Homemade Christmas

Once again it was time to celebrate Christmas with my best girlfriends with our annual exchange of homemade presents. I scored the necklace (above) from my friend Rebecca. I also got a dozen tamales and some lip gloss, but don't have photos of either because they were immediately pressed into service. The necklace is made from sculpey, stamped and baked and glossed. I love it. the pattern on it reminds me of something from nature, and fairly African in look. I have got to learn how to do this!

My friend Stephenie P. made me a homemade pillow. I love this, it will match great on our guest bed. It is very fun and funky and has a great style to it.

My friend Stephanie B made felted items for us. I really had no idea what i would get from her, because we were together when we saw felted items we loved. I knew she was working with felt this year, but had no idea what she would come up with. This is already on my table.

A friend of Rebecca's knew we had a homemade exchange and contributed carved wooden pieces for all of us. I got a door stopper but have it on my bookshelves right now. It looks like a beautiful piece of sculptural art to me.

What did I give? Well, of course I don't have a photo to share! I went with an office theme and made everyone a lunch bag made from oil cloth, monogrammed notecards and a frame with flowers on them. I used felt and card making type flowers for decorations on the frame. Next year I'll have to take photos of my own gifts, too.

As for the Lemon Cookie recipe:

1 box Lemon Cake Mix

1/3 cup oil

2 eggs.

Mix together and drop cookies onto a cookie sheet for about 10 minutes. Cooking time varies based on the size of the dough balls. Mine were fairly big so I baked them for 13 minutes. I added a bag of white choc chips to stretch the dough and made a double batch. You can use this recipe with any kind of cake mix. Imagine Red Velvet cookies rolled in powdered sugar before baking. Next for me will be chocolate fudge cookies with butterscotch chips. It is not an original recipe, but one found on the internet. God Bless the internet. I do love it.

I Should Go To Bed

I should be getting ready for bed, or at least finishing up with the kids, so they can go to bed. I have been chasing Seth up to bed at 9PM. He is the slowest person ever when it comes time to get ready for bed. I am going to buy a timer and if he doesn't have pajamas on, teeth brushed, and the potty used, he will be grounded the following day. Half the time I find him asleep in his clothes, on top of his blankets with a book nearby. Scott will wake him up and change him into pajamas and sit him on the toilet. Me? I strip him naked, and if he sleeps in a wet bed, too bad for him. He can bathe in the morning.

I made the card above with the Baseball Hanna set. And the one below is from Hanna's Tis The Season set

The SCS challenge today was to use the white gel pens we all have. All I can do is doodle with mine, but a lot of people seemed able to turn out highlighted works of art with theirs. I gotta get some lessons apparently. I did highlight the tree andthe snow beneath it, before I resorted to random doodles on my card.

Can you believe I have already bought Christmas presents? I see things on sale I know the boys will like so I buy them and store them away. I just hope they are still excited about their water guns in December.

Early Christmas

We went to spend the day with the inlaws who live about 2 hours away and have Christmas with them. This year we met at a rec hall on a local college campus, Indiana Tech. The kids bowled, played ping pong, air hockey, pool....there was a lot to do. Noah got what he had been longing for, a long board. It's just a longer than usual skateboard. We had to order it on the internet and have it shipped to the in laws so they could give it to him. He was delighted! He tries to stand on it and rose on it sitting, but secirity told him he had to put it away.

I am okay with that, as we were inside. He was sad, so I took him outside to ride it. Security came out and told us skateboards are not allowed anywhere on campus and that he needed to carry it, wheels off the ground, and to the car. Good grief! I can see their point, as some kids canbe reckless and endanger themselves and others but the rule should be that you can ride your skateboard if you have close parental supervision. Of course, some parents don't supervise as well as others.

Seth got a caboose for his train set and some more track. We had taken his train set along so he could put it all together and play with it. His caboose arrived broken and Scott needed tools so he could fix it. The tools are at home and we were not. Seth looked pretty pathetic most of the day.


This is an ornament I found at the Dollar Tree. It had a snowflake design that looked like it would come off easily, so i took it off and added Hanna. i stamped her on vellum and cut around her and glued her gently to the ornament. She came with the little fake stryofoam snowballs inside. I added Diamond Dust, but it just sunk to the bottom and didn't mix in.

Since I have all the Hanna Stamps a girl can own, I am dreaming of a Papertrey Christmas. I'll know in a few days if anyone followed my list, or if I get more coffee products that I don't drink.

I don't mean to sound bitter, but 1) I don't drink coffee, or very many hot drinks at all except for the occasional hot chocolate or tea. 2) I would never spend my money at Starbucks as it is such a large chain and is too expensive for my tightwad personality. Never the less, someone always gives me coffee or gift cards for Starbucks to which my husband who loves both coffee and Starbucks says THANK YOU!