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.