went on in our lives this year:
January:
Started the 12 month bag challenge, but only made it one month when this bag almost did me in!

My tags for a Valentine's Tag Swap:

February:
Back to Brave Girl's in Idaho:

Classes with Jackie:


March:
Jackie's Easter Egg Class:

April:
Las Vegas Trip - my first time!

Patio Finished:

Visit to Connecticut:

May:
New Front Door:

Birdsong at Karla's:

June:
The British Virgin Island. Oh Yeah!

July:
My big project for the month was cleaning, organizing and painting the pantry.

August:
Spent fighting the heat and garden pests, but enjoying the backyard.

September:
Kc Willis Collage Camp

Jackie's Halloween Spool Class

Handmade U!

October:
We traveled to Connecticut for my cousin's wedding,



Joao's birthday:


and to visit my family.

And of course, no trip is complete without a day in New York City!


I ended the month with a trip to Texas for "A Wicked Tea"

November:
Doug and I traveled to Omaha for Rachel's wedding.

I participated in a Fall Tag Swap - here's my tag:

December:
White Christmas Tag Swap

Lots of Christmas Parties: Cloth Doll Club, Doug's work Party, my work party, other business related Christmas parties, and our annual party for my Investment Group:

Wow! If you made it through all that, you are a trooper!
Here's to a happy, healthy and productive 2012! Can't wait to see what the new year has in store for all of us. :)

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas!


This time of year seems to fly by, doesn't it!?!
We had a very nice Christmas - quiet and low key which is how I like it. As much as I miss family, it's kind of nice to not have any where we have to be on Christmas Eve and Christmas day and it allows us to really enjoy our time together.
This is what I got for Christmas: A Babylock sewing machine!

I can't wait to have an afternoon to sit down and test it out. I'm hoping to take a sewing class in January but the wait list is almost 50 people long. Makes me wonder why they don't offer additional classes?
I'm working on my list of goals for 2012. I have a feeling it's going to be a very good year!

Monday, December 19, 2011

Gingerbread Men

So, I've wanted to make gingerbread man cookies for several years now. I went out and bought all the ingredients, looked up a recipe that had good reviews and set out to make my cookies. Let me just say that the recipe from allrecipies.com was a complete and utter disappointment. The dough was way too sticky, I had to add a ton more flour than the recipe called for and honestly, the cookies totally lack flavor. However, my cookie cutters made this flop kind of fun.

Each one is dismembered in some way in that it looks like a bite has been taken out of them.
Yeah, I'm sick - I colored some of the icing to look like blood.

If I wasn't laughing so hard at my sick humor, I'd be crying over the recipe flop. Oh well.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Investment Club Christmas Party

Every year our Investment Club has a Christmas party and it is usually hosted by Suzanne. She always outdoes herself with the most amazing decorations! I think I counted nine different trees.

Every nook and cranny is decorated.

I thought I was something when I used to put up two different trees - never mind nine! She has a snowman tree, a pig tree, a black christmas tree with New Orleans decorations, and a tree filled with Radko ornaments.
I love this one for Oklahoma.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Week in review

I love starting my season out with hot chocolate with Bailey's Irish Creme and a little whip cream. Warms me up and puts me in the Christmas spirit. ;)

Tuesday night I went to a Christmas party at Southern Hills Country Club for The Oklahoma Trust Company. The Club's decorations were incredible although I don't have any pictures.
I took my "little sis" out for a movie on Wednesday night. She wanted to see Twilight which I was a little apprehensive about but her mom said it was okay so we went. I haven't read any of the Twilight books but my sis has read them all. By the end of the movie I was actually in to it and was disappointed to be left hanging with that storyline. I probably won't go back and read the books and it remains to be seen if I go see the sequel when it comes out, but now we can say we've seen it.
This year for Christmas I am sponsoring a little 4 year old girl that lives on an Indian Reservation in South Dakota. If you watched the 20/20 special earlier this year you remember seeing that this is the poorest place in America with devastatingly high incidences of alcoholism, unemployment and even suicide. I had heard about these people from a friend of mine, KC Willis, who I met this year when I took her class at the Paper Crown in OKC. KC actually visited the people of the reservation and brought them a truckload of much needed supplies such as diapers, formula, blankets, clothing and food. Check out her blog and friend her on facebook if you feel like you would like to help.
Anyway, I've been collecting some toys and other fun things for this sweet little girl who KC told me loves animals, and this week I came across this precious little pink sparkly purse with a monkey inside. I hope she likes it! I like it and I think my four year old self would have loved to have one of these.

I packed up a big box of goodies and got them in the mail yesterday. I hope it makes her Christmas a little brighter, I know it did for me.
I attend a doll club here in Tulsa called the Dolling Dames. The club sponsors two artists a year to teach classes in Tulsa and is just a fun way to get together with other like minded people for sharing and accountability in creativity. I've only been a member since this fall but so far, I love it!
Yesterday, the Dolling Dames had our Christmas Party at Jean's house. Jean's house is a museum of creativity with her awesome studio and dolls and other handmade things everywhere you looked. I still don't think I saw everything! Anyway, for our party, we had a gift swap which had to be doll related. Each person brought a gift in an unmarked bag. The gifts had to be doll related and they could be a doll or any supply related to doll making such as fabric, trim, beads, etc. Each person picked a number and got to chose from a gift under the tree. I purchased a set of Micron markers since cloth doll makers use these markers on the face and for other detail. Plus, I thought markers are one of those things that are great to have but when I have money to spend on supplies, I don't like to have to spend it on things like that. Here is how I packaged them.

The gift I received was this sweet doll with a purple boa from Sherry Parks.

If you have any interest in cloth dolls, you should really check out the Dolling Dames website. There are some incredibly talented ladies in this bunch.
This sweet bottle snowman made by Shauna Henry was the door prize at our Doll Club meeting yesterday and I won!

Last night we went to an "ugly Christmas sweater" party. Can you believe that I had the hardest time finding an ugly sweater? I went to Goodwill and Salvation Army and they were all sold out! Doug ended up buying one at Walmart (I absolutely refused to pay retail for an ugly sweater and $5.00 was my maximum budget). The party was already in full swing by about 8pm and I'm imagining that there are a few people who don't feel so good today. As the designated driver, I behaved myself and am so happy that I'll get to enjoy my day and my investment club Christmas Party tonight.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

My White Christmas Tag

Apparently, either I can't follow directions or my creativity is stifled when I try to complete a project according to the guidelines. Or maybe, this is just my interpretation of White Christmas? Yeah, that's it...

I painted the tags a light shade of pink and then covered them with white snowflake ribbon. Then, I rubber stamped the candy canes, covered them with stickles and modpodged them for a shiny look. I added a couple of white feathers and made the Christmas sentiment on them by rubber stamping, shading and stickling (is that a word?) them. Finally I punched a hole in the top, put in a grommet and added tulle at the top.
Here are the backs of my tags:

Now, I'll drop them in the mail and await the arrival of the rest of the group's tags. Underneath this project is my 25 days of Christmas album I'm working on. As usual, I've got a million projects "in the works".
I thought I was finished with swaps until after the holiday but at the last minute I was invited to participate in a Christmas Alphabet book. My letter is "D" and I have to make 26 copies of my page. I've been thinking of ideas and hopefully, I can come up with something cute.