For my Christmas cards/postcards, I used Amy Tangerine’s postcard stamp and Sunny Studios Holiday Style stamp sets.

I used Stampin’ Up inks Old Olive, Pear Pizazz and a couple of Crayola markers in different greens on the limb and then used a a brown marker to highlight the branch on the tree limb.  I used a Hero Arts Soft Granite ink on the first layer of the bell.  The second layer of the bell I used a Memento Dew Drop called  London Fog and the last layer I used Versafine Onyx Black Ink.  On the sentiment from Penny Black called the Wonder, I used Cherry Cobbler ink from Stampin’ Up.
On the postcards, that were 5 1/2′ x 4 1/4″ high, I used silver gel ink to connect my bell to the branch.  On the cards, I cut my postcard down to 5 1/4″ x 4″ and used silver thread and used a pokey tool and punched a hole by the branch and on the top of the bell and using a needle, ran the thread through both holes and then tied a bow at the bell.  I then used tape runner to connect the top piece to a red layer that was 5 1/2″ x 4 1/4″.  I used green glitter washi on the envelopes for the cards.
I really liked how my cards came out and hope you do as well.

It’s crazy how I can get so far behind in the things I need to accomplish before the holidays.  I just finished writing my Christmas cards.  I had made the video for them but so many other videos needed to go up before that one, it’s just a mess.  I’m trying not to panic, but I have to wrap all of the gifts for the Christmas family and there are a lot of them.  I try to make it easy on myself by buying laundry baskets for each member and putting cleaning supplies and things that don’t really need to be wrapped in the baskets.  This year, our family needed so many basic necessities that I bought Rubbermaid storage tubs for each of them and plan on putting things inside those that I won’t need to wrap as well.  I’m really disorganized.  I haven’t even ordered the gift for my closest friend yet.  Now that’s not good.  I’m custom making a pillow with a photo on it of her dog and I’m not sure how long it takes to make it, but I’m sure it won’t be here for the holidays.  I’ve been trying to order it for three weeks, but every time I try to upload a photo, Snapfish tells me the resolution on the photo I’m using is too low.  Geez, I have no idea how to fix that.  So Rich has been trying to find another photo and I’m trying to come up with alternative ideas for her gift.  I have another friend that I want to make a coaster set out of Scrabble letters as she loves Words with Friends.  I have no idea why I can’t seem to get them made, but it’s just one more thing I haven’t accomplished.  I think taking a vacation in the middle of December really puts my Christmas organization into the crapper.  I am trying not to panic, but there’s a chance I might go nuts before Sunday.  You never know.  I can’t imagine how people get things done when they have to buy and wrap gifts for a lot of people.  I have a friend that has 36 family members (her children, their spouses and grandchildren) that she buys for.  I can’t even begin to imagine how she gets that done.  And she’s always finished and wrapped long before I’ve even thought about wrapping.  I need to take lessons from her on time management, or better yet, just give her my list and let her run with it..

I like making holiday collars for the dogs and they needed new ones this year as we didn’t have Honey last Christmas.  I thought it would be fun to make felt cover collars with felt flowers on them.  Here’s how I made them:

Buy an inexpensive collar (I bought mine at Family Dollar for $3 or under.)  Fit it to your dog so you know you can pull it over their head to take it off.  Once you’ve done that, unclip the collar and set it aside.  Cut your felt so that it is long enough to go from one end of the vinyl to the other end of the vinyl, you’ll only exclude the clip closure in your length.
Measure the width of the collar and make sure your felt is over three times as wide as the collar.  If your collar is 1″ wide, use at least a 3″ wide piece of felt.  I used wool felt because I liked the colors better and you need your felt to be longer (normally) than the small craft pieces of felt.  Once your felt is cut to the right size, you can glue it onto the collar.  I used clothespins to hold it in place when I hot glued it together.  It’s much easier to have enough felt to completely wrap it around the collar.  (You can do the same to a headband for a child.

To make your flowers, start with a 3″ square piece of craft felt in colors you like.  Trim the corners so it is rounded.  Then cut into the felt and make a snake shape.  Once you’re almost to the center, cut a circle.  Snip off the point you started cutting and start twisting your felt in a circle shape.  Hold it as tightly as possible and keep your bottom flat and keep turning your felt until you get to the center and put a huge dollop of glue to cover the entire bottom and then lay the circle on the glue and put it flat on your craft mat and hold it there to set the glue.  I also put small dots of glue on the flower as I turned it, so I was sure the glue would hold.

If you want a smaller flower, start with a 2 1/2″ square or even a 2″ square and follow the same directions.  These would work better to attach to a child’s barrette or headband.

I made leaves by cutting a leaf shape in the green felt and made a double leaf by folding the felt in half and cutting from the fold and making a leaf shape but not cutting the entire end that’s folded so the leaves are connected.

I used a long piece of gold and red trim and hot glued it onto the center of my collar.  I hope you enjoy this craft.

Finally, the Christmas mini album video is live.  I was beginning to think we wouldn’t get it online until after the new year.  I’ve been trying to get caught up with videos I absolutely need to do before Christmas and one of them is to make my dogs their Christmas collars.  In the past, I’ve bought Christmas collars and I’ve decorated some as well.  It only seems right that this year I make them their collars and show you how to make them for yourself.  I made felt flowers for on their collars and show you how to make them and ways you can use them if you don’t have dogs (or cats.)  I like the idea of showing you a craft that works for pets or kids, so everyone can find a use for them.  I’m not sure how other people make their felt flowers, but I show you how I do it and I would bet a lot of you are thinking I could have found an easier way, but it works for me so why fix it if it’s not broke.  Hey, I wonder where that saying originated.  Here’s the scoop from The Phrase Finder..

Meaning

If something is working adequately well, leave it alone.

Origin

Humans seem to have the urge to improve things. Prehistoric hand-axes were made by repeatedly chipping small flakes off pebbles of flint with other hard objects. Million-year-old examples of these have been found that give the impression of being ruined by being chipped just one time too many. That pang of regret we have probably all felt after spoiling something by adding that unnecessary final touch was first faced by Ugg in his cave.

The thought may be Stone Age but the phrase ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it‘, which sounds as though it might come from the Roosevelt or Truman era, is more recent than that. This one is widely attributed to T. Bert (Thomas Bertram) Lance, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget in Jimmy Carter’s 1977 administration. He was quoted in the newsletter of the US Chamber of Commerce, Nation’s Business, May 1977:

Bert Lance believes he can save Uncle Sam billions if he can get the government to adopt a simple motto: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” He explains: “That’s the trouble with government: Fixing things that aren’t broken and not fixing things that are broken.”

Lance certainly did popularise the term but it seems to have been a colloquial phrase in the southern states of the USA before his celebrated use of it; for example, this piece is from the Texas newspaper The Big Spring Herald, December, 1976:

“We would agree with the old Georgia farmer who said his basic principle was ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.'”

Several correspondents from the southern states of the USA have commented that they recall the phrase from well before 1977 – some saying the 1930s. That may be misremembering (which is commonplace in the dating of recently coined phrases) or it may be that the phrase existed in common parlance but not in print. It would be surprising for a phrase to exist in the spoken language for the best part of 50 years before it appeared in print. The Internet has changed the way that new coinages spread and these days a datable record of a new phrase will be apparent within a day or two. Even in the days of newsprint, 50 years is hard to swallow. Here is an barchart of the hits that a search for ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ finds in an very large archive of 20th century newspapers:

I would suggest that the notion and possibly a variant of the phrase may well have been around for some time before the 1970s, but that the present-day wording of the phrase began then.

George Bernard Shaw’s ‘two countries divided by a common language’ comes into play here. The phrase has to be American. In England things don’t get broke, they get broken. I know that ‘ain’t broke’ is intended as a knowing southern yokelism, as opposed to ‘proper’ American, but it is one that wouldn’t have originated anywhere else.

<grumpy old man mode>When US websites ask ‘Forgot Your Password?’ I always mutter “No, but I have forgotten it”.</grumpy old man mode>

In a few short years, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ has, even in the UK, become so established a part of the language as to have become a cliché, which is an unusually quick ascent and descent. Nevertheless, it’s a close call as to whether Lance is now best remembered as coining that phrase or for William Safire’s pithy description of him as ‘Carter’s broken Lance’ after his resignation in 1977, following the Calhoun National Bank corruption scandal.

I used the Christmas bags from the Dollar Tree haul and red and green paper to match.  I had a pack from a garage sale to create a scrapbook page and used that.

I cut my bags to make sure they would fit  4 x 6″ photos so made my bags each 6 1/4″ long.  I used a bone folder to really make the bags flat.  I cut an inch off of the ends of each of my bags, but you should check yours to make sure yours are the same size as mine.

You will need to put tape runner under the bottoms of the bags to make sure they are adhered completely to the bag.  After I did that, I folded the bottoms toward the bag so the blue bottom shows and then glued two bags together with wet glue on three sides of the blue bottoms facing each other.  Hold them in place until the glue holds.

Each bag has two places to create a pocket and I didn’t like that, so I cut the top and bottom edge of the bag and then folded it back and cut the top and bottom edges closest to the center of the bag and then folded those two papers down and glued them together and folded the top layer on top of them and glued it down.  It makes for a nicer finish with only one pocket instead of two.

I used tear tape to put may book together and put wet glue on top of the tear tape so I could move the book if it was uneven.

I’m not going to give you the measurements for the papers I used to cover the book because every bag is different by a small amount and you’ll need to measure your bags and determine what the size will be based on your book.  You should make your bottom paper 1/4″ smaller than the size of the bag and the designer paper should be another 1/4″ smaller.  If you bag is 6 1/4″ and you want to fit a 6″ photo on it, change your measurements to 1/8″ smaller than the book.

I used a green ribbon that matched my book that was about 20″ long.  I put tear tape on the middle outside of the book to attach the ribbon to.

I used the embellishments that came with the scrapbook page kit for my decorations and they came in really handy, but you can always buy embellishments to match the paper you use.

I cut small matching red and green papers and decorated them to go into the small pockets and cut bigger red and green papers to go into the big pockets of the album.  Again, you’ll want to measure your bags to make sure the pages slide in and out easily.  I punched holes in the smaller papers so they are easier to pull out of the small pockets.  I didn’t think it was necessary on the bigger pockets because the papers are easier to grab since they are big enough to hold a 4 x 6″ photo.

I hope you enjoyed this video and if you have any questions, please let me know and I’d be happy to answer them.  I apologize it’s taken so long to get this video up, but it is a long one and took Rich a long time to edit.

I had this outdated looking grapevine wreath ornament and thought it would be fun to give it new life. I used holly berries and leaves, red pearls, gold chevron metallic ribbon and a Santa pin that I removed the pin from and glued to the bottom. I think it will look terrific on a package or hanging from a tree.

I wanted to make a small decorated Christmas tree and thought it would look nice with a lot of glittery balls glued into it as well as holly and ivy glued into the limbs. I had a star shaped ornament I glued to the top as well. I used a strand of clear lights and hid them within the branches.
The tree wasn’t very attractive when I began, but looked great when I was finished. I had about $5 invested in the makeover.

I had a long time while on vacation to think about crafts.  You see a lot of handmade items when you travel and I love it when I see people who make their own jewelry.  I’ve bought everything I need to make my own, but have never tried to make anything.  After Christmas, that’s all going to change.  I have plans to make earrings for myself as I tend to lose them (or Honey steals them), and I hope we can learn to make them together.  Once I’ve mastered them, I’m on to bracelets as I absolutely love to wear several of them at once.

First though, I need to do a big haul video of the things I bought over the Black Friday weekend.  I never realized that craft sites would have the kinds of deals that they had and I bought too much and too many things and had a great time doing it.  One of my girlfriends has kept a log of when each site has their sale and what discounts they offered.  I’ll make sure to get a copy of it and put it on my site and on this blog next year, so we can all budget our crafty spending together!

I watched Jennifer McGuire’s crafty things 2016 videos and lost my mind with buying things.  Then Joann’s had a big online sale and I found a lot of individual Spectrum Noir markers I didn’t have for less than $2 each, so bought a bunch of them.

All in all, I bought some great pre-Christmas presents as my own Santa..  I can’t wait to try some of them out, and will make sure I do a video of at least one of them for a Christmas card video.  I’ve been getting some really beautiful cards from fellow crafters that I’ve met through YouTube, and have been so envious of their skills.  I also got a handmade birthday card from my sister (whose never done any crafts but loves the Mandalas I found for her and used part of one in my card.)  My cousin also made me her very first handmade card and it’s great.  I’ll show all of them in a video.

I’ve missed blogging while on vacation as I keep a travel journal, but it’s not the same thing as sending this out into the universe every day.  I promise I am back to my daily blogs and will continue doing them as long as possible.

It’s been snowing here since we left and continued the whole time we were gone.  They plowed our driveway twice during the week, and we still have two inches of ice beneath the snow.  It’s supposed to be in the 40’s today, so hopefully the ice will start to melt before we have another cold snap.  The reason I’m mentioning this is because now that the snow is falling, I’ll be spending more time at home, so more time to craft.  I’m looking forward to making some great things before and after the holidays.  I made the mini album for Christmas before I left and Rich didn’t have time to edit the video, but it should be online tonight.  I’m also going to be doing the 2017 Dollar Tree planner makeover video so I hope you’ve gathered your supplies so we can make them together.  I’ve got lots of things to do before the holidays and hope you’ll join me in some crafty fun.

We got home from the airport at 3:30AM and it was great to be here.  We normally have some crazy things happen on travel day and this was no exception.  We left St. Maarten with the airplane about 50% empty, which was great.  We could spread out between our three seats and not be attached at the hip (literally) to a stranger.  The flight attendants told us that we were leaving early and getting in early to Charlotte, NC, which is a great relief because you have to go through customs, pick up your luggage, have it re-checked, then go through security and get to your new gate within a little over an hour.  As we started our descent into Charlotte, the pilot said we were getting in early and put the landing gear down.   Suddenly the airplane picked up speed and the landing gear was re-stowed.  We circled the airport a couple of times and the pilot got back on the microphone, and said an airplane ahead of us made it so we couldn’t land.  (I thought they would have had that all planned out the first time when our landing gear came down.)  So instead of getting in early, we were now getting in late.   I travel with a wheelchair because I can’t walk fast enough to get from point A to point B to make our connections, so we had to wait for the chair to come up from under the airplane where they store it during flight.  You probably are wondering why I don’t use one of those transport carts that are basically a golf cart.    My artificial knee doesn’t bend enough to fit comfortably inside and it’s just easier to use my own wheelchair.  The problem comes when you have a tight connection and the chair doesn’t come up very fast, which of course was the case this time.  American Airlines gives you an assistant to push the chair and take us through the airport more efficiently.  We went through customs and by everyone from our flight had already been there and left.  We got our luggage which came up pretty quickly and finished going through customs.  The time delay at this point made going back through security a time crunch.  TSA does a whole body pat down on me and for some reason on the flights I had this time, they did a really thorough job.  I mean running their fingers through my very short hair, kind of thorough.  Normally I think it’s kind of funny, but when we are short on time, I start to panic.  That’s when we found out our next flight was delayed about thirty minutes, which was a tremendous relief.  We had time to get hot chocolate, as Charlotte was around 30 degrees and the airport not much warmer.  We boarded the plane and sat.  We were going to taxi to our runway but then the pilot said that our runway was closed.  I’m not sure why they closed a runway at 11PM, but apparently they did.  So we taxied to another runway and sat some more.  Almost two hours later, we were in the air.  We should have gotten to Pittsburgh at 11:40 and were there at almost 2AM.  We have almost a two hour drive after that and it was 5 degrees and our car was a solid ice ball so it had to defrost.  I went into the hotel where it was parked and made hot tea for Rich and I while he chopped ice.  If we had known we were getting in that late, we would have had our dog sitter stay the night and we could stay another night in Pittsburgh, but you never know when these things will happen, and you can’t call someone at 11PM and ask them to change their plans.

A long and very boring story to say our flights were delayed.  The funny thing is that we believe we might be travel cursed.  It’s usually around weather or flight delays.  We’ve been caught in two hurricanes in the same year.  In 1999, we were in Orlando for Rich’s work and that hurricane changed path at the last moment so we were spared but it was the first time Disney had ever closed due to a hurricane.  It was my fortieth birthday that year, so we decided to go to St. Maarten for my birthday, which is technically out of hurricane since it’s November 22nd.    St. Maarten was hit with a level 4 hurricane while we were there.  An unbelievable experience, but one I don’t want to repeat.

We almost never go anywhere without our flights being delayed or cancelled.  For our 25th anniversary, we decided we should cruise the Mediterranean as we’ve always wanted to see the pyramids.  It was a two week cruise over Christmas and we knew we have these problems with flight delays, so we left Friday AM, knowing our cruise left Sunday at 6PM.  I chose the most direct flights I could, going from Pittsburgh to Newark, NJ, to Barcelona, Spain.  Apparently there was a snowstorm in Newark and our plane wasn’t large enough to handle it so they cancelled our flight.  Rich went to the ticketing agent to change our flights and she said (and I’m not lying), we can get you there on Tuesday, at which time I immediately burst into tears.  After a lot of typing, she came up with sending us from Pittsburgh to Cleveland, where they had a larger plane, to Newark, to Madrid, Spain, to Barcelona.  We got to Newark with no problem and sat at the gate for six hours directly beside our original plane (where our luggage was.)  When we finally got to Barcelona, our luggage wasn’t there.  So we filed our missing luggage paperwork and went to the hotel.  This is now Saturday around noon.  Instead of sightseeing, we spent the time buying additional clothes, because we had a set or two in our carry-on, but we might not see our luggage for two weeks with our luck.  We had decided this would be the trip of a lifetime, so we booked a suite where we had our own butler, it was awesome.  When we got onboard, he wanted to unpack our luggage and we told him it was missing and he couldn’t understand why we weren’t more upset.   They sent the concierge for the ship to offer to let us go through the “lost and found room” for clothes and we told them we were fine.  They gave us tee shirts and toiletries and left not understanding why we weren’t mad or upset.  The cruise left port and still no luggage so we went to dinner.  When we got back from dinner, our luggage was there.  We were amazed and thrilled since we were already committed to never seeing it until we got home.  When you have this travel curse, you have to roll with the flow.   For some reason, the only stamps in our passport were Spain and Egypt.  When we were on our way home, after seeing the stamps, customs pulled Rich out of line and said his name was on a “list” and took him away.  I had no idea where he was or what was going on, but about twenty minutes later, he came back and said they asked him why he was in Egypt and had he ever been convicted of a crime (an odd combination of questions we thought), and when he said we were on a cruise and no, he’d never been convicted of a crime, they let him go.   We’re cursed.

We’ve been delayed for (and I’m not making these up) the concourse we are supposed to fly into having a fire, weather they can’t fly in or around, airplane parts literally falling off (a flight attendant showed us the part, as she had it in her apron), missing crew, missing airplane (we were on a charter and the plane wasn’t available for two days) going to Punta Cana.  We thought there was going to be a riot in the airport when they announced that delay.  We spent two lovely days in Cleveland instead of Punta Cana.  That was in the early days of people flying there and they had very low standards including the elevator in the hotel.  It stopped between floors and Rich had to lift me three feet to get me out.  They sprayed pesticides every night and so many people on the charter got sick from it.  There were four people including us, that spoke English in the hotel.  On the bus ride to the hotels, we were told never to leave our hotel compounds as it was not safe and we had guards at the gates to ensure no one came inside.  Needless to say, we haven’t been back, although we’ve heard great things about it since.

I keep a travel journal for many reasons, but one is to remember all the crazy things we’ve encountered along the way.  I made a video log of this trip and you’ll hear some funny things that have happened on St. Maarten trips, including the hurricane.

I’ve heard people at airports say they have never been delayed on a flight and I ask if they are on our flight. If so, their luck is about to change.

It’s good to be home.

I’m not sure what happened here and apologize for the wrong video below.  I’m adding the right video today and again, am sorry for the mistake.