Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! I am thankful for so many things, it's nice to reflect on that today. I hope you are all surrounded by people you love and that there are no mishaps during your meal preparations......like turkeys jumping off the table onto the floor or putting salt in your pumpkin pie instead of sugar, etc., etc. ;o)

Things I have seen and haven't seen...

Over the last few days, I have seen a lot of this...

but not much of this... :o(

Holidays are wonderful but they do require some work and for me, that usually means some tidying up. So I've been busy, cleaning and shopping for our Thanksgiving meal. Tonight I have my pumpkin pies in the oven but I have a pumpkin-pie-eating monster so I'll be surprised if I have one left on Thursday. Good thing my niece is bringing one and my daughter is baking another dessert.

Before I am gone off the blog for a few days, I thought I would share a few crafty pics. Last week on craft night, I made this big mess making some of the little acorn favor boxes for Thanksgiving shown here from my daughter's Stampin' Up! party. I guess that fix will have to hold me over for a little while since I'll be in the kitchen for the next few days.

My sister asked me to post a picture of a card I helped my friend Nora make on craft night. The card was very simple, using white cardstock in a 'gatefold' style and embossed with dots by running it through the Bit Shot machine. We added a band of decorative cardstock around the card and then a stamped image. Very quick card, especially using just two colors. Here is a great tutorial on gatefold cards if you'd like to try one. I have a paper cutter with scorelines marked for the gatefold which makes it easy to do without the measuring.

And now back to reality and cleaning. I bought groceries yesterday and had to move the old cans forward, fresh stuff in the back. I ended up cleaning the entire pantry. My youngest daughter says I do that every year but she must be wrong because I threw away four trash bags full of expired food, some as old as 2008!! Grrrr, that made me mad until I looked inside the clean pantry. (I use the term "pantry" loosely as this is tiny in comparison to some but at least I have one.) :o)

Someday I'll change that old fruity shelf liner...... Off to go clean up the kitchen from making my pumpkin pies. I hope I have some playtime tomorrow after I get my veggies cut up fo rmy stuffing and another dessert made. I miss my sewing room and Christmas is just around the corner. Ack!!

Snowmen and a merry "Mary" quilt

My little sister, Virginia, and her friend Rachel came over on Saturday from San Diego. My friend Nora came over too so we had a fun crafting time and sleepover. That was fun stuff but boy, did it wear me out.
You might remember these little Hershey covered snowmen from last year. Here is a link to the blog post with a link for the download. My sister works at a credit union and wanted to make these for her Christmas party.

I got the fleece at Joann's while she was driving over. And man was I jealous when I found this one because it's waaaay cuter than the fleece I bought last year for my snowmen. Go figure!

Virgie also brought over these little 'men' for a little color. She wants to use them for pinning up her Christmas cards but they were just plain wood with little faces. My oldest daughter Kelley grabbed a couple of Stampin' Up! markers instead of paint and did one up. Virgie loved it but Kelley left for the night so Nora ended up coloring them for Virgie. I guess she didn't get the coloring gene. :o)

I need to stop over at Michael's to see if they have any more of these. Too dang cute.

Then..........as if all of that crafting wasn't enough, my sister and her friend left and my middle daughter came over to work on a signature quilt she is making (I use that term loosely!!!) for a manager who is leaving the hospital where she works. She "borrowed" some Mary Englebriet fabric from my stash and figured out the layout. Then, "Because you sew so much faster mom", I sewed the rows together and borders on while she pressed and pinned.

It came out pretty cute and they still have several people to sign it. We started it on Sunday at around four o'clock and were dead tired at 7:30 but we had a finished top.

At first, all you saw was the red and white top but we kept playing with the border fabric and finally got this one. It's amazing how now, you don't even notice there isn't any yellow in the blocks.

I did a tiny folded solid red border and it really made a difference.

One of the siggy blocks.

I barely made it to work today. On top of all that fun crafting, I laid down in bed and it started.... This hormonal can't go to sleep thing. I'm gonna have to resort to some type of drug, I think because being sleep deprived isn't working for me. Yawwwwwn..........

Saturday card workshop

My daughter Kelley borrowed my house on Saturday for a Stampin' Up! card workshop. You know, we love to play with our stamps and make fun goodies. Neena, our friend and demonstrator, did not disappoint us again with the projects she set us up with! The first was a Fall favor box with the cutest little acorn made from the ornament punch. We used the Big Shot machine to cut out the box, an oval punch to make the little beret and smile and some other stamps, brads and punches to complete the cutie pie. Very creative. Neena got the ideas from blogland. We love blogs for all of the links and ideas!



The second project was this adorable little gift card holder. We colored on watercolor paper and used glitter to add some sparkle. I love this stamp set!!

Here's the card opened with a gift card in it.

Still haven't stitched a thing since that retreat. Gotta get on it though. I have UFO's, Christmas stockings to make, etc., etc.............