Here’s a piece I started working on a while back. When I started it she had a different face and it didn’t inspire me to finish it. So I finally got around to re-working the face and I like her much better now.
Linking to Paint Party Friday because I haven’t partied in way too long!
PS: This painting is dedicated to my mom, whose birthday would be today. I love you and miss you Mom!
In the last few days I’ve been working on some gift tags (14-15 so far). Nothing as fancy as the ones I made last year but I’ve had fun with them and that’s what counts. I don’t really have time to show them all but here are a few.
I had to use the naughty or nice stamp for the picture on the left because my G was pretending to eat dry leaves (this past fall). We made a game of it where he’d put the leaves in his mouth and I’d pull them out and say no no no! and we’d laugh as if it was the funniest thing on earth.
On the right is a more current picture of G with his Santa hat on…..Luckily I managed to take a picture because he only keeps the hat on for 10 seconds before he rips it off his head.
The rest are a little less personal but as I said before, I’m having fun with them. The “To” and “From” go on the back.
I also made all of my Christmas cards this year. Forgot to take pictures of them before I mailed them out. But alas, no hand made gifts this year. No time.
Well, this may be my last post of the year so I’ll say:
I hope you all have a very
Merry Christmas
and a
Prosperous New Year.
See you in 2012!
I thought I’d share a link to a cool tutorial named “Making Boxes Out of Christmas Cards” The boxes are great for gift cards, jewelry, or anything that fits into a small slim box, etc…You can find it here:
Making Boxes Out of Christmas Cards
It’s very easy to do. Take a look at the one I made from recycled Christmas card from last year. Because the card was a used card, it had writing on the inside. I covered it up with scrapbook paper as suggested in the tutorial. Made the box look very elegant.
If you follow the tutorial and use glue, I suggest using tiny clamps to hold the flaps in place until the glue is dry. Otherwise, it was a fun little project.
Where has the time gone? I really wanted to get back to posting more often but life sure is getting in the way. I’ve been working on Christmas cards for the family but nothing I can show. This year instead of making one card and then making prints, I am making the cards individually. That’s taking a while but I’m enjoying it.
Here is a journal page I made and it seems apropos. It ain’t pretty that’s for sure but then some of life’s bumps aren’t pretty either.
I designed and made a quick Christmas ornament with my Cricut and my Make the cut software. But I have exported the file into an SVG so that it is usable with other die-cutting programs. It’s very simple and quick to make:
You can download the file from here: FrameOrnament.svg but do it this way: Right click the link and choose “Save link as….”
This is how it looks:
The cute family is my girl, her husband and of course, the always cute Little G. Can you tell I adore them?
Merry Chrismas all.
We spent the weekend getting the house ready to set up the Christmas tree. That meant moving furniture around so I could finally have my tree in the living room window. I’ve never owned a house with a large window facing the street. Well OK, I still don’t. But the house I live in has one. So I’m a happy [Christmas] camper.
I decided not to get a real tree this year. My guy hates to clean up after them and so I decided to be nice to him this year and get an artificial tree. And he decided not to complain about putting up the outdoor Christmas lights. Yay we both win. LOL!! Ok confession time, we did it for Little G. It’s G’s first Christmas and although he won’t remember it, we will and so will My Girl [G’s momma].
In other news, I've been really enjoying the Tim Holtz 12 Tags of Christmas. However, I could never afford to create all the beautiful tags he's designed without my Cricut cutter and Make The Cut software [aka MTC]. Tim uses so many different die cuts and each set is about $20 each. So I've been using MTC to make my own versions of his designs. If you haven't heard of the 12 Tags of Christmas, here is link to the blog where the tutorials are located. Beware, tag making is addicting and the tutorials are quite long and informative.
http://timholtz.typepad.com/my_weblog/
This is what I’ve done so far:
I’ve showed you mine, now you show me yours. :)
What do portraits and rice bags have in common? Not a lot, usually, but this year they are the items I made as Christmas gifts for my family.
I can finally show it off. The portrait of my lovely daughter, that is.
Yes, I know the shadows and the mid-tones could have been better, not to mention the hair but I loved it and I think (I hope) she did too. 
It was painted from this photo:
The portrait was started a while back and sat in my studio in various stages of completion for such a long time. It became a part of my day to walk in the studio, look at the picture and wonder what else I should do to it. I know this is going to sound crazy but I procrastinated finishing it because I knew it would be gone when it was done. It was comforting having it around. Having it in the studio was like having her there to keep me company while I worked on other projects. Just in case you are wondering if I’ve gone off the deep end, No, i didn’t speak to it. Ha ha!!
But now I’m going to miss it too.
Best compliment ever - When I gave it to her, her husband said I captured “Milli” perfectly. That’s his pet name for her cute as a button nose. Awww!
Several years ago, I made a rice bag (i.e. heat therapy bag) for my husband because he suffered from migraines. He loved it. Since then I have made rice bags for other members of the family because almost everyone in his family has migraines. This year, in addition to the painting, I made a few more.
In case you are wondering what a rice bag is, it’s simply a small cotton fabric bag filled with rice and includes a washable flannel cover. You put it in the microwave for 2-3 minutes and then place it where it hurts. Because it’s filled with rice, not too tightly, it conforms to your face and feels good. The smell of the microwaved dry rice is comforting as well. It’s a quick and easy gift that keeps on giving.
Do you make any gifts for your family? If so, what were they? Please share.
Is for you and your family to have the
Merriest Christmas
and
the very best New Year.
This is the Christmas card I made for my family and friends this year. I wanted to share it with you, my very dear blog friends. Thank you all for coming to visit me.
See you when we return from our holiday trip.
I joined an ATC swap at ATCsforAll.com and the theme was Christmas trees. Here is what I made for the swap. I hope they like them because I had fun with them.
Have you swapped any ATCs recently? I hate that I don’t create and swap them more often. They are so fun.
Do you see this beautiful girl? This is my daughter Alma, “my girl”, my baby.
Every year I make the gift tags for our Christmas gift exchange. It’s something I love to do because it makes gift giving extra special. Here are the ones I made this week:
And a couple of close ups:
I use shipping tags in large and small sizes. The backgrounds are colored with stamps pads. Images come from a variety of sources such as catalogs. I use scrapbook paper to add interest. Also used are white pens for snow and silver and gold pens for outlining the images or the card itself. The snowflakes came in a roll of ribbon from Target that I cut the snowflakes from. They look very 3-d.
I created the base of our family Christmas card as well. But I will embellish each one individually in order to personalize them and make each one unique. More on that next week.
Some of my favorite gifts have been the small ones that I would have never thought I’d receive. For example, I hadn’t spoken to My Girl about my favorite cookies in ages but she read my blog about Biscochito cookies just before Christmas. When we went to Albuquerque for Christmas my dear Girl made a batch of them for me on Christmas morning. It was even more special because I’m the only on in the family that likes them because the cookies have anise in them. That precious girl got up extra early on Christmas morning to make them and they were heavenly.
Many years ago I used to commute to the next town over for work. The commute included a 5 mile trip on a two lane canyon road and many times it was in dark, rainy weather. When I’d get home I’d always complain about the tailgaters. One year on my birthday, my husband gave me the following: a pound of my favorite coffee from the specialty shop, yum, and a license plate holder that said “Back off or I’ll flick a booker on your windshield.” I died laughing and ran right out to put on the car. That plate provided many years of laughs because you could always look in the rear view mirror and catch people either laughing or getting disgusted as they read the plate holder. Yes, we have a perverse sense of humor.
So what little, unexpected gift have you received that you’ll never forget?
It’s here. It’s Christmas day and I hope you are all having a great day and have received many wonderful gifts, not all of the material kind. While I am writing this post a few days before the actual day I know that it will be wonderful as I have been looking forward to it since last Christmas. I so enjoy seeing the reactions of those who receive gifts I have purchased and especially those I have made.
I indicated in the last post that I wanted to post images of a gift I made for my daughter. It’s small book called 25 gifts and it’s made from the Advent twinchies post by Kathryn Antyr at Soul Journal. Kathryn posted 24 gifts and I added the 25th, The 25th being the “Gift of spirituality”.
Here are the twinchies (the inside pages), click on the image to see a larger view.
Here is the cover I made for it:
In the two images below you will see the circled numbers used from the advent numbers I posted a few days ago.
Since not all the images are easy to guess what is being said, i created an index at the end of the book.
Thanks to Anne, at Gaal Creative, for posting about the Zutter Bind-it-all machine. It really helped with this project. It would have taken a lot longer without it.
I've mentioned before that I like to make handmade Christmas wrapping paper and gift tags. This year I scanned some to show you what I do.
The wrapping paper is simply freezer paper painted with acrylic paint for the background. Then used more acrylic paint on a rubber stamp for the greenery. The tag is made from shipping tags, pigment ink, a rubber stamp and a Santa image.
The tags below are all made from shipping tags that have been altered with paint or pigment ink and images added. Not hard to do and yet they give your gifts a personal touch.
I am trying to get a post together for the evening of the 25th to show off a gift I made for my daughter but I may not get to it until I return from our trip to New Mexico to see her and the rest of the family. If I don't get the post together before I leave, I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I'll see you when I return on the 29th or so.
Enjoy your families and savor the moments you're together.
Thanks for reading.
This is my second year making one. Last years was a collage using incorporating my husband's and B-I-L's legs. Yes It sound weird but it came out cute if I do say so myself.
Thanks to Suzi Blu's class I actually painted a picture I like. Alright, I admit, the hat wasn't painted, I stole it from a catalog. Don't tell my family ok? This one is 9 X 12 and I scanned it to print on cardstock. I still have to mail it but I'm excited for my family to see it.
Do you make your own Christmas cards?
I've been working on my Advent twinchies from the prompts provided by Kathryn at the Soul Journal group and I needed some numbers to go with the images I made. This is what I came up with and I thought I would make them available in case someone else could use them. They are just under 1 inch in size and can be printed on card stock and cut out with a 1" circle punch. You are free to print these out and use them any way you like.
To get the correctly sized image, click on the image below. When the full sized image is on your screen, you can:
This inflatable Nativity scene popped up in my neighborhood this year. Yes, an inflatable Nativity scene and it cracks me up.
It's not a funny "box of ha ha's" kind of laugh either, it's a "that's just wrong" kind of laugh. Just who thought an inflatable Nativity scene was a good idea? And what makes it worse is that this is what it looks like during the day:
Other than the big snowmen they have at tree lots, I hadn't seen many inflatables until we moved to this farm town two years ago. People here have them all over the place. And they range from Santa's to Grinches to the Abominable Snowman. (We're a little hard pressed to figure out what the Abominable Snowman has to do with Christmas but it's a snow creature so OK.) I'm not a scrooge by any measure and I love all most outdoor Christmas decorations, but an inflatable nativity scene just makes me shake my head. Is nothing sacred?
What kind of decorations are in your neighborhood?
I want to thank Sarah Fishburn for this fun list of questions about Christmas designed to help us to get to know each other. She says "Just copy this entire note and paste into a new note on your page. (Change all the answers so that they apply to you.)" After you answer all the questions, please post a comment to let me know so I can get to know you.
1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
For immediate family, it's hand made wrapping paper and tags. The first year I did it, my family just loved it, now they've come to expect it. Everyone else gets store bought wrapping paper.
2. Real tree or Artificial?
Real but only if it comes from a tree farm.
3. When do you put up the tree?
When we are in town for Christmas, about December 15.
4. When do you take the tree down?
Jan 2nd I'd probably leave it up longer if it wasn't drying out and losing needles and generally becoming more of a fire hazard.
5. Do you like eggnog?
I love eggnog but without liquor. I think Rum or Whiskey ruins the taste of eggnog.
6. Favorite gift received as a child?
A china tea set.
7. Hardest person to buy for?
My husband Greg. I have managed to totally surprise him a few times but usually I need to ask him what he wants.
8. Easiest person to buy for?
My daughter, she gives me hints all year long. :)
9. Do you have a nativity scene?
I do, it's a small Italian set with about 6-7 pieces.
10. Mail or email Christmas cards?
Mail. And last year I started a new tradition, making our Christmas card. Last year I used a funny picture of my husband and BIL and collaged it. Then I scanned and printed it on card stock. Here is a picture from my blog post last year, it was called Still Searching for gifts? I started this year's card last night. I need a snowflake rubberstamp.
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
Probably clothes, I hate getting clothes for Christmas. They haven't been "bad" just usually not my taste.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie?
I don't watch a lot of Christmas movies but if I have to choose it would be the first Santa Clause movie with Tim Allen and the Miracle on 34th Street with a young Natalie Wood.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
I bought my first stocking stuffer on Saturday but usually I start shopping about Dec 1st.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
Nope never.
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
Biscochitos, which my aunts made when I was growing up. I also love Empanadas, stuffed with mincemeat. I've also had them with pumpkin. By the way, I just learned that in 1989, Biscochitos became the New Mexico official state cookie. This act made New Mexico the first state to have an official cookie. Too Funny.
17. Favorite Christmas song?
Jingle Bell Rock, Silent night,
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?
I prefer to stay home but we traveled last year and and we will again this year. Both of our mothers are elderly and living in NM so we'll probably go there for Christmas until they pass on. Plus my daughter lives there and I can't spend Christmas without her.
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's?
I could sprain a brain trying but could probably come up with all the names.
20. Angel on the tree top or a star?
I prefer an Angel but we've had both.
21. Open presents Christmas Eve or morning?
Definitely in the morning. I believe that anticipation is 2/3's the fun of getting gifts. My folks had no patience and always wanted to see their gifts Christmas eve, so of course I did too. But then Christmas morning we had nothing to do.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year?
That Christmas is everywhere even before Halloween. That's too much too soon. It's no wonder people are tired of Christmas before the holiday is even here.
23. Favorite ornament, theme or color?
Favorite theme, Santa. I have lots of Santa ornaments and a musical Santa that you twist to listen too.
24. Favorite for Christmas dinner?
Tamales and Posole, covered in my homemade NM Red Chile. I'm very partial to my homemade red chile probably because I make it like my grandmother used to.
25. What do you want for Christmas this year?
I really want the economy to turn around and stop eating away at our meager retirement funds. It's scary. As far as gifts? Art books or a possibly a stereo for my car that I can plug my MP3 player into. I hate listening to the radio and I always forget the change the CDs. I've had my favorite CD in the car player for over 3 years now. I think My Guy is tired of listening to Pretty Vegas. :)
Here is a Recipe for Biscochitos
Retrieved from "http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Bizcochito"
Ok, it's your turn.
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