Funny cat video

I saw this link on Kristina Werner's blog.  So funny!  I don't know how to embed it into my blog post so here is the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3iFhLdWjqc

<^..^> Lori

scrapbook.com commercial is pretty cute!

Check out this cute video from scrapbook.com here.  I have purchased items from them.  I got a good price and they ship really, really fast!  I would buy from them again...they did NOT pay me for this endorsement.  I wish they would but they did not.

<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/M6cFmY79w9g?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/M6cFmY79w9g?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

<^..^> Lori

I need to remember the real meaning of Christmas.

I was reading the Nancy Creative blog this morning and it really struck a cord with me.  The real meaning of Christmas is not the decorations that I do or do not get put up but it is the plan that God gave us through His son Jesus to redeem us from our sins.  I get to feeling a little guilty about not plowing through a whole list of things that I think Christmas should include.  I get alot done but never quite enough done to make me feel accomplished.  What a burden I put on myself.  I need to enjoy the season and remember all the blessings that the Lord has given to me.  I hope you can do the same. 

<^..^>Lori

Do you have to interview people for jobs? This is funny.

I came across this funny job interview on Jenny's Blog here.  What's funniest about it is that I can totally see that happening.  Funny...sad...crazy.

<^..^> Lori

Shari has made the cutest ornament from switch plate covers

I am so amazed at this gorgeous ornament made from switch plate covers.  Shari is really talented but this is over the top in my book.


<^..^>Lori

I love Christmas movies

Well, the best thing about November to me is that I break out the Christmas movies!  I have a few Thanksgiving movies but not as many as I have of Christmas movies.  I love the older ones best..."Miracle on 34th Street", "The Bishop's Wife", and the coup de gras for me is "It's a Wonderful Life"!  Oh boy, I just love watching those movies. 

<^..^> Lori

I saw the cutest pin made from recycled denim

I found this adorable recycled denim pin by Veronica Goff over here.  The ladies at our church are cutting up old jeans to make quilts for the kids at the Baptist Children's Home.  They have scraps that would work perfectly for this project.  I ordered the Tim Holts tattered floral die.  It came today and I cannot wait to play with it.  I hope to use this as a "make and take" for the annual Ladies Christmas Gathering at the church next month.  I think that will be double recycling on the jeans.  I will get a picture of one of the quilts to put on the blog.  We are going to be tying them this weekend.  Kristine and Sue are working hard on sewing the finishing edges, etc.  I am amazed at how well they turned out.  The quilts are for teens so the denim is perfect material. 



<^..^> Lori

Cindy has great video on unmounting wooden stamps

This is one of the best videos that I have seen on unmounting stamps from wooden blocks and turning them into cling stamps.  Check it out here.
I have unmounted some stamps in the past.  But it is time consuming and there are so so so many great new clear stamps for sale and SU! has some great clear stamps that I have stopped unmounting my stamps.  I have put many of them into the Missionary Closet at my church.  The closet is for visiting missionaries to "shop" for free.  I know they will use and appreciate the stamps that are in there so that makes me happy.

<^..^> Lori

I won my very first blog candy! Thanks Roni!

I entered a blog contest from Roni at Ink Stains to win a Felt Flower Pin and I won!  Yeah!  It got here and it is gorgeous!  It is like winning the lottery...it makes me want to enter all the blog give-a-ways! LOL! 

<^..^> Lori

Ahh...fall is here

The leaves are turning.  The evenings are so cool.  Columbus Day weekend is here.  The kids are getting excited about Halloween coming up at the end of the month.  I really love all the seasons but there is something about fall.  KWIM?

Need some inspiration on fall...check out Michelle's blog entry on it here.

<^..^> Lori

Making your Cricut mat sticky again

I personally use a wide tip Zig Two Way Glue pen to make my mats sticky again.  I got the idea from My Pink Stamper - Robyn.  But here is a link to Laurie's blog  and she uses Aileen's Tack It Again mixed with water.  http://www.hidinginmycraftroom.com/2010/08/making-cricut-mats-sticky-again.html
<^..^>Lori

chance to win blog candy from Amy

Amy at A thousand sheets of paper has a fabulous blog candy offer going until 9/3/10.  She is celebrating a blog anniversary with some a super give-away.  I am going to take a chance to see if I can win so why don't you?  Check out her post here then look at some of the great tutorials she has posted.

<^..^> Lori

August card using a mailing tag

I made a card tonight.  I am always inspired by Michelle Wooderson's blog.  She either follows the trends closely or she is a trend setter.  Perhaps she is both!  She has been using mailing tags and wrinkled ribbon to make the cutest cards.  Here is my take on her idea.

I made my own wrinkled ribbon from some 1/2" off white seam binding.  I got it from EBay.  I died it with SU! silver smooch and Glimmer Mist Artic Blue.  Turned out really cute and not too hard to do.  I watched a video tutorial HERE.  The paper is from Cosmo Cricket mini deck Wanted, SU!, Bazzill, and some K& Co paper.  The key is a Tim Holtz embellishment.  The HI is from K&Co Kology Chipboard letters.  The bow was made from the string that came with the mailing label, tied off with bakers twin.  The ribbon on the side was from a $1.00 grab bag of lace and ribbon I got from Hobby Lobby.  I have been wanting to use that lace somewhere.  I like the look.  I used CTMH chocolate ink to age the edges.  I used the SU! round tab punch to make the hole reinforcement and the brackets next to the HI.   

I liked it so much that I made a second similar card but it was not as cute as the first one.  The papers just make this card work out.  My DD said it was her favorite card.  She is not one to hand out compliments on my cards so she must really like it. 

<^..^> Lori

Inkadinkado Fall Fields stamp set

My darling Hubby and I took a vacation day Thursday sans children.  Yes, without the kiddos.  H is working at camp this summer.  Her very first job!  J is a camper at the same camp this week.  Can you say..."Boy, this house is really quiet!"? 

We went to a dinner theatre matinee at the Beef House.  Good food and quality local entertainment.  Although is retrospect, it was a pretty irreverent musical for my Christian tastes.  In the genre of valdeville entertainment they used innuendo unlike modern stuff which leaves nothing, nada, zippo to the imagination.  My SIL met us there.  What a good time to get to visit with her.  Then out of the blue...in walked my aunt and uncle that I had not seen in a long while.  Aunt was celebrating her 79th birthday.  Happy BDay! 

DH and I stopped at my oldest sisters house on the way home.  She had asked for help with her new PC.  We caught up on some news then DH fixed her PC issue.  Turns out she needed to activate her MS Office software.  It was set up to work for 50 times then go to restricted mode until you call a number and get an activation code.  Simple to do but was a pain...MS shame on you for adding this unnecessary step. 

We left her house and stopped at Papa Del's Pizza on the way home.  DH bought a frozen pizza that we will enjoy with the kids this weekend.  Papa Del's pizza is the very best deep dish pizza in our book.  We miss living close enough to enjoy it more often. 

Then my DH said we could stop at a scrapbooking store in Bloomington on the next leg of our journey home.  We got to Scrapbook Friendz at 7:05 pm and they closed at 7 pm.  Boohoo...then I consoled myself by going into JoAnn Fabric next door.  I found a super cute fall stamp set on sale.  The cat figure was so unusual.  The set was $9.99 but JoAnn's had it on sale 30% off.  I bought it of course!  Sorry Scrapbook Friendz but a girl has to shop when her husband gives her the green light!  I do suggest if you can get to them when they are open, Scrapbook Friendz carries a good variety of products. 

So cute!  They had some other cute sets but the cat stamp really made the choice easy for me.  I also picked up a couple of K & Co paper pads on sale for $9.99.  They were not double sided but they had 60 sheets in the pad.  The most I had seen in a pad was 48 sheets.  They had lots of pads I liked but I limited myself to 2 pads because I am trying not to feed my paper hoarding tendencies.  KWIM?!

Well, the day ended with one more leg in our journey...we stopped at Noodles & Company for dinner.  So good...I had bankok curry with chicken.  We shared some pot stickers as well. 

The kids will be home Saturday.  In truth, we both miss them but it was a nice week for us and for them.

<^..^> Lori

Bakers string is really trendy right now

I have seen bakers string on my favorite craft supply spots.  I knew that I wanted to buy some so I Googled it and I found a really good deal at http://www.etsy.com/shop/paperandparcel?page=1.  I got a package with 5 colors.  Good price, shipped quickly...what more could I ask from an etsy order?

<^..^>Lori

Blogging is harder than it looks

I had a goal to post once per month but that is harder than I thought it would be.  I do lots of fun crafts but getting them photographed, loading them on my PC, then loading them up to the blog...is really time consuming.  I missed June altogether.  I will keep trying to post once per month but I am going to have to try harder.

<^..^> Lori

dirt and stones

Tonight was the last regular meeting of the Awana Clubs at church.  I help with the Cubbies age 3-5.  They are a joyful handful!  LOL!  We talked about David as a young boy tonight.  He was the youngest son of Jesse.  Trained as a shepherd David learned to be skillful with a sling shot.  He killed a bear and a lion to protect his sheep.  David often played the harp/lyre to calm the sheep.  Later the prophet Samuel annointed David because God had picked David to be king over Israel.  We talked of the 5 stones that David took when he battled Goliath for the honor of the Lord.  Remember the song...
Only a boy named David
Only a little sling
Only a boy named David but he could play and sing.
Only a boy named David
Only a rippling brook
Only a boy named David and 5 smooth stones he took
And one little stone went into the sling and the sling went round and round
And one little stone went into the sling and the sling went round and round
And round and round and round and round and round and round(the kids love
this part)
And one little stone went up in the air and the giant came tumbling down.

In honor of the last night and David's stones I brought a treat for the kids.  We ate dirt with stones in it.  Don't belive me...take a look.

Doesn't it look so real?  The dirt is actually Oreo cookies that I crushed with my blender.  The rocks are really milk chocolate.  They look so real!  I got them at this really cool candy store called Holland's Mercantile in Washington, IL.  If you ever get over that way, they have lots of fun candy from the Swedish fish to the modern Air Heads.  Jars and jars of candy in this store. 

<^..^> Lori

Mother Daughter Luncheon programs

Here are the programs we handed out on that Saturday.  They turned out well.  They were inspired by this card made by Carolina's Apron Gift Card Holder. 

I have to figure out how to recycle them, the table favors, and the paper garland center pieces into greeting cards.  Otherwise, I feel this is such a waste of paper and time.
The paper dress garland's were inspired by Debbie's Sweet Paper Dress Garland.

<^..^>Lori

Mother Daughter Luncheon table favors

I got some super ideas from Julia.  Here are the table favors we made for our luncheon themed "The Ties that Bind Us".  We made 89 of these little sweet aprons to hold a Hershey nugget. 

The paper came from Two Peas in a Bucket, ribbon from Michaels, ink for sponging the hearts was CTMH garden green, and a Signo white gel pen for faux stitching came from Two Peas in a Bucket.

We (decoration committee) have programs and table decorations to work on next.

<^..^> Lori

Fiskars Premium Cut-Line Trimmer

I bought a new trimmer from Michael's $29.99.  They were on sale for 40% off so I did not even need to use a coupon.  Good deal!  I love this trimmer.  It has a very wide deck for standard A2 cards don't require me to swing out the arm.  The accuracy is really good.  It is light weight to carry.  I am giving it a thumb's up! 

The Fiskars 12” Premium Crafter’s Trimmer is a lightweight, portable trimmer that is perfect for use in your scrapbooking space or for use on-the-go! Features include:


•An innovative cut-line guide that shows you precisely where your cut will be and ensures that cuts stay consistent

•A wider base deck for a full 6” of measuring space

•A lock that secures the rail for easy storage and prevents the rail from popping open while transporting your trimmer

•A swing-out paper guides that gives you 15” of level measuring surface for larger projects

•A larger rail handle that makes lifting the rail easier than ever and also helps hold down your paper to prevent smudges

•A triple-track rail and blade that are designed to interlock, keeping your blade running straight down the middle every time

•Uses Fiskar Replacement Blade Style "I"

<^..^> Lori

Provo Craft has a new font pack update out for DS

You can get it here.  I saw it on Just A Scrappin'.  Take note to grab only the font pack update which is the second button on the page NOT the first button on the page.

<^..^> Lori

Okay, so I signed us up to go to our first Classics event

Classics is a social group at our church for those 50 or better.  My birthday in February qualified my DH and I to attend the Classics.  How weird is that?!  I have such mixed feelings about being 50. 

The Classics meet monthly and someone hosts it.  Whoever is hosting this month is calling it Applefest.  We are supposed to bring an apple snack but it cannot be apple pie or apple cobblers.  I have no idea what to take.  If you have a suggestion, let me know.

<^..^> Lori

Quick trip to Texas

I was in Texas for just over 24 hours.  Weird to me.  I don't travel that far too often.  I only have to fly on business once very year or two so I am not an old pro at this flying stuff.  Well, I guess I am old but I am not a pro anyway.

I had a business meeting on Friday so I flew down on Thursday late afternoon and came back late Friday night.  I went from snow and ice in the upper 30's to sunny in the 70's and then back to well...IL weather again.  I have a cold and that means my sinuses aren't sure what to make of it. I was hoping the weather jolt would send this cold far, far away to another galaxy. 

The Lord gave me a picture perfect flight down...you know leaving 12 minutes early, smooth flight, witty captain commenting on the sights, pleasant stewardess, arriving in DFW 30 minutes early, had my bag claimed in under 15 minutes, and walked out the terminal door to find a clean cab with a pleasant driver ready to take me to my hotel.  Wow!  What a blessing from God. 

The flight home was delayed just 15 minutes but I would rather they find the electrical problem before we leave the ground...know what I mean?  The whole trip was good.

<^..^> Lori

Gypsy and linking Cricut cartridges to it

I made an EBay bid on a new Gypsy at the end of January.  There was less than an hour left on a new Gypsy.  I placed a bid at $150 with a max of $175 thinking that I would never win that auction.  The cheapest I had seen the Gypsy sold was $219 or higher.  But I did WIN!  The deal included free shipping.  It was new and factory sealed.  It included the 2 exclusive Gypsy cartridges.  I think I got a very good deal.  It took the seller a couple of weeks to get me the Gypsy which I thought was a little slow but I was okay with it.  I was really busy and did not have time to work with it.  I could have paid for expedited shipping but I didn't want to spend the money on it.  After receiving it, I registered it online with Provocraft and got my 200 reward points and a software upgrade on the Gypsy.  Then I just did not have time to spend on it.  That is so sad! 

This past Saturday was my birthday so I decided to take the time to link the cartridges to the Gypsy this weekend.  Boy, it took a lot of time to get them all linked.  I popped in a new DVD series and I pushed through linking until I had them all linked.  I ran into one cartridge that wouldn't load through the Gypsy cable.  It was George which was the very first cartridge I ever owned.  It came with my original Cricut.  I followed the instructions and plugged the cartridge into my Cricut then connected the Cricut to the Gypsy.  Wouldn't you know it, the Cricut software then had to be updated!  The Gypsy was able to update my Cricut as I followed the steps on the Gypsy screen.  It took at least 30 minutes to update the Cricut from the Gypsy.  But when it was done, I was able to link the cartridge to the Gypsy via the Cricut.  I think the whole process took over 3 hours to link about 50 cartridges. 

I marked each cartridge with a green "G" and I made the same mark on the outside of the cartridge boxes so I would know which cartridges had been linked.

Now I need to use it to design something...but my job, my house, my family, my church, my friends, my volunteering at the school...all need attention as well.  KWIM? 

<^..^> Lori

Fantastic stamp give-a-way on Moxie Fab so go NOW

Cath has a super give-a-way Saturday and Sunday here.
<^..^>
Lori

My Pink Stamper and Custom Crops giving away a Cricut Expression

Hurry over to Robyn's website and enter for a chance on a Cricut Expression courtesy of Custom Crops.
<^..^>

Cricut Design Software update and font update available

I saw it on My Pink Stamper.  Robyn gave the link and you can follow it from here.  I installed it last night along with the font update.  New Cricut cartridges are coming out!  I really like them but I cannot afford to buy them all.  I keep entering MPS give-a-ways.  I hope to win one someday. 

<^..^>

Lang 2010 Calendars are 75% off for online orders

I really love Lang calendars.  I just cannot pay $16 for one without feeling guilty.  We get 1 or 2 free calendars from an insurance organization and a charitable organization.  They are okay but I usually give them to our church camp to use in the cabins.  I really love Lang calendars because they are like having a piece of art on the wall.  I have one in the kitchen, one near the writing desk, and one in my home office.  Three calendars at $16 each makes for a whopping $48 plus shipping.  I have found that if I wait until mid February to buy them they go on sale.  Now is the time!  75% off at http://www.lang.com/ and should you spend over $40, you can get free shipping.  I did not qualify for free shipping because I bought three calendars at $4 each plus three pretty planners for $1.75 each.  I am going to give the planners away as gifts. 
<^..^>
 

Don't let your glue bottle falling over frustrate you!

I have a cool idea to cut down on the frustration of using liquid glue.  For piecing paper I sometimes use Zig TwoWay glue or I may choose to use Scotch adhesive.  The Scotch glue is strong stuff and dries quickly.  It doesn't clog so I don't have a problem using it until the bottle gets low on glue.  Then I don't like to tip the bottle and wait for gravity to bring the glue down so I can use it.  The bottle will stand on its own upside down but it tends to fall over if it get bumped. 
I was blog hopping this weekend and I saw a video on turning strips of scrap material into a flower.  I cannot remember the blog...I really hate it when things fall out of my head!  She used a different brand of glue, similar but different.  Her glue did not fall over and I was fascinated on why.  She did not mention it because she was giving a tuturial on gluing a flower together.  The video was good and the flower turned out very cute. 
Finally the light was just right in the video and I could see that she had glued a piece of clear flat plastic to the lid of the glue bottle.  Maybe it was a scrap of acetate but I don't think so.  Acetate would bend easily.  It was clear so it was really hard to catch.  How clever!  I did a similar thing but I used the same Scotch glue to adhere the lid of my Scotch glue to a round piece of chipboard that I had on hand.  It works like a charm.  The glue is always ready to go and it doesn't fall over easily.  When the bottle is empty, I will throw it away and keep the lid attached to the cardboard to put on a new bottle of Scotch glue.  I cannot take credit for this idea but I can certainly pass it on to you.  If I remember where I saw that video, I will post it.

<^..^>

Leeloublogs.com is a great place to get free desktop background

I love going toLeelou's blog to get a new FREE desktop theme each month.  Download the February desktop theme.  You will love it.  She does some great digi work!  I wish I could do that but since I cannot I am glad she shares her talent.  Check it out.

Want to get a Round TUIT?

Wow that is a phrase from years ago.  My children didn't get it until I explained it to them about...well...it seemed like a million times but it was probably not quite that many times.  We have started a new women's ministry at church called Round TUIT.  We get together every other month at the church on a Saturday morning.  Everyone has a project that they have said they would finish one day, "I will get a round to it."  Well, we encourage ladies (young and old) to bring those projects to church and work on them.  We have only met one time so far this year.  It was really fun to see what things the ladies worked on that morning.  We had stampers, scrapbookers, girls working on school homework, sewers, crocheters, cooking (we have a nice kitchen in the fellowship hall), and other miscellaneous crafts going on all at one time.  I hope the ladies will invite their friends to join in this fun! 
The ladies bring their own projects but we also offer an organized stamping project that is optional.  My CTMH consultant Brenda is organizing the stamping projects.  Her January project was creating a card organizer from a Kleenex box based on an idea from StampTV.
I made a small poster (really a scrapbook page) to promote the event on the ladies ministry bulletin board.  The two weeks before our first meeting, I handed out a round TUIT that I made out of chipboard and cardstock.  It was alot of work and I don't know if it helped or not but I did it. 

Mother Daughter 2010 The Ties That Bind Us

Oh boy, we are starting to plan for our Mother Daughter event at church.  I am asking for ladies that want to help with it to join me for a meeting after church 2/7/10.  The event date is set for 4/17/10 and the theme has been chosen, The Ties That Bind Us.  I need a food committee, program planning committee, and decorating committee.  Our church has many talented ladies so I am sure it will glorify our Lord Jesus when it all comes together. 
I made a small poster (really it is like a scrapbook page) to promote the event.  I don't have all of the details on it because they have not all been decided.  I can add them as they become available.  I just want to get ladies talking about it and to pencil the date on their personal calendars.
I cut it with by Expression using the From My Kitchen cartridge.  I got it for Christmas from DH and the kids this year.  The font is from the Cuttin' Up cartridge.  As you can see I hope the committee with base decorations, etc from the phrase Mother's Apron Strings.
I would love to hear if you have any suggested ideas for our Mother Daughter event.  Have you used this theme for your church or organization? 

Brrr....

Really cold here today.  Hope you are keeping warm!

This weekend is the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby.  Hope my DH and my DS get their cars ready so they can race.  It always seems to come down to the last minute.  KWIM?  My husband is the Cubmaster so he has lots to do to get ready for the race as it is.  The Pack bought a new track and he has been busy getting it ready.  Some great guys in the pack are helping him.  This year we have been really blessed with den leaders that want to be involved.  Such a good thing for everyone but especially the Cubmaster.  I hope to get some good pictures.  This is the last year for my DS as he is about to graduate and become a Boy Scout. 

Faith, Hope, Love frame

I copied another idea from Not So Idle Hands.  I love Emily's ideas!  She altered a picture frame by removing the glass and adding vinyl cutouts.  She had some Halloween and Christmas frames on her post about another use for vinyl that were really cute.  I decided that I wanted a frame that could stay up all year so I picked a piece of a verse from the Bible in 1 Corinthians 13:13. 

Valentine tea light packaging

Well I decided to give the altered Valentine tea lights to my CTMH consultant, Brenda.  It seemed a shame to cover up the CTMH logo on the side of the ribbon round container because of the recipient.  I just punched out a scallop from some Valentine paper scraps and put it on the top with a pop dot.  I could not fit 5 candles in the ribbon round container and get the top on so I used 4 tea lights and put a little pink tissue paper in between each tea light.  I think Brenda will love it.

Medieval Times

I have a head cold today.  It was coming on for 3-4 days and I thought I would skate through and not really get sick.  Hmm...didn't work out that way.  I have to travel today for work.  That is not so fun! 

I did not get to do anything crafty over the weekend.  DH and DS went to with the boy cousins for games at my in-laws house.  DD and I went to SIL's house to meet with the girls for games.  The girls ate out and played lots of games.  We went to Medieval Times for the show/dinner on Sunday.  It was fun.  Our black and white knight won the tournament.  If you have been to one of these events then you know what I am talking about.  If not, Medieval Times is a dinner/show in a building that looks like a castle.  All of the employees are in costume and in character as though you are a guest of the king for a banquet.  During dinner you eat with no utensils and watch jousting and other such competitions.  They have fabulous trained horses and it is a treat to watch them.  The girls really enjoyed the whole thing.  There were 7 of us.  The only down side to the show was that I took a few of the girls into the castle dungeon.  It was not included in the castle entrance price but I thought it would be fun and family friendly.  I made a mistake.  It was filled real (I guess) with tools of torture.  There were artist drawings to show how the tools were used.  It was not a good thing to view.  I was so stupid to think it was Disney type friendly stuff...NOT.  So my advice...stick to the horses and the show.  Skip the dungeon. 

Not so Idle Hands - tea light candle idea

I found a new blog that I love a couple of months ago.  It is Not So Idle Hands.  Love the ideas and one in particular spoke to me about customizing some tea lights.  I had that thought...you know the one that comes to you every time you see a neat craft idea...I could do that!  Well, I did do it this past Saturday.  I think it took me all of an hour at best to complete it.  I stamped them with a Valentine theme to give as gifts.

I bought a 24 pack of tea lights from Michael's in Fresh linen scent.  I really wanted vanilla scented candles but Hobby Lobby and Michael's were out of them.  My second choice was unscented and those were gone too. 

I used white tissue paper and punched it out with a 1 3/8 inch circle punch from SU!  The tissue wanted to tear when I punched it so I laid it on top of scrap card stock and punched through both layers.  Worked just fine. 

I used my Crop-A-Dile to punch a hole in the center of the 1 3/8 inch circles.  I found that I could stack many of them and punch the center at one time instead of doing them individually.  This hole is the for wick.

Next I used the small heart stamp from CTMH Tender Tags and a CTMH Holiday red ink pad to stamp the hearts all around the edge of the 1 3/8 inch circle.  If they did not come out evenly, I masked part of the circle and stamped a partial heart.  It looked ok and better than leaving a big gap of nothing. 

Then I put one stamped circle on each tea light.  I put the wick through the center hole. 

One at a time I heated the tea light with a SU! heat gun to melt the wax enough that the tissue would stick in the wax.  It took about 20 seconds per candle once the heat gun was hot.  I held the tissue in place with my tweezers but you could use a wooden skewer or something similar.  Otherwise the tissue wanted to blow off the candle.

I was thinking about how to package it.  I was going to use clear bags.  Not so Idle Hands used a pretzel bag.  I don't have that size.  But today I had a great idea on the packaging.  I have some plastic sleeves that CTMH ribbon rounds came in and they are the perfect size for tea lights!  Woohoo I get to repurpose them! Not So Idle Hands is really good at repurposing things.  It is so hard to throw things like those CTMH ribbon round tubes into the trash. 

Now I need to figure out how to decorate those sleeves.  I will post pictures of what I have done so far and post another picture when I get the sleeves decorated. 

Do you get a little down with the holidays coming to a close?

The holidays are over. I get a little down this time of year. I think my expectations for the holidays are too high. I need to get realistic. I have pared way way down on what we do over the holidays but that must not be the real problem. I know the real reason for the season...it is the birth of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I try very hard to focus on that as I prepare and as I plan my time.

My daughter was the only one who expressed disappointment with missing one of our holiday rituals. We did not get to the tree farm this year. The timing was bad and we had only one Saturday open to get down there when something came up and we missed the chance. I really did not think it would be missed but she brought it up a couple of times so I know it did matter to her. I made a note of it in my mind for next year. We did have a tree up...an artificial tree. It's just that most years we have one artificial tree and one or two smaller live trees in other rooms. She did not have anything special that she wanted for Christmas. Her big present was an IPod. She was a bit scared of it to start but she is starting to really like it. I am letting her dad work through the details with her. I think they need something to work on together.

My son was okay with the holidays as they were except that he would have liked to have gotten more NERF guns! Ha! At his age, he just turned 11, the boys are thrilled with NERF guns. He is pretty easy to please.

We spent Christmas day with my oldest sister S and her family. What a good time to see them all together. I did manage to reach my brother J and his wife P. We had lunch with them the day after Christmas. I was not able to reach my brother R. I left a message on his cell phone but I did not hear from him. Too bad because I like to see them at least once per year. Often I see R at the family reunion over Labor Day weekend but he did not go this year.

My niece J had a baby boy in December. Baby and mom are doing great. My sister J is living near by and helping with niece J's two children. Sister J is such a loving person and so good with kids. Of course, they are her grandkids so she is loving it very much. I wish they lived closer. We are contemplating a visit over the kids Easter break...yeah I said Easter break not Spring break. I hope we can work it out.

December was our big Christmas Dessert Theatre at church also. That took a lot of time and effort. It was worth every moment of it. I think we put on a great God honoring performance. The cast and crew were wonderful! Attendance grew from last years performance. We had almost 400 in attendance this year.

I have alot to be thankful for...so why is there this let down after Christmas and New Years? I don't know but it doesn't usually last too long. I will snap out of it.

New Years resolutions? Not really, I have things I could list but I am just going to do what I can when I can and enjoy the journey.