it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

a tree decorated by the girls


a visit from santa


meandering through the lights


early family gatherings


friend and family greetings lining the walls of our family room


sugary holiday goodness


first gifts under the tree


more magical lights

creative wednesday | week 4

This is a bag filled with dreams & recipes for soup & she's deciding right now which she's really hungry for. -storypeople

I read this yesterday and it made me laugh out loud. I guess you could say I was lying in bed trying to make myself get up and be productive when all I really wanted to do was pick up a book and stay cozy for a little while longer.

What to choose?

You'd be happy to know though, I picked my dream. I got up, did my essential morning activities, and headed straight to my studio to keep my creative Wednesday appointment.


I continued working on the gratitude journals I started last week, folding the signatures and punching holes. Now they're ready to be sewn.


I put together cards made from photographs from my Oregon trip.


Then I added the cards and other photographs onto my etsy site...it's been empty for far too long. It's crazy how much time that takes. Visit my site for more.

It was a busy day, but a very successful creative wednesday if I do say so myself.

--Did you do anything creative today?

april giveaway

“We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”
- Mother Teresa

When I heard this quote at conference a couple weekends ago it resonated with me and brought me back to the reason I chose the word give to focus on this year. When I was younger I always thought I would do big and important things, only to grow up and wonder where are those big and important things? The older I've gotten I've realized doing great things don't need to be big and loud. In fact, most often great things are done quietly, behind closed doors, and done with love.

I believe we can all do great things which can make a huge difference in someone's life...a difference we may never know. Think of what it feels like for a total stranger to give you a warm smile while you're in the middle of a very bad day or to get the mail only to see that there's a hand written envelope with your name on it or someone takes the time to comment on your blog post or a co-worker buys you lunch. It feels big and great and meaningful. Wouldn't you want to give that same feeling to someone else? I know I run this list through my head when I'm not in the mood. It helps me to remember how even small acts can mean a great deal to someone.

Sorry to get carried away in my thoughts, I guess it's just been on my mind lately. Without further ado on with my April giveaway. I'm giving away another set of 10 cards including envelopes.


here is the original photo. I feel like the picture of the card doesn't do it justice even though it printed beautifully.

You know the drill. If your interested comment. I'll post the winner Friday afternoon.

Good Luck!

edited to add: I meant to say Saturday afternoon I will post the winner. So you have til then.

giving back

#1
This weekend it's mine turn to give a break to someone else. Unfortunately it wasn't for Jill or Robyn, who helped me out last weekend, I'll get them another time, but it's for my friend and her husband who desperately needed a get away.


[Adam let me sleep in and I woke up to a clean kitchen and 6 paper cups all lined up with initials and one still eating. ]

We had a couple incidences in the night, but I must say it's all going fabulously well as long as I don't look at my house. I'm taking advice from the best, Jill, and am letting the mess prevail until the kiddos leave, which will be later this evening.

#2
I mentioned before in an earlier post that I've been thinking about ways I could GIVE this year. I decided one way I could give back to all you bloggers who read my blog is to do a give away once a month. Each month it will be a different handmade item and hopefully this will also help me with another goal of mine to try new things.



This month I'm going to be giving away a set of 10 greeting cards (shown above) including envelops. If you want to be included in the drawing comment on this post. I will post the winner on Monday.

Thanks for helping me give and for all you give to me.

fun run...take two

The school fun run that I went to last week didn't involve the kindergarten children because they were out of school for testing. I figured they wouldn't be participating in it this year because they weren't there, but I found out otherwise when Tess got in the car this afternoon and said, "I got third place, I would have won, but Meg (classmate) beat me at the last part." "What? Huh? There was a fun run?", was my response. I wish she would have let me know she was running.



I was so disappointed I missed it because it sounds like it was a good race and I would have loved to be there to cheer her on. You know I knew she liked to run fast and she's quite the competitor, but I never would've guessed out of all the kids she would have gotten third place. Apparently we have a runner in the family. She did say she wanted to bag dance and play soccer so I suppose I should listen to her.

In other Tess news...



She brought home these cute cards today they made in school. First they used watercolors and watercolor paper to make a design and then had help from parents to cut them up and make them into cards (some are missing for the school art auction). I thought it was such a cool idea and now I think I will have to make some of my own. I love how they turned out.