Craft Sales

Tonight is our first craft sale of the year (and second ever craft sale!)  Suzanne has a table at the school board office where she works, and Carla and I are sharing it with her.  Suzanne has knitted stuff & dog toys, Carla has snowmen made from patio pavers (a buck a pound!) and I've got these:

Perfect Heat Wheat Bags - these are my newest fabrics.

I'm selling these for $12, and as always, custom orders and wholesale orders welcome.

Tea Light Snowmen - Saw one of these at Jess' place last year.

These will be $1 - I had a big box of candles already, and thought this would be a great way to use them up.  You need small inexpensive items get people to your table, anyway.  :)

Dancing Ribbon Rings.

And these I saw online - can't you just picture your little nieces dancing around with these?  The ribbons are 2' long; the rings with three pairs of ribbons will be $10 and the ones with five are $12.

Here are the posters for the sales if you want more info:

Free Inspiration Everywhere Class

I took a class last fall and thought it was great - anyone want to join me for this one?

Homemade Christmas

Christmas is wonderful - celebrating what Jesus did for us by being born a human, and getting to see family.

The gift giving side of Christmas is not high on my priority list; my love languages are more in line with physical touch, words of affirmation and quality time; gifts is at the very bottom.  (A hug and sitting around the living room?  Perfect.)

I do enjoy giving gifts when I can come up with something homemade and perfect (it's hard being a perfectionist)!  I love being excited for someone to open the gift from me because I put thought and effort into it, rather than being half apologetic because I couldn't think of something better.  (It's also true that I think too much.)

I also like a simple life, and am trying hard to come up with ideas of things I can make without getting frazzeled by 'the list'.

Today I thought I would share with you my strategy for this year:  the in-ter-net.  I just googled 'gifts to make' and got a great idea for the boys.  I found something online a couple of weeks ago that I just had to make for K, and bought enough supplies to make some to sell at my craft sales.  I found something for just about everyone on my list; now I just have to get making!

I do recognize that not everyone appreciates homemade, and don't worry, I would rather spend money on something someone will actually use than give them something I made that will be junk in their home.  I am as concerned about usefulness as well as being frugal.  :)

I'm not intending to go on a big rant here; I don't want you thinking that you have to give me something homemade or I won't appreciate it.  I would be happy to open anything, because I know it comes from someone who cared enough to think of me.  I would be very happy with a mixed CD or baking or a family photo for my wall.  I would be honored to know that someone gave a donation to a charity (water projects or education in Africa?) in my name.  I would laugh if we got money to go towards our kitchen renos...

Here are a few sites to check out:
Advent Conspiracy -  be sure to check out the video.  Our preaching series for Advent is going to be on the four themes laid out in AC - Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, Love All.  I'm very excited to see if our church grasps the idea.
How About Orange - fun stuff on this one.  I like the printables.
Instructables - "Homemade gifts are the best" is what they say!
whip up - I like that most of these blogs have a list of blogs on the side so you could get lost in crafty-blogginess for a good long time.
Craftster
Craft Gossip

At Thanksgiving, playing the family trivia game I made for Christmas last year.

I would love to hear your thoughts on Christmas gifts, family traditions, or sites where you find inspiration.

Saturday, Sunday, Monday

 

 On Saturday, we helped Sean's parents move into their new place in Balgonie.

(Aaron, Ben, Sheldon, Sean)

 

Sunday Madeline had her second indoor soccer game.

They are South Africa, & tied last week 4-4 and won this week 8-6.

I have a little bit of a hard time not yelling like a coach.

 

Tonight we did a little more demolition.  It looks so much smaller without its skin on!

Cat's Eye, Cabinet Costs & House Found

Just a catch up on life...

Book club tonight - I didn't notice that on the calendar until Monday.  Ordered the book at the library, picked it up Tuesday, and managed to get it done in 2 days - it's a long one, too.  Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye.  Now that I"m done that I can go back to Gone With the Wind.  How come I've never read this before?

I'm doing two craft sales this year.  Carla and Suzanne and I are sharing a table at a sale at Suzanne's work (School Board Office, Thursday, November 18, 4-8 pm).  I also got a table for one at WH Ford School (Saturday, December 4, 10-4).  Come on out if you're close by!  I'll take pictures of my wares and post them for you.

Sean's parents finally found a house!  The got possession yesterday, and we'll be helping them move on Saturday.  It's in Balgonie, so closer than they were, but still not in the city.  It's supposed to be pure 70's inside - can't wait to see it.

And a couple of photos to leave you with (thanks Auntie Joan for the costumes!) and a renos update (I actually wrote it first, but it got demoted to the end so you can skip it if you're not interested.

Madeline wore this to the Harvest Party at church.

 

And we wore them to a costume party at a friend's place.

Our kitchen is still in demolition mode. The main thing initally was that we were going to do the floors, a new countertop and ditch the wallpaper and paint. Minor renos. Sigh. The walls need to be redone because the wallpaper was covering lino which means the whole wall needs to come down. (And we can redo the vapor barrier and wiring, so that's good.) But we're now going up into the ceiling, too - scraping off the stipple and replacing the light fixtures. And cabinets. We moved out the one on the outside wall (and now have to go into the living room for our silverware and pots) to do the wall behind it, and now are pretty convinced that we should just do the cabinets too since everything else is getting done. But man they aren't cheap. Rona has a truckload sale on and we checked that out and they have everything we need except the right size sink base... and that means it won't work. Would have been half price, too. Enough about renos. I'll post more photos as it changes.

Z is for Zachary

Are you suprised?  Here are some shots from Thanksgiving weekend:  Isn't he wonderful?

 

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Thanks for joining me for Alphabet August!  For those who might consider doing something similar, please note that it will take you about THREE months, not one...

Y is for Yes.

Yes, I went to a scrapbooking retreat on the weekend.

Yes, I made some layouts.  Twenty, in fact.

Yes, I'm going to share.

An 8x8 - I've got a smaller album for lots of M's stuff.

Some older pics - look how little she is!

 

Journaling taken from the blog...

 

Love these photos - their group did such a great job.

 

How fun, hey?  I like the way this page turned out.

 

Like the journaling says - what a wonderful addition to the family!

 

First of 4 South Dakota trip pages.

 

Part one of a two page spread...

 

...and part two.

 

Notice the stamped title - I also used the Cricut for titles, and the computer that was there, and sticker letters, and grungeboard, handwriting, and Suzanne's Sure Cuts A Lot (software that works with the Cricut).  No rut for me!

 

This was a scraplift from the latest Scrapbooks Etc. magazine.

 

Lots of golfing picture from this summer...

 

A mushy one with a bunch of random shots of M.  The journaling says 'You will carry my heart with you wherever you go, and I will always be home for you.'

 

Did I spell that right?  This was the funniest thing I saw when we were home at Thanksgiving.

 

This is one of my favorites.

 

And this is the other one.

Yes, I realize there are not 20 layouts there - I also worked on an Atlas album, made a whole Geocaching album that I'll share another day, and counted as 1/2 the ones I had half done before I got there.  A very complicated counting system.

Leave me some love!  Tell me what you think!!

X is for eXcavation eXperiences

Kitchen Renos.  It's actually kind of fun to be destructive instead of cleaning!  The floor tiles are not coming off as easily as I had hoped, but the baseboards and chair rail are all gone, and I discovered a new layer of wallpaper behind the fridge and stove.  A shiny blue eighties flower print. 

It was at that point that I imagined people being like this kitchen - we keep renovating ourselves and adding layers of identity, covering up the old with who we want to be next.  Trying to stay fresh and current, but not always doing a thorough job of it and doing a deep cleansing down to the core of the problem.  The last few remodels in this kitchen have added wallpaper over other wallpaper and over lino, a chair rail and some paint.  This time, though, we're taking down the walls right to the studs, making sure the insulation is adequate and vapor barrier is in place, then putting in fresh walls and new paint, and new floors (and probably new cabinets, which were not planned for; anyone want to finance that bit???).

We've been talking about restoration and becoming the 'Me I Want to Be' lately, and hard as it sounds, we need to put ourselves through this process too.  We need to let God strip away all the layers that we've accumulated, clean out the junk that has stuck where we can't see, and start to rebuild us from the inside out.  New and fresh and clean.  We will be more useful, but also will enjoy being who we are.

W is for Work Blog

I blog at work.  Sometimes.  Usually I have more pressing work to do and the creative time it takes to think up and write isn't in the schedule.

I do think it should be a priority, though, for me and the others on our staff, because we want our website to be more than simply the place people can go for the details.  It is evolving, slowly; it is current and if you are looking for specific details, you should be able to find them.  Hopefully you'll find some content that is more than you were looking for, too.

I dream, though, of the day when people will find content that makes them think.  Find something that will challenge them in the same way we try to do when we meet together.  To know through our site that people care and can be trusted.  Too much to ask of a website?  Well, I believe it should be an extension of ourselves.  What we want the church to be is what it should be too.

So W is for my Work Blog.  I recently switched it over from Blogger to WordPress, so there's not a lot of content archived yet.  That would be here at the old site.

Thanks for visiting.

V is for Vintage

We are doing some updating in our kitchen this month.  We've got plans for new flooring in the kitchen, hall and bathroom, we're taking down the wall paper and border and painting the walls, and probably give the cabinets a new coat of paint, inside and out.  We've also got a new top for the counters and a new sink and faucet, and will do a new back splash. 

Here's me taking a deep breath and hoping it doesn't end up much bigger than that.

This is the 'Before' shot.

The destruction begins.

Here's where the vintage comes in!  Any of you have wallpaper like this in your home?

U is for Unicycling

 

Neil had a unicycle.

Silas had camp counselors this summer and last who rode unicycles.

Silas asked if he could buy our unicycle.

I said yes.

We all had some good laughs on this first time we had it out...

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Had the African Children's Choir here on Friday.  So great - amazing to see how this organization lifts so many children out of poverty.  If they come to your area, go see them.

Started small group on Saturday - seven couples - looks like it will be really good.  Nice to be a part of this, and hoping for some good new relationships for Sean, for me, and for us.

Went geocaching today - added two more to our total...

Reading Still Alice by Lisa Genova.  About Alzheimers.  Really well written, and so sad.  I`d recommend it.

T is for Thankfulness

I am thankful that I get Thanksgiving off so we can go to Winnipeg and spend the weekend with family.  I am thankful that we will be there for Zachary`s dedication, too!

I am thankful for companies with lifetime guarantees that happily send you replacements...

A week or so ago, I was prepping some fabric for magic bags, using my rotary cutter and big olfa mat, and my cutter started to stick.  It was starting to go before, and I went to get my other one, but the same thing was happening with that one - we pulled them apart, but the blade was wearing right into the metal post, so not fixable.  I`ve had them both for a long time, and now in one night, they both died.  I tossed them in the garbage and went out the next morning to Fabricland to get a new one.  Looking at the packaging, I saw a `Lifetime Guarantee`notice... so when I got home I went out to the garage to dig through the bag of kitchen garbage to find the cutters in case they needed proof - I don`t know what what was in there that was so gross, but ick!  This morning I finally got around to calling their office, and within 5 minutes was giving a cheerful lady my address so she could send me two new ones.  Just like that.  Thank you, Olfa!

S is for Sean's Birthday. And Scrapbooking.

Who knew that the S post would fall on Sean's big day?  They had cake at work today for him, and we're celebrating at the Keg tonight as a family.  For the record, he's all caught up to me, now, for another 5 1/2 months.

Scrapbooking:  Haven't done too much lately - a handful got started at our craft social, so there may be some to show soon.  Instead of finishing those, though, I may spend any free time in the next couple of weeks picking and printing pictures and planning layouts, because we're off to a scrapbooking retreat at the end of October.  The same one Carla and Elizabeth and I went to last year, except this year it's us 3 plus four more!  I was downstairs in my 'studio' last night making a list of pages I could do, and started to get excited about it.

In other scrapbooking news, I joined up with a bunch of ladies across Canada to be a part of the Canadian Paper Trail.  It's a blog where each month there's a different topic and each day in the month there is a different Canadian artist featured with their project.  You can follow that link to the current content, or check this one for My August Project.  The girl who started it and is running it has come up against some tough times, so I'm not sure if one month is all this is going to get...  It is a good idea, and if it ever gets off the ground again, I'll be sure to link you up to see my stuff and the other projects.

R is for Running.

Today I went for my last Running Room motivated run.  Our clinic ended this week, and I`ve succeeded in running the full three times a week.  Yay, me!  Now I have to figure out a new way to keep motivated.  I really liked that part - knowing that we were going to meet Monday night and it would be harder than last week, so I need to stay on top of it. 

If I come up with a good plan of where to go from here, I`ll let you know. 

I`d love to hear your suggestions of what you do.

Q is for Quilt & Quality After School Snacks

This is one I made in the fall of 2003.  I actually made two the same - this is Madeline's, and the other was for my nephew Josh, who was born December 24th that year.

 

And this masterpiece was what I came up with the other day when M asked her daily 4:30 Query - "What's for snack?"   This is a banana, halved, spread with peanut butter, studded with alternating almonds and peanuts, and chocolate chips in between those, and topped with a sprinkling of coconut.

P is for Photos of our Summer

Swimming in Sean's coworker's pool.

Wouldn't be summer without racing.

Wouldn't be summer without camping.

Geocaching!

 

So I went to see if I had any posts saved for later in the alphabet, and found this.  So two P is for Photos posts.  Hope you enjoyed!!