Christmas Cards

I can't take credit for this idea, but I'm certainly going to pass it on.


NavyGuy was a bit horrified to find out I had cut up all the holiday cards (yes, those are all bits of cards we actually got), but I think the plan is brilliant. What would we do with all of them otherwise? This way, their essence is preserved. (And I won't be on Hoarders in 20 years with seventy five boxes of holiday cards that I just couldn't bear to part with...)

The idea came from this post by Ali Edwards (a scrapbooking celebrity of sorts). Each of my card cut-outs is a 2 in by 2 in square, with the corners rounded. Some of the photo cards I cropped longer in order to not exclude people. I think both pages turned out really neat; I especially like how they're symmetrical, but also really colorful and unique. It's fun to see the photo cards of course, but also the different styles of cards people sent.


The journaling strips were typed on the computer and printed on white cardstock.

What do you with your cards once the Christmas season is over? (Friends of mine in real life... can you find your card snippet?)

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De-Christmasfication

We spent much of the day removing all the traces of holiday from the house. I put NavyGuy in charge of the tree, (which I do every year because I hate taking off all the ornaments), and every year I swear I'll never let him near it again because he inevitably screws something up. (Sorry, hun, I love you... but you do.)

This year he broke an ornament (luckily it was one of his own so we avoided bloodshed), and put all of the ornaments into the new ornament storage boxes that I found at Storables.

Which could be confusing because aside from the clumsiness, it sounds like he did everything correctly. Except many of our ornaments already have their own boxes - you know, those nicely labeled Hallmark boxes - which I keep year after year... can you guess where I'm going?

Yup, those boxes are all sitting empty in a rubbermaid container because I failed to supervise NavyGuy closely enough and did not notice that he hadn't put the ornaments in their Hallmark boxes until after he had emptied the entire tree. Had I been more motivated, I would have taken all the ornaments out and re-done the system; instead, the mistake will be corrected come Christmas 2010.

Sigh.

The outside lights still need to come down, and there's a few miscellaneous items that I missed in the first sweep of the house, but for the most part, Christmas is over. Kind of depressing, what with the house looking all empty and boring again. But, it's a chance to bring back all the fun home accessories that have been stored away!

Who else dreads taking down their holiday decorations? Any secrets to making the process less hell-ish?

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Christmas Jingle Scrapbook Album

I don't have pictures of my finished version, but I have to show off the fabulous mini album that we created a few weeks ago...

(Photo from Andrea Walford, Sunny Stampin')

The album was designed by Andrea Walford, a Stampin' Up demonstrator, but she offered the template to other demonstrators... so my stamping lady taught the album as a fun Christmas class :)


Here's another photo of the album (from Michelle), that shows how the album starts to open up...

And there's the full expanded album! It's awesome. There's space for photos and journaling, and it's just so much fun to open and close it! :) I swear, my version looks just like it. We used a scrapbook kit available from Stampin' Up, so it came with all the coordinating papers, stickers, and add-ons. I haven't ordered any of their kits before, but now I'm pretty interested in some of the other ones.

I haven't decided yet what kind of photos to put in my album. Should I focus on just one year, like Christmas 2008? Or maybe an album showcasing my holiday decorations? Or various photos of Christmases over the years, with cute photos of Sister and I in matching pj's from the early years?

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Christmas Morn

A photo diary of our Christmas morning...



Tally's first Christmas Card from Grandma



NavyGuy's Mom and Dad ready for some present opening



Anti-bacterial wipes... the serious stocking stuffer...



Wisconsin pride!



The book haul...



Another present for the pup



NavyGuy's big gift - a Kindle (cuz he can't pack six months' worth of books when he deploys)



Won't. Last. Until. April. Without. New. Episodes!!!!! This t-shirt from Sister-in-Law will have to sustain me.



More gifts for Tally



Sister-in-Law's big gift - a TiVo... which she's been salivating over for way too long



Tally consumed this bone in 20 minutes. Oops. Perhaps we should have been watching more closely... (don't worry - she's fine. Iron stomach on that one.)



Who knows... I probably have a cookie in my mouth.



No... my new stamp pad holder is not a toy for puppies!

What did your holiday look like?

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Reemergence

I'm slowly recovering from the holidays. Between the non-stop shifts at Starbucks, the multiple food comas resulting from each holiday meal, and the overall hustle and bustle of the season, my body isn't bouncing back as quickly as it used to.

Blogging is still going to be sporadic for the next few days, as I received a plethora of new books under the Christmas tree, and all I'm in the mood for is reading on the couch, with Tally pup on my lap, the fire roaring, and a tupperware container of Christmas cookies within reach. But have no fear - lots of holiday recaps, and other shenanigans to come soon!

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Holiday Decorating: Part 3 The Home Tour

After finally completing the Christmas decorating process, I'm ready to show off the house. NavyGuy and I staged a little home tour, complete with Tally cameos and my general ridiculousness when on film...

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Holiday Baking

She's finally been takin' out for her first spin...


Yes, it's official. After being terrified to turn it on for six months, I used the glorious pink KitchenAid stand mixer for the first time today to make several different kinds of holiday cookies. It's kind of intimidating, no? Okay, maybe I'm the only one, but it's like super expensive and heavy as all get out, so I was always a wee bit nervous that I was going to break it or something. So I just let it sit on my counter and shine in all it's pretty pinkness.

Well her cushy days of just being counter candy are over! Baby works like a charm! In fact I spent so much time baking this morning, that Tally finally got bored of wandering around my feet and decided to curl up in a safe place (just in case things went haywire in the kitchen).

The results of all my hard work today? A couple batches of Fudge Crinkles, a family recipe called Sweet Treats, and possibly my new favorite: Fake-Out Starbucks Cranberry Bliss Bars...

I'll admit, they aren't quite the same as the real ones (the blondie base is thicker than the ones you'll get at Starbucks), but the flavor and taste is super similar, and I think, quite delicious. My mom found the recipe here, and even though they take some time and effort, they're way worth it. (Mine obviously don't look as pretty as those in the recipe photo, but give me a break - this was the first corner piece that's always a pain in the booty to get out of the pan!).

More recipes to come - I have Monday off of work, so I'm going to try to get some fudge made, and NavyGuy will absolutely die if he doesn't have his Peanut Butter Chocolate Wheat Thins.

What Christmas cookies are your favorites? Does anyone have all their baking done?

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A Little of This and a Little of That...

*All Christmas packages are in the mail. I got up at 5am today, finished wrapping everything, and was in line at the post office by 9. And it wasn't even horrific. I got the good postal worker man (who hooked me up with a sweet sweet media rate for a few of the packages), and was out of the building in under 15 minutes.

*When making quiche, the milk and eggs must be whisked together thoroughly. Failure to do so will result in a husband being sent to pick up burritos for dinner.

*NavyGuy starts his holiday leave today. On the plus side, this means he's home to play with the dog everyday and work on a honey-do list. On the less plus side, this means he's home all day. I predict many Nova and Good Eats marathons broken up by bouts of computer gaming and general lounging.

*Monday night was another squadron holiday party. This time both officers and enlisted sailors were invited. It was at the O'Club, and it was... interesting. Some people were in cocktail dresses; some people were in jeans and "fancy" t-shirts. The party was essentially, "come, pay for overpriced drinks, eat a so-so buffet of lukewarm food, and try to act interested when they announce the raffle prizes for all the enlisted guys..." I muddled through the evening in a Chardonnay-induced haze and managed to snake an extra piece of chocolate cake. They did have nice party favors - sturdy wine glasses etched with the squadron logo (keep in mind "nice"is a relative term).

*Still to be done before family arrives on Monday: clean house, finish holiday decorating, finalize Christmas Eve and Christmas Day menus, bake cookies, wrap more gifts... hmmm... that list doesn't sound quite long enough... I must be forgetting something...

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Warning:

Do not mix five hours of Christmas shopping with 20 espresso shots.

That was NavyGuy's and my Saturday. We thought powering through and getting everything done as fast as possible would be the least painful means of completing our holiday gift shopping.

Wrong. Oh so very very wrong.

And everything still needs to be wrapped.

And shipped to Wisconsin.

Before Christmas.

In 10 days...

(Is 9:00am too early for a vodka cranberry juice? I'm leaning towards no. Plus I probably still need to hydrate after "EspressoGate 2009.")

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Christmas Cards '09

or... "How I nearly lost my mind and sent e-cards this year."

Oh the saga. The process from card inception to dropping in the mailbox was fraught with headaches:

~ the design process began with thoughts of making a holiday photo card through one of the photo websites. Damn if those babies aren't pricey! At least the decent looking ones. So after I putzed with various layouts and photos and designs for over a week, I finally realized it wasn't worth the money and I could just make a photo holiday card myself.

~ so then, I designed my own photo card and made about 15 different prototypes before I finalized the design

~ and then the real debacles began... I ran out of white cardstock (trip #1 to Michaels); the cards didn't fit in the envelopes (trip #2); the envelopes were too see-through (trip #3); the new envelopes were too shiny to write on (trip #1 to Office Max for address labels); the address labels didn't print correctly (no trips, just a lot of cursing); I ran out of stamps (trip #1 to the Post Office). I think there were other shenanigans along the way but clearly I've blocked them.

Oh, I suppose you want to see the final product?


Here's the front. One of my favorite wedding photos cuz we look so genuinely happy. I used a corner punch to make those bubble patterns and then just slide the photo into the four corners. That way if anyone wants to take the picture out and save it, they don't need to keep the whole Christmas card itself. The white paper is backed with either green or red paper to make a small border (one of the debacles along the way resulted in me needing to trim the top and bottom of the card to make it fit in the envelopes).

And here's the back. (The card is just one solid piece, not a flip open thing.) The greeting was printed on white cardstock through our printer and the red design is a stamp. That's it. After all the headaches and debacles, the cards turned out fairly simple, but I like them.

P.S. I'm starting next year's cards in January.

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Debate: Top 3 Christmas Movies

Alright folks, I'm bushed. It's been a long day, and despite several cups of coffee, a Mountain Dew, and a handful of Excedrin Migraine (oh calm down, I only actually took the prescribed two pills), my headache is still raging.

So, I'm putting this post in your hands. Let's start a debate over the best holiday flicks. You only get to suggest 3 (THREE) in the comments section, and be sure to give a little bit of an argument. The more creative the better!

To get you started, I'll suggest the following:


1) It's a Wonderful Life - hello, the gold standard. If you don't well up at the end when everyone gives money to George and they're all singing Auld Lang Syne, you should see a cardiologist soon... cuz you be heartless, fool!


2) Mickey's Christmas Carol - a great version of the classic story, but possibly my favorite part are the short cartoons beforehand... Goofy learning to ski, Pluto and the Chipmunks hiding in the Christmas tree, and Donald and the three nephews having the snowball war.
3) A Very Brady Christmas - people, people - all the kids come home, Alice is in the kitchen, and Florence Henderson sings while Mike is trapped in a mine (or something). AWESOME! A dark horse nominee, yes, but a worthy contender.

So, have I ruffled any feathers by ignoring your favorite Christmas movie? Speak up people! It's time to give a shout-out to the movie that you have to watch every single December or else it's just not Christmas!

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Weekend Update

~Friday night was NavyGuy's squadron Holiday party for all of the officers and their spouses. The XO (executive officer... second highest guy in the squadron) hosted, and I was pretty nervous. I didn't want to embarrass NavyGuy or ruin his reputation right off the bat.

The night ended up being fairly tame and manageable - a buffet of tasty food and sitting around chatting with the few wives that I am starting to get to know. My only real slip up was letting it be known that NavyGuy has used my scrapbooking tools to make his flight charts... I'll definitely feel bad if his call sign ends up being "Scrappy" because of my big mouth.

~Saturday, NavyGuy and I were all kinds of holiday productive. We bought our new (fake) Christmas tree, which I then set up and decorated beeeeeautifully (pics to come). We also got some shopping done, set up the Willow Tree Nativity set (which NavyGuy thinks is creepy cuz the figurines have no faces and he's threatened to have our future children draw smiles in with sharpies...), and I finally decided on a design for our Christmas cards. They still aren't done, but at least some of the paper has been cut...

~Sunday I had to work. Blah. Then I made Chocolate Peanut Butter Wheat Thins* for a Christmas Cookie Exchange party with "the wives." Well, I remade the wheat thin cookies, cuz the first attempt was a disaster - I bought unsweetened chocolate and didn't realize until I tasted one of the finished treats. Not good. Not good at all. Luckily, the second attempt was a success, and the wives enjoyed the treats. It was nice to sit and chat with a smaller group (and eat lots of sweets), plus I came home with extra cookies for NavyGuy and several new recipes to try out before Christmas.

How was your weekend? What holiday projects did you accomplish? Any fun Christmas parties you're looking forward to? Suggestions for possible call signs for NavyGuy that would be less embarrassing than something craft-related?

*Recipe: Slather peanut butter between two wheat thin crackers. Dip in melted baker's chocolate. Refrigerate. Enjoy.

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Holiday Decorating: Part 2

I almost forgot...

Tally will have a place to hang her stocking as well, courtesy of Mom:

Dog Paw Stocking Holder

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Holiday Decorating Part 1

I tend to go a little Christmas crazy when it comes to decorating the house. I have five large rubbermaid tubs of decorations, boxes of Willow Tree Nativity pieces, wreaths, lighted garlands, a Christmas train... and that's just for inside the house. And being this is the FIRST year in our FIRST house, and the FIRST year NavyGuy and I won't be going home to our parents for the holidays, we may reach a whole new level of insanity.

Step 1 in the decorating process should have been to inventory and take stock of what items I already have.... whoops. Instead, I carried four bags of Target holiday items home yesterday (which I blame on the fact that I spent half of Black-Friday working the seasonal department of the store... and thereby eyeing up all the new holiday decorations). But everything I got is sooooo fabulous! Check it out:
A decorative pillow and matching kitchen towels, from the "Birchwood Chalet" theme of decorations.Stocking holders for our mantle (NavyGuy vehemently stated that his stocking would hang from the reindeer... why he felt so strongly about it I haven't gained the courage to ask...)
An advent calendar with room for a little piece of candy as we count down the days to Christmas.

I also got some red and gold ball ornaments, and another strand of white lighted garland (it's my Christmas crack). Annoyingly, Target doesn't have most of these items available online, so sorry for the shoddy photographs. Everything was on sale (so no guilt trip Mom!), and I can't wait to bust out all of my other decorations and trim the house! Lots more photos and possibly some how-to's to come...

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2009 Calendar - November and December

It's usually about this point in a project that I start to lose steam. I'm anxious to finish it up, my original burst of inspiration and creativity is gone, and it's a challenge/chore to complete the last few pages without them looking shoddy or like duplicates of earlier layouts.


Clearly, by November, the layouts were getting a little... sparse (that's the nicest word I could use for it). But, sometimes sparse and simple is a pleasant change of pace.


The way to avoid a complete meltdown by the end though is to plan the last couple of pages when you're first starting. That way, as you wind down, it's late at night, you're low on supplies, energy, wine, and motivation, you can have a few great pages at the end. I was quite happy when I found this Christmas tree layout on a scrapbook sketch blog Pencil Lines (also linked in the sidebar). It's #115 in their collection, and while I expanded mine to include larger photographers over the entire page, I think it still turned out great


The red buttons are from Target dollar spot mix kit I picked up last Valentine's Day. All of the photos were placed on one green piece of paper, then I glued them all down and simply cut around the outside. The stark red background contrasts nicely.

Another year done, another calendar complete. If I was smart, I'd already be working on next year's...

Hehehe :)

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2009 Calendar - October

Oh Cricut, how I love thee. The tree above? Cricut. The stack of pumpkins below? Cricut. The October heading? I'll give you three guesses... but you won't need them all!

Now, I will admit that the small leaves scattered throughout these pages are from a basic punch, but I could have done them with a cricut cartridge as well. The above page also shows another option for backing or highlighting your photos besides a simple square frame; four small square corners help offset the graduation photo. It's a great trick to use when you start to run low on paper, or only have small scraps with which to work (my inventory of dark brown paper started to deplete by the time I reached the October layout).

Again, remember that these pages still need text; the white space in the upper right corner and lower left corner are intentionally blank, leaving me room to add captions and descriptions.

I'm posting all of these pages to hopefully a) give some basic layout ideas, b) to share easy details that can be added to pages, and c) to have reminders of the calendar since it's now hanging in my grandparents' house!

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2009 Calendar - September

It's been a bit since I've shared any more pages from the calendar Christmas gift; the previous pages can be found starting here. The above page is for September (hence the back to school bus). I couldn't resist adding the photo of Sister's dog Lucy in her bumblebee Halloween costume - the colors matched and she's irresistible!

I would normally be bothered by the white (empty) space on the left hand side of the page, but I needed that space for some captions. When the photographs were just portraits, I wasn't as concerned with captions, but the left and middle photos are both specific action shots, and they definitely needed explanation (otherwise it just looks like my cousin is raising his arms for no apparent reason :).

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Holiday Mail for Heroes Update

I received a comment on a December post encouraging readers to contribute to the Holiday Mail for Heroes program. The comment included this video announcing the final tally of cards...

Hope everyone who contributed got a nice warm feeling in their heart!

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Vacation Recap - Holiday Celebrations

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

I'm back! Mostly unpacked, and curled up in my bed, ready to share all the fun and frivolity of the past two weeks. My plan of attack for the vacation recaps is to ignore chronology, and instead share thematically (which makes me think of the never-ending curriculum discussions we'd have over how to teach our students... Historygirlie, I sincerely hope this debate has come up in at least one Wednesday morning meeting this year). So, we begin with the reason for the season - family togetherness and liquor.

NavyGuy and I spent Christmas Eve day with his family. We had a great time making an "interactive" brunch of eggs Benedict (where I got scolded by NavyGuy for not putting the Canadian bacon on the English muffins correctly) and ben-yays (no clue how to spell, so sound it out - those little donuty things from New Orleans that you cover in powdered sugar and then gorge yourself on). Presents followed; the best moment was watching NavyGuy hug his Playstation3. We also got the game Catch Phrase, which I introduced to everyone and it quickly became a hit, with much screaming and trash talking during the game. Then more eating (and drinking). Their traditional Christmas dinner is beef, popovers, and lots of Christmas cookies, all of which I was happy to accomodate.

We drove to my mom's to spend Christmas Eve night (with Sister and her spouse), and woke up early the next morning to attack the tree. My mom made new stockings for Sister's family, including a fabulous little one for the dog. Way too many more presents (yea for mukluks!), and then off to our big family gathering at my aunt's house. My little cousins had a blast showing off all their gifts (the iPod touch never left the twelve year old's hands), and I had the privilege of playing salon with the seven year old, and doing her nails with her new glitter sparkle nail kit. NavyGuy amused himself during the gift opening by texting Sister's hubby, sitting across the room, I drank brandy slush for myself and my pregnant cousin (couldn't let her share go to waste), and we even managed to get an entire family picture taken! (Which gave me a preview into the pain that is going to be family portraits at the wedding come May.)

More yummy food, and we rolled ourselves home to settle on the couch and play with our new toys. Our Christmas celebrations didn't foster a lot of crazy stories or mishaps this year, just happy memories with our families - which is fine by me! Next up: fun with friends.

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2009 Calendar - Summer

My hand is cramping from writing bridal shower thank you's (should your pointer finger twitch when you hold it out in front of you?), so I'm breaking to see if typing will help stretch the phalanges out a bit and allow me to finish a few more notes later. The pictures below continue my showcase of the 2009 family calendar. (Click on the photo to see a larger image.)

My little cousin may not look thrilled to be feeding a goat, but I'm told she had fun that day.

This year I was able to add some photos of the "adults" in our family, along with the grandchildren pictures. The group photo above is the "nice" version; I find the goofy shot more true to life, but I figured Grandma and Grandpa would prefer the smiling faces.See? There IS a photo of the bride and groom on the July page. People just have no faith in me. ;)More Cricut action with the shell cutouts on the August pages.
One of my favorite parts to the Stretch Your Imagination Cricut cartridge is the ability to layer images and add dimension to the cutouts. The shell in the upper left corner is one example of this.

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