CHRISTMAS 2006!!!!!

well, christmas if finally over {deep sigh of relief}.
i so wanted to post these christmas pictures a lot sooner, but i have spent the past week lounging around pretty much doing

NOTHING!!! which you would think that i would be relieved about that, but i'm not really. there was so much i wanted to get

done. i did however get ALOT of scrappin' done {can you say 10 lo's...whooo-haaa! those will be in a later post}.

so anyway, back to christmas. it was a lovely day and i must say that santa spoiled us all.

especially me!

here's a rundown of some of the goodies that i got:

*tickets to see billy joel in new orleans in march!!!!! (mike)
*$100 gc to the lss (mike)
*talladega nights on dvd (mikey)
*the coolest lil book on the history of monopoly (mom)
*a christmas story tshirt (mom)
*a betty crocker breast cancer cookbook (mike)
*these amazing measuring cups (bella)
*walmart gc (mom)

and a ton of other goodies.

okay, enough of the ramblin'. here are some pictures:



the tree after santa's visit


mikey coming down seeing the tree for the first time.


bella seeing the tree.


the kiddos in a mad fury to open up their presents.



mike and his packer santa hat.



me and my lss gc.



me and my billy joel tickets. disregard the fact that i look like complete utter shit.


this year mikey got to go shopping at school and buy presents for his family members on his own. he has had the presents

under the tree for about three weeks and practically every day he asked if he could give them to us. we must be doing

something right b/c he wasn't even interested in opening up any of his things christmas morning, he just wanted to give us

ours. and i must say that mikey is quite the excellent shopper. everything he got was absolutely perfect for each one of

us.


mom got a playing card bracelet (i'm a lil jealous...she better hold on to that thing tight or it might come up "missing".

are ya reading mom?)



b.c. got a soccer dish for his desk. i think it holds post it notes in it.



bella got a beautiful ring that she has been carrying around with her since christmas. i think she loves the black "velvet"

box as much as the ring.



mike got a magnetic dart set.



and i got the best present ever. a mom necklace with "diamonds". i love, love, love it.
damn i love that kid.



santa brought the kiddos bikes.


after most of the wrapping paper was cleaned up, mike and mom cooked breakfast. we had pancakes and bacon. yummo!











i hope that everyone had an amazing holiday week and that you are all resting well. 2007 is right around the corner and i

must say that my list of resolutions continues to grow. i'll post that tomorrow.

i'm hoping that i can get more computer time to keep this thing more updated. but its hard to get on the computer here at

mom's when you have two grown men and one lil guy constantly feeling the need to be on it to play one of those stupid ass

computer games. and i made the mistake of buying mike more.

oh well!

OUTTA TOWN RIGHT NOW!!!

oh how i was hoping that i woulda had time to post something more exciting than this this weekend, but now that i am not home, this post will have to do.

currently i am in jackson, mississippi for an access class that i am taking for work. i'm excited about the class but i hope that it is not too advanced for me. tomorrow mike's boss is driving up and he'll be attending the class with me.

i've been documenting my adventure and will share when i get home on wednesday.

yesterday, my mom kicked me and mike outta the house when he got done working his 12-hour a day part-job. we went to the outback to use a gift card that the major had given me for my bday (in february...this is how often me and mike get to go out on our own ;) we ate *way* to much and it was *oh* so good. after that, we headed to walmart to do some last minute christmas shopping and then headed to movies. we saw the holiday and must i say that it was a beautiful movie. damn did it say so much. the movie was great and definately one that i will be purchasing when it comes out on dvd.

well i guess i'll end this here. i'll be back on tuesday night and i plan on posting some more by the end of the week and before christmas. i hope everyone has gotten all of their christmas shopping done and can enjoy the week.

big hugs :)

THE CHRISTMAS CARDS ARE DONE (FINALLY!!)

you know what ya get when you get one cool chick that has a sinus infection and doesn't go to work?

a cool chick that has time to {finally} start and finish her christmas cards. i *so* wanted to get these done and in the mail sooner, but i spent sunday on the couch all day and didn't get a chance to work on them until last night. i can barely breathe, but hey! the cards are done.


front of card


inside of card


back of card

not only am i sick, but i was up most of the night with my bug-a-boo mikey who isn't feeling well either. if this darn weather would stop going from the high in the 70's one week to the high in the 50's (with a low of teens!!) the next week and then back, maybe we would be feeling better.

oh, speaking of christmas cards, i'd love to be able to send my fellow bloggers a special christmas card this year. i mean after all, you guys are like family right? hell, some of you probably know me better than my family does ;) so if you want to get a lil christmas mail love from me, send me your mailing addy to emma81399 at aol dot com no later than thursday evening.

okay, back to work...errr...i mean stuffing those envelopes :)

THE SHOP HAS BEEN UPDATED!!!

well, on top of getting a wee lil bit of christmas shopping done, thrifting, getting the picture ready for my christmas cards (yes, i know i am very late on this) and spending sunday on the couch feeling like crap, i managed to get some goodies listed on etsy!

so if you have a lil more christmas shopping to do or ya just wanna check it out, stop on by.



i'd like to add a few more things this week, but with a growing to-do list, we'll see how that goes.

hope everyone had a great weekend :)

RIBBON OVERLOAD!!!

well, actually you can never have too much ribbon/trim right?

the other day while i was reading up on aja i noticed she posted about this beautiful ribbon that she had ordered from this wonderful site.

so being the junkie that i am, i hopped on over to les bon ribbon and was in complete heaven searching the beautiful selection she has. we're talking vintage folks...lots and lots of vintage {swoon}.

seriously folks, if you are a ribbon junkie like me, you can't beat this site. prices are great and i got my stuff in about two days.

here's my booty and this was showing much restraint ;)

OH I FORGOT.....

i better post this now before time gets the best of me and i forget to post (think back to minneapolis trip and the halloween party ;)

i participated in the fabulous ornament swap and these are the ornaments i made.



thank goodness i had a ton of vintage cream buttons to make all eight. the lighting is bad, but i am so happy with the way that these turned out.

here is how i wrapped em up.



so they are all in the mail ready to arrive at their new destinations.

whats funny is, it seems that great minds think alike....check this out.
stephanie had the same thought :)

THE BENEFIT OF HELPING YOUR MOM ORGANIZE THE GARAGE A LIL BIT!!!!

today the halloween decorations finally needed to make its way to the right shelves in the garage (note: no, we didn't leave halloween decorations up until the first weekend of december, they were just in totes in the wrong spot in the garage. and lemme tell ya, there is not a lick of extra space in the garage, so they needed to but put away).

then of course the christmas decoration totes came down. so while digging through a few totes, my mom found a few goodies that she knew i would like.


a vintage tablecloth that belonged to my grandma, some iron on transfer kits from when she used to use artex paints, and a cookbook that belonged to my great-grandmother (who purchased it from the ladies rotary club in anderson township, ohio).

mom, also thought that i needed this.





lmao...its a book that my grandma gave my mom when it was time to discuss the "birds and the bees".

maybe i'll put it away in a safe place for when its time for me and bella-boo to have the talk.

then on a side note, this was my morning coffee this a.m.



no, this picture is not altered in anyway. its just the way the sun was shining on the steam. looks delish doesn't it?

hope ya'll are having a happy and warm weekend :)

smooches

LOVE THEM LOOOONG HOLIDAY WEEKENDS!

well, my holiday weekend is just a lil more than halfway over and we've already done soooo much.

first, i received my handmade thanksgiving goodies for the thanksgiving swap. rachel had me and sent me the cutest lil salt and pepper shakers. thanks rachel :)



on to thanksgiving. thanksgiving is soooo lo-key around here which i must admit is nice. its very laid back. there is not a time that dinner has to be on the table, and afterwards consists of laying around and waiting for the night to end (not in a bad way of course). we ate tons (and let me stress the word tons) of yummy food and were quite exhausted after we ate.


the thanksgiving card i made last year decorating the table.


my plate.


me & mike doing our usual pose.


me and my favorite lil man "bug"


bella-boo eating a pickle refusing to look up at me.


and then there was friday. how i couldn't wait for friday. me and greta spent the entire day on the couch watching the first three discs of veronica mars season 2. we have waited months and months to be able to catch up and i wish that we had the other two discs so we could have kept on viewing.

why is it when you do nothing but sit on the couch and veg out watching tv all damn day that it makes you so stinkin' exhausted?

anyway, me and g failed our duties and didn't get a shot of the two of laying around like zombies all day.

today, i picked up my rental car (hmmmmm....i did mention that the day of the craft fair that my car broke down right? well it looks like they are going to need to replace the engine and they still haven't made that determination yet. so god only knows when i'll get my car back). so i picked up the rental car and me and the kiddos did some christmas shopping. do you know how hard it is to pick up christmas presents for your kiddos while they are right there with you? i had mikey on so many lil scavenger hunts for things i didn't need it was down right ridiculous. but that didn't matter b/c he has no idea that snuck things in the cart for him....lol.

after the shopping, i stopped home, let everyone potty, grabbed the camera and then headed for burger king. we went thru the drive thru and then headed down to the park. i played with my camera (mistake b/c some of my pics were over exposed) but had fun shooting the kids. mikey had fun with the camera too. i was a brave ol soul and let him take some shots too!











so now the kiddos are taking a nap and we're waiting for mike to get done with his part time job so we can go to cracker barrell and get dinner. boy do i love that place. i used to hate it as a kid. whenever we were doing the infamous parent swap at a hotel on the side of the interstate, we always stopped at the cracker barrell. i think i hated it b/c the one's in georgia and tennessee had well water and i hated that.

but now i love it. i love to shop there too...which is prolly one of my secret motives for going ;)

hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving and are having a wonderful long weekend.

*smooches*

well, the fair is over and it wasn't as successful as i would have liked, but i made back my table money and sold a couple of things, so that makes me happy.

i have a *ton* of goodies left over which i plan on adding to etsy soon. but if my bloggin' buddies are interested in having first dibs, let me knowb/c i plan on posting the goods on the blog first.

here was the setup. i love all that yellow :)















mike drove up with the kiddos after he showed the old house (cross your fingers and toes) and he put the kiddos up in the tree that we were sitting in front of. i thought bella would be scared, but my brave lil bella-boo didn't think twice about it.





after mike and the kiddos left, i got a phone call say that my car just completely stopped and it needed to be towed to the dealership {insert deeeeep sigh}. of course the garage at the dealership is closed on saturday, so they won't even be able to look at it until tomorrow. and with it being a holiday week, i can only pray that they will fix my car by wednesday. for now i'll have to drive mike's huge ass truck that i hate to drive.

so that was my weekend folks. i'm so glad the craft fair is over. now i can focus on getting the ornaments out for the ornament swap that i am in and get working on my christmas cards (gotta get those out soon).

big hugs to ya'll and thank you all so very much for the kind words on the goodies i made for the craft fair. ya'll have no idea how much that means to me :)

*smooches*

WHAT THE HELL HAS SHE BEEN DOIN'???

{sigh}

i have been non-stop creating. i'm beginning to wonder why the creative juice hasn't run dry yet...lol.

i spent 12 (yes, i said 12) hours sitting at the craft table busy as a bee. i'm exhausted and i still feel like there is so much i need to do. i do hope the craft fair is quite the success. sista here needs christmas money (esp. since she just got a good estimate on how much her new house is going to cost each month...YIKES!!!)

so i thought i would take a lil break and snap a few pictures of the goodies that have kept me so stankin' busy.


ornaments


hand stamped cards. some of these cards are using stamps that i carved myself. these are extremely simple, but i've noticed lately that i have been drawn to simplicity.


hair clips using mostly vintage fabric.


rings. again using mostly vintage fabric. i would have liked to have made more of these, but this was kinda a last minute idea and i don't have many ring forms left. i def. need to order some. i just love sporting around original rings. i constantly get comments on my big silver one.


chunky notebooks. again, i would have loved to have made more, but when i went back to my source store, they were all out.


larger planners/calendars. i actually hope that one of these doesn't sale so i can use it myself....lol.


pocket calendars. these turned out so much better than i thought. again, my source ran out.


picture albums. despite my need for simplicity, i think some of these turned out more plain than i would have liked, however, i keep reminding myself that there will be a pictured placed in the middle square by the new owner, so ya don't want it too cluttered.

so that is a samplin' of what i have been doing and what will be displayed next saturday. whatever doesn't sell, will be added to my etsy shop in the next week if anyone is interested. there were some things that i wanted to make that i just didn't have the time to do (scratch that....i've had the time, i've just waited until the last minute to get some stuff done).

oh and i friday i will be making some of famous chocolate chip cookies, wrap those up in cellaphane and tie with a pretty yellow ribbon (good morning sunshine=plenty of yellow-ness).

so hopefully, after this is all said and done, i'll be around more.

okay, gotta get back to work.