Happy Thanksgiving and Harvest Blessings

I want to wish all my faithful "lookers" and all my newly found friends on this blog a very HAPPY THANKSGIVING. We will have to do about an hours driving to get to my Mom's and lunch is at 1:00, so I did most of my prepping of food last night. I made two pumpkin pies and a chocolate snickers cake. It looks and smells wonderful. I also baked a turkey breast and a whole turkey. And of course I made two 9 x13 pans of dressing. I will make the gravy once I get to Moms. Here is a photo of some little favors for all the family members to take home with them. Just a memento of the day. Everyone slow down and enjoy the day!

Ions ago I worked in a daycare and I was in charge of 13 -2 year old children. (What memories, I have there. These little ones are grown with families of their own now. A few I still keep in contact with their mothers. As MS would say "It's a good thing".) But every Thanksgiving there is a little ditty that keeps going through my head all these years later, so I will close today with Blessings To All of You, and this little ditty. I hope you smile. Just imagine a room full of 2 year children singing this.

The turkey is a funny bird

It's head goes bobble-bobble;

And all he knows is just one word...

And that is GOBBLE-GOBBLE.

Pat's Challenge

I know Pat gave us extra two days to turn our challenges in, but I got to work on it this weekend. I like to do that when possible, because a lot of times after working, I am so zonked out, I can't be very creative.
Here are the rules for this weeks challenge:

"A few days ago Robyn posted her version of a previous Challenge entry by Shelia. I loved it and thought that was such a neat idea! So tonight's challenge is to pick a previous submission to one of the Saturday Night Challenges and rework it to your own style. Fun, huh?"

Back in October, when Pat had her Grand Opening, I did the challenge for her. Robyn submitted this wonderful organizer for grocery coupons. I turned her ideal into a Christmas Planner. This will be a early Christmas present for a friend. I will try to get it in the mail this week so she can use it the next couple of weeks. Thanks Pat for the challenge and Robyn for the inspiration.


Robyn used the tops of little lunch sacks to make pockets for her grocery coupons. I followed her lead but used white bags instead. I also covered the front of each little sack, to dress them up, and make them a little sturdier. The snowflakes I punched out of vellum, then just added some glitter for sparkle. I made 4 compartments. One for receipts, one for the list, to do, and one for people's sizes. I went overboard with the snowflake theme, but it was easier then getting up and finding other stuff. I used my cricut to cut the book plate that framed "Christmas Planner". I fastened the pockets to the cover with the snowflake brads. I used ribbon to cover the back of the brads on the back of the holder and added the ribbon also to the raw edge where the top tucks down to close it. I added some colored paper clips to a couple of the pockets for easy access.

Holiday Cheer

It is hard for me to believe that next Thursday is Thanksgiving. It will soon be 2009. Time is passing way to fast. I am working on Christmas gifts. I really don't know what you would call this thing I made. :) I have bought several bottles of Scuppernong Cider. It is made not to far from where I live. Scuppernongs are a bronze colored grape. They are delicious right off the vine. I felt like I needed to dress the bottle up a little more then just tying a ribbon around it. I cut a 4 x 8 strip of patterned Christmas paper, then used my oval punch about 3/4 inch from the top. Then from the bottom of the punch I scored about 1/2 inch down and folded both scored lines. It fits right over the neck of the bottle. I used the cricut to cut the snowflakes out and adhered MS fine glitter to them. After gluing them on, I added little silver dots to the center of each snowflake. I added one more snowflake that I cut out of red paper with MS glitter on it to the edge of the tag. To that snowflake I put a little silver heart in the center. I faux stitched around the white layer with "Holiday cheer" printed on it. Since I did not have any red ribbon that didn't clash with the red reindeer, I decided to pick up the green in the paper. I punched hole in end of tag threaded a ribbon through it, and tied it on to the bottle neck. Thanks so much for stopping by.

Supplies used: Reindeer patterned paper Basic Grey I think

Striped Christmas paper by Daisy D's

Snowflake Cricut (Accent Essentials Cartridge)

Glitter Martha Stewart

Ribbon from stash

Pat's Challenge

Hope everyone made it through Monday unscathed. It was a typical one where I work. I work for a company that does service work, and everything always tear up on the weekends. And of course, I was one of the weekend victims. My water heater had to be replaced this morning. But still have a leak because of the pressure on the line or something, so till the plumbers can come back tomorrow, we have had to turn it off. I am not a happy camper.

Pat's challenge this past Saturday was to do a layout and at least one stamp on it somewhere. I am making my mother for Christmas a month by month reminder book. The months were already in there and the pockets made. I will recover the cover, and do each month as I have this one. My mother is getting forgetful, so I hope this will help her on this hard journey she is facing. The people that have birthdays in that certain month, I am putting their pictures on the page that faces it. I put some homemade cards in the pocket, and will get some postage stamps later and put in it. On the left hand layout are the photos and I use stamps for two sentiments, and also the October stamp on the tab. Over on the date page, I wrote their names on the right date, and tried to use balloons and other things to symbolize what the occasion is. On October 31st, I used a stamp to recognize Halloween. Thanks Pat for challenging me to get started on this Christmas present. When I get the whole book completed I will show it too.

Monday again

It's Monday again, and just be in the high 40's today. I know some of you would welcome that high. I worked all weekend, but not as much playing as I would have liked to have done. Saturday from 10:30 am till 7:30 pm, my sister from Boone, and my niece, Ashley and I went Christmas shopping for my mother. She isn't able to do all that walking now. Now talk about power shopping, we bought a total of 26 gifts and that was just leaving off 3 names. I was really proud of ourselves. We even stopped and had an leisurely lunch. The first picture is of the 29 gift tags I made on Friday to have ready for Saturday. The three of us have not been together in a long time. We had a wonderful time The pictures did not turn out very good. The lights were terrible. Thanks for stopping by and looking.

Pat's Note Card Holder Challenge

This week Pat had us make a note card holder. At the beginning of the week I showed you several note cards that I put together for a stocking stuffer. The recipient of this little gift is a teacher and I am sure she will have plenty of use for these. Julie also likes the color orange, so I made the dominant color on the holder, orange. I had made a card-a-lope for a birthday card While I was making it, I realized I could make two pockets, by using 2 envelopes. This easily accommodates 5 cards and 5 envelopes. Next time I will use stiffer paper, the envelopes that I used were a little flimsy.

The firs t thing I did was to cut off one flap of one of the envelopes, then put glue on the flap of the other one and slide it down into the pocket of the 2nd envelope. That makes the two pockets.

I was lucky that I had some envelopes that were already lined. The next step was to put a ribbon on the folder to use as a closure. I used red sticky tape to attach it firmly to the back of the holder and then brought both ends to the front.

I put 5 note cards in one side and 5 matching envelopes, that I monogrammed with a J on the envelope flaps.Then it was time to embellish the front. I cut up one of the extra unused note cards. I used one side of the card as the background, found a scrap of turquoise, then cut the border out of the extra card along with the J monogram that was on it. I used a bling to dot the I with.

I used a glaze pen to color in the J, let it dry and tied the ribbon to close the holder. I hope you may be able to use this ideal in your gift giving this holiday season. As I mentioned before, the only thing different I would have done, is used stiffer envelopes. Thanks for stopping by today and thanks to Pat at One Little Spark The Shop for the challenge.

Supplies used: Monogrammed note cards by G Squared, ribbon by American Crafts Elements and an orange Sakura Glaze pen.

A Christmas Card & Veteran's Day

I wish I knew how all you people came up with these cute little quirky titles to your daily post. Mine are just what they are, but anyway, I guess you have guessed that I will be sharing a Christmas card with you today. I wished I could say I have them all made, but that is far far from being truthful. I've got 3 out of about 75 finished. It's really beginning to look like purchased cards this year. I have always had them made and addressed by this time of year. It is all my DH's fault, he makes me fix him a meal every night. And then there is Pat, she has all these wonderful challenges and I can't just say no to participating*wink*wink* Oh well, I keep telling myself I am not going to get all stressed out about Christmas this year like all the years before. But I've said that for the last 36 years, and I haven't been calm yet, and really enjoy the season. Well enough of that, here is my card.
I like this woodsy nature looking card. The rub- on is by American Traditional Designs. The papers are just a hodge podge of scraps that I had leftover from another project. The yarn is used for plastic canvas and is made by Needloft.

Please remember all our Veteran's today. Here is a picture of my Daddy. He was just entering the Navy.