I took 12″ cardstock and cut it into 3/4″ strips. I had found a wooden circle wreath called a 6″ floral craft ring that I got at Michaels for around $1. I painted it with paint I had bought from the Dollar Tree to give the background a similar color to the paper I was using. After it dried, I started adding the strips. Using wet glue (or a glue stick), wrap the strips around the ring and make sure the ends meet and that the paper even so you won’t see the back. Overlap the strips on the circle form and continue the process the whole way around the wreath form. Make sure you use enough glue so your strips really stay together.
The punch I showed didn’t work, so I had to kick it to the curb and cut the notches out of the paper.
I ran out of my original paper and had to supplement with a matching gold glittery paper…The gold paper was too boring, so I added red pearls to the gold strips, as well as a line of the red pearls in the center piece of gold paper.
I used a deer from the Dollar Tree, and added some bling to it, by adding a cow bell on thin wire and a gold bow. I added some glue to the bow to hold it in place. I added two layers of foam tape to the back of the deer and wet glue on top and under the foam tape so it would stick to the glitter and offset the deer. I put a hanger on the back by wrapping a chenille pipe cleaner around one of the papers.

We went shopping today and made it our first annual “buy gifts for ourselves event.”  We spent, at the most, fifteen minutes in one store, and had to buy at least five gifts for ourselves for a maximum of $25 during the entire shopping trip.  It was a lot of fun.  Rich bought himself socks, a brush to clean his gas grill, three books and a Yankee Candle device that makes our cars smell good.  I found the Yankee Candle device (I’d never seen them before), and I bought one as well…I also bought a hard covered Mandala coloring book, a can of pumpkin spice room spray, lipstick, and a couple of small charms for on my Davinci bracelet.  We both ended up going over our limits by $2, which we considered fair enough, since we were so close to our budgeted amount.

I have to say that it was a lot of fun, and Rich wants to do it again next year.  It was entertaining trying to find things quickly and on a budget.  We had found some old gift cards with minimal amounts on them, and used those as well.  The monies on the gift cards were considered extra, so we didn’t count the gifts we bought with them in our totals.

All in all, I really recommend doing this, because it gave us something fun to do for Christmas gifts and we’re able to wrap each others gifts and still give them to each other on Christmas.  Of course, we always buy each other a Christmas ornament, (even though we don’t put the large tree up anymore), and I need to find one I think he will like.  I have some ideas, but haven’t found exactly what I’m looking for as of yet.  The first year we were married, we bought each other a Christmas ornament….if you look at the number of years that have passed, we now have seventy ornaments that we’ve given each other.  We also collect the Hallmark Frosty Friends series and an angel series from Hallmark, so we have about one hundred thirty ornaments in those collections alone.  It used to take Rich forever to put up our tree, but times have changed and we’re not as ambitious as we used to be, so we put a smaller tree up and minimally decorate it.  All right, to be completely honest, we decorated this tree a few years ago, and once the season is over, we cover it with a huge plastic bag, and put it away for the next year.

I remember when I was a kid, that our aunt used to do that with her tree and I was so disappointed that she didn’t take time to decorate her tree….I get it now…if we had little kids to entertain with our decorations, it would be different, but with just the two of us, and minimal guests, there’s no point in spending hours decorating.  We’re happy that we do as much decorating as we do….Rich thought he wanted one of the light shows that will shine through a window and make it look like Santa is inside the house..It also has Halloween scenes that are really spooky.  It was over $50, and Rich really wanted it, mainly for Halloween.  I bought it and he tried it out and decided it was so blurry that you can’t tell what’s going on in the video, so back it went.  I think the tree is plenty.

Some days you just need to take a break.  After filling and mailing the boxes yesterday, I was exhausted.   I’m not good at standing for really long periods of time, and that’s what filling and taping the boxes required.  I’m not whining, well trying not to whine, just saying how it is.    So I gave myself permission to watch it snow and hope some deer would wander by for dinner.  Have I mentioned the deer before?  Probably so, but I’ll talk about them again.  When I was a kid, my dad explained that if we don’t hunt the deer, they become over populated and starve to death.  That sentiment really stuck with me, and when I married a “city boy” who isn’t a hunter, we talked about the plight of the deer and how we could make a small difference for them.  Many years ago, I talked to a customer of the bank who was a farmer, and asked him where I could buy corn.  He said he could supply a ton of corn (literally, a ton), and we struck a deal that I would buy my corn from him.  So every year, the week before Thanksgiving, we load up the car with corn.  Ten bags of corn is a ton, in case you wondered.  We don’t feed the deer until the first ground cover of snow, then we keep feeding them until spring.  We’ve only had a couple of years where we’ve had so much snow, we’ve had to buy more.  Our “herd” can range up to twenty five deer, and they come all times of the day and night.  Lately, they’ve been coming in the middle of the night, and I think it’s because Honey still barks when she sees them.  She’s never allowed anywhere near them, but we have a room that’s mostly windows, and the dogs and I spend a lot of time there.   I think it’s like watching television for them, as they sit and watch the wildlife in our back yard.  The other dogs know not to bark at the animals, because the animals run away, and they lose whatever they were “watching on tv.”

For the most part, our deer are not skinny, and that makes us feel like we are doing a good thing.  I remember telling someone we would be feeding deer, and they said, “Once you feed them, you can’t stop, as they rely on that food source.”  I’ve never heard a statement that is more true.  As soon as the food is there, so are the deer.  I used to worry about them getting hit by cars, but they seem to know where the road is, and come out of the woods behind our house, roam around our yard, and go back into the woods.  They don’t travel in the direction of the road, and I’m relieved that they don’t.  So that’s my deer story, and I know they carry deer ticks and other diseases, but as I said, we don’t allow our dogs anywhere near where the deer are, and we’ve been feeding them for at least fifteen years.

 

 

I have been so crazy busy in the craft room, and I’m so excited with the projects that I’ve finished.  I’ve made at least fifteen items to give to my friend for her assisted living facility, and then I started making book marks for her as well.  I made at least six book marks, and made a date to meet my friend for supper on Monday to deliver the goods.

But on an even bigger note, I FINALLY mailed all of the boxes to Puerto Rico.  I know it sounds like it’s not that big of a deal, but I had those boxes so full of goodies, I think they will be amazed at how much was crammed into those boxes.  They each weighed at least five pounds, and every one had it’s on one-of-a-kind card from me, as well as a typed letter explaining who helped put it together.  I’m really proud of the project and I realize it started a couple of months ago, but the end result is that these eleven ladies will get their boxes in time to play together before the holidays.  I’m so happy and relieved that they are in the mail.

It seems like I had something else that I wanted to talk about, but just can’t seem to remember what it was.  My craft room is looking a lot better, because I’ve gotten the luggage closed, and I’m happy to report that I feel like I have a handle on all things Christmas (finally.)

One of my closest friends will be coming over in the next couple of days and we’re going to make traditional Christmas Crackers.  It’s like a popper, but it has a crown (which all traditional crackers have), as well as a joke or activity, a treat of some kind, and of course the popper.  I’m making mine with the New Year’s Eve style popper, where you pull the string and confetti comes out.  I have notes on how to insert it into my cracker to make it work and not blow confetti everywhere.  I’m hoping we’ll be making these in the next couple of days, but have so many videos, that I’ll have to rearrange the order of them, to make sure people have time to make these before the holidays.  So many projects, so little time.  I always say I’m going to start my Christmas videos a lot earlier in the year, but never get inspired until after Halloween.  Maybe 2018 is the year, but I doubt it.

I’ve seen a lot of lighted cards, but none like this one. I started by measuring the base of the light. It’s 1 5/8″ wide…

I used a large house die that I bought from Aliexpress, and measured my card stock to 8 1/2″ x 9 1/2″ scored at 1 5/8″ on all four sides. You’ll want to cut a notch out of each of the four scores on the long sides up to the score line. That is the top of the box. The bottom is 8 3/8″ x 9 3/8″ and still scored at 1 5/8″ on all four sides.

Back to the top….You’ll want to put the die in the top center of the box, but leave enough room below it for any sentiment you want to place there. When you run the die through the die cutter, you’ll need to fold the ends back on themselves and put the top and bottom flap on top of the die so you can fit it in your die cutter.
After cutting out the house, I cut a decorated piece of card stock to 8 1/2″ x 9 1/2″ then cut 1 5/8″ off the right side,, then off the left side, then off the top, and then the bottom so I can make sure the borders will line up when I glue it to the box. To create a border on the 1 5/8″ pieces, I cut 1/4″ off the outside of the strips and then trimmed the ends by 1/4″ so they are shorter so there’s a border. The top needs to be trimmed a little on each side so it becomes 6 1/4″ x 5 1/4″ tall.
I put the 6 1/4″ x 5 1/4″ piece of card stock under my lid, so that I
could trace the house with a pencil so I knew exactly where to cut the house so the decorated paper would fit perfectly on the lid. Then I put the die on the pencil marks and ran it through the die cutter, then glued it to the lid of the box.
After cutting the house out, I decided I wanted it out of white card stock, so die cut one out of white. I cut some vellum to 6 1/4″ x 5 1/4″ and glued it under the box, then glued the house into the opening for it on the top of the box..
Once I cut the bottom of the box, I covered the bottom underneath with card stock, and put small magnets on the long ends of the box on the outside of the bottom of the box, so it will hold the box together.
I cut the notches on the bottom just like I did the top, then put glue and tear tape on the outside of the flaps I cut, and then folded the flaps up and put the flaps inside the long length of paper and glued the bottom of the box so it’s now a box. Do this on all four sides. Add magnets to the outside long lengths of the box, and then cover them with card stock.
I covered the outside ends of the box with the decorated paper I had cut above, and then put magnets on the front and back of the box to match where they are on the bottom of the box. Now you can cover the outside of the bottom and top of the box with decorated paper that you cut above.

I took two pieces of cardboard that were about 8 1/2″ long and 1 1/2″ wide. I scored them at 1″ and 7 1/2″ which should make the cardboard fit snugly inside the bottom of the box. I put tear tape on the scored 1″ and folded them down so they act as a shelf inside the box. I put a light inside the box on the shelf, then put another shelf so the shelf is almost on top of the light sitting on the first shelf. Then I put glue dots to hold the lights on the shelves, and made sure the lights would show through a certain window of the house. I glued a die cut tree on the side of the house, as well as a tag with the word “JOY” on it and a gold thread with lights glued to it and some die cut bows on the windows.
I took tear tape and ran it around the entire box on the edge and took a long length of gold ribbon and tied a knot in the center, then ran the ribbon around the edge of the box to ensure it will hold if it’s hung on a tree.

Today was Rich’s 57th birthday.  I really wanted to do something special, but Aggie wasn’t feeling well, and we were supposed to get a lot of snow, so we stayed at home.  My plan for his birthday celebration will have to wait for another day.

I spent this afternoon and evening finishing the small cards to include in all of the boxes for Puerto Rico, as well as several more door decorations for the assisted living home.  If I can’t get together with my girlfriend from Pittsburgh who works in one, I’ll donate my decorations to the assisted living facility that my mother lived in.  It’s coincidentally, the same company that runs the one my girlfriend works for. Small world…

I finished several videos, and I’m wondering if Rich will be able to get all of them up before Christmas..  I’m starting to fret about it, as I just keep pumping them out.  I know I have two weeks until Christmas, but that’s only fourteen days, and if he does one every two days, that’s only seven videos he’ll be able to upload…Yes, I definitely am starting to fret.  Oh well, maybe I’ve started my 2018 Christmas series a little bit early.  haha…

I’m going to finish a bunch of projects today.  I have a list of things I have to get done as time is running out.  I want to make the rest of the small cards to put inside my boxes for Puerto Rico, then put mailing labels on all of them to take to the post office tomorrow…I have a lot of cards that I want to finish to send to people for Christmas, as well as make a lot of door decorations for my girlfriend to put on doors for patients at the assisted living facility that she works for.  I know it sounds like I have too many things packed into one day, but I have been so far behind on my Christmas decorations and gifts, that I have to start somewhere.

It’s now 9PM, and I didn’t make any cards or finish closing the boxes for Puerto Rico..On the flip side, I did make at least eight frames to hang on the doors of assisted living patients, and that makes me really feel good.

I have to admit, things did not go well today.  I wanted to do a simple frame with burlap inside, and our initials glued to the front.  In theory it sounds so simple, but when push came to shove, the initials wouldn’t fit.  So I started sanding them, and sanding, and sanding…finally resorted to an electric sander to finish the job.  I got them to wedge into the frame, but when it came to gluing them down on camera, the last letter went in crooked and of course, stuck like, well, glue.  I’d already spent so much time on it, I tried using my heat gun to melt the hot glue, and that didn’t work, so I gave up…I’m leaving that for another day.

I almost wish you could see my craft room.  It looks like every hoarders nightmare.  I keep all of my Christmas craft supplies in vintage suitcases.  They are all open on the floor and it looks like they exploded.  I really thought that after making so many of these frames, that I wouldn’t have so much “stuff” left inside the suitcases, but I honestly think they have grown. Like when you use glitter and try to put the rest back in the bottle, but there’s just too much left…that’s what it’s like.  I feel like I always do before Christmas…my house is a mess, my craft room is worse, and I have boxes of things in every room and each box needs my attention.  I really need to get the boxes sent to Puerto Rico…that’s my first and biggest priority…Oh, wait, tomorrow is Rich’s birthday, and we’re supposed to get 8 inches of snow, so I might not make it until Tuesday..Yikes.

I finished the wreath I started yesterday.  I really thought it needed a bow, but I found a really cool deer that was covered in red glitter, and looked perfect, glued to the front of my wreath.  This project went from just ok, to “I kind of like it.’

After finished the wreath, I had another idea for an ornament that I had been wanting to try.  I’m not sure if I’ve talked about this before, or not, but I saw a wreath in Cracker Barrel, that was a wreath covered in pom poms.  I know, it sounds kind of silly, but it really looked cute.  (In my opinion.)  I had a 3” round wreath styrofoam shape, and thought it would be the right size for me to use a range of red pompoms on.  I had bought a small box of them at a garage sale last summer, with no idea what I’d use them for.  This was the perfect use.  The pom poms were easy to hot glue onto the styrofoam, and the end result looks pretty frisky.  I’m really looking forward to hearing what people have to say about it.  I have so many ideas for projects and not enough time left before Christmas to finish all of them.  I’m going to give it a try.

Dollar Tree sells Polaroid decorative labels that you can decorate yourself. I used peg stamps, http://www.pegstamps.com and started with a “To, From” stamp.and stamped all of the tags with this. Then I took a light bulb stamp and stamped with Versamark ink to heat emboss it. I used red Ranger embossing powder and added glitter to it to make a red glitter embossed look..then heat set it..Don’t mix this mixture back into the red embossing powder glitter as it will contaminate your embossing powder. I took a black marker and drew a wire to connect my bulbs. I used a snowflake peg stamp with liquid platinum embossing powder and heat set it. I used a ribbon stamp with red glitter embossing powder and heat set it. And used a light blue embossing powder with a snowflake stamp. I finished the red glitter embossing powder with the poinsettia peg stamps. I used a red marker Studio 71 from Consumer Crafts that I bought for $1 each during their cyber Monday sale and colored the ribbon with it. I used the Deco Foil in blue and gold, with tear tape to make another tag and added a package from Jolee’s Boutique to accent the foil. I used the markers to outline my tags and make them look more finished,

I spent the day in the craft room and made a horrible mess there.  That’s what happens when I try to make something.  I don’t take the time to put things away immediately after using them, and they just keep piling up everywhere.  I need a maid to follow me around and clean up after me…Do you suppose Jennifer McGuire has someone that does that for her?  Her area always seems spotless, so I have to believe she does…haha.

I made a paper wreath and took some of the scraps and made some cards with them.  I wanted to make sure that I got rid of the excess paper, and this was an easy way to do it.  I made some 3 x 3″ gift cards to put in the boxes of supplies I’m sending to Puerto Rico.  I didn’t want to mail the boxes without a card, but didn’t have the will to make eleven full size cards…Yes, I’m that lazy.  I have a bunch of cards I need to finish and get mailed as it’s getting closer to the holidays and I’m still not finished with sending thank you cards and get well cards that are long overdue.

I have three or four projects in process right now and really need to get them finished and get their videos done.  I have so many videos that are in Rich’s hands, and now he’s trying to do a video once a day or once every other day.  It’s the time of the year when I make a lot of videos to show people all kinds of crafty ideas.  They really want to see cards, but I really like to branch out into other areas when I can.  This is the best time of year to do that.

I’d really like to finish the sea glass ornament video, as we didn’t tape anything when we made them, and I’ve got so much going on in my craft room, that I don’t have any place to put the supplies to make the ornaments with.  I should clean and get going, but really would prefer to sit and watch the birds outside my window instead.  I’m trying to think of a great idea for a Christmas gift for the friend I made the sea glass ornaments with.  She and her husband really seemed to enjoy watching the woodpeckers eat suet in my backyard, and I thought that maybe buying her the shepherds’ hook, suet and suet cage might be a nice gift.  I really hate it when I buy something that people don’t like for Christmas, and hope my ideas will make them happy.  It’s really stressful, and I’m normally a lot more organized than I have been this year.  Rich’s birthday is Monday, and we’re going to go shopping in the closest large city to us…I came up with an idea of something we could do that would be out of the ordinary for Christmas gifts.  I thought it would be fun to each take (let’s say) $25 and have to buy a certain number of gifts (maybe five) for ourselves, not each other.  I think we’ll put a time allotment on it as well, so we can’t doddle..Since we’ll be buying presents for ourselves, we should be able to find things we enjoy and make a fun afternoon’s activity out of it.  I think we’ll go to a mall where we can’t find a Dollar Tree, because you know I could spend all day there buying all kinds of fun things.  We won’t be shopping together, but will be checking in with each other to see how the other is coming with the project.  I think it will be a lot of fun, and after we get home, we’ll have to wrap the others’ gifts.  That way, we both are sharing in the gift giving experience.  What do you think?  Stupid idea, or fun?  I just wanted to do something a little bit different this year.  We’ve done coupon books for each other, and Rich made me a coupon book once with different menus that he would make for me.  But my favorite gift (and one I could share with everyone), are the music videos Rich made for me.  He lip synced to different songs over the years and the best part is that the first one was for our first married Christmas together in 1982, at the very beginning of MTV…He wanted to make me a music video and did.  He recruited a friend to help, and it’s so sweet.  Maybe someday I’ll be willing to share it on YouTube….although I’ll have to ask Rich for permission..