A busy time with images for cards

For days now, I've been making images upon images for a greeting card order.

They're so much fun to do.  Each one is a surprise after you've made the papers and cut them into rectangles and squares and see what you've got!

Abstract landscapes of sunny days and rainy days.  Big ones...

and little ones.  I love how, when turned this way they look like tree trunks in the woods.

Sometimes they're underwater foliage and a fish comes swimming out.

It's snowing!

I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently?   Lewis Carroll

Christmas fun!

Christmas Eve was at Julie's this year and Angel made all these wonderful props for our photo shoots...

You had your choice of character!

That's me in the back as Mrs. Claus and for the others, a silly moment.

Merry Christmas

the afternoon before Christmas Eve...

It was the afternoon before Christmas Eve and there was already some festivity going on above Julie's kitchen table.  Vintage ornaments from a garage sale dancing around in a whirl of snow.

I went over for our annual cookie baking afternoon.  We each had a bowl of dough going and into the oven they would go.

She found a great and decorative idea for hanging her Christmas cards.  A string of small lights wound around her kitchen shelf and the cards attached with clothespins.  Pretty!

The tree was glowing.

A little fuzzy but so were some of the snowmen in a little forest of twigs and lights.

Another little setting of lights and favorites with her angel scherenschnitte that we did at a Christmas retreat one year.

And have to show you this horse that she made from fabulous socks!  She was making another one last night.  One for Danielle and one for Kassidy.  Shhhhhhhhhhh...don't tell.  Isn't he the cutest?

Blog business

"Give thanks.  Wait.  Watch what happens.  Get excited. Open your arms as wide as you can to receive all the miracles with your name on them."  from "Simple Abundance" by Sarah Ban Breathnach

And so now that I can post pictures again, I will try to explain, for those who are interested, how that miracle happened...with help from Anne and Angel.  

I have tried deleting old posts directly from the blog, which may have helped in the past it seemed, but this time I had to delete direct from Picasa.  So, let's see...I went into Picasa.com/albums/photos or something like that and signed in with my email and google password.  Now, at first, this did not work for me because for some unknown reason picasa didn't recognize my google profile and wanted me to "create a profile".  I didn't want to create anything; I didn't even like picasa and thought they had a lot of nerve asking me after what they've done.  So with the help of an "angel", I had to sign in through google to get to picasa and that worked.  And now when I go back, picasa does recognize me.  who knows why?  From there you can view all your photos/albums that are being stored in picasa.  You can click on them and delete the ones you want; sometimes a photo at a time and sometimes the entire album if you want to.  Just remember when you delete them from picasa, they will also be deleted from your blog.  You will end up with a grey square with a black mark across it, i think, on your blog where your photo was.  So, because I am printing and saving my blog posts in binders for posterity, it is taking me longer to coordinate all of this.

All is not solved yet though...I must have deleted enough to post photos coming from my bigger camera, but I am still unable to post photos from my little "point & shoot" camera.  With my bigger camera, I am able to resize my photos on the computer before I try to add them to a post, but on my little camera, it won't let me "save" the resizing and so they must be too big to post.  ???  Just another mystery of the computer/internet world.

henri's ready

Henri' went for his holiday haircut this week.  I know he was happy to be back home, but I also know he must feel lighter...

and he came home with a handsome holiday necktie.  Oh Henri, your waves and curls will grow back soon, but for now you must look nifty when you see Santa sneaking in.

A Christmas Luncheon

Last week we had a Mary Englebreit luncheon at The Center.  Pauline had gathered so much interesting information on her life and Lois put together a grand slide show.  I love that drawing above singing "Joy To The World"!

Here's Pauline.  Sorry for the blur but there were 60 guests for the lunch and I was a little far away and snapping best i could.

Pauline has a "library" of  M.E. books and she brought them all to display.

And, of course, I have to show you the most wonderful Christmas tree in the Great Hall.  Every year it is decorated with pressed Queen Anne's Lace and bright red bows.

After lunch and the program, we trotted over to the Log Cabin for the Arts to make some M.E. crafts, and with that it was my turn to help.....

today...

There's so much sadness in the news.  Looking out at Nature's beauty...

this little sparrow knows there's something new in the tree...

and it's berry flavored...

i love you, little babies.

an apple a day...

Just taking pictures of apples today and wanted to see if I have deleted enough of my files to be able to post them.  Honey Crisp apples.  Even the picture makes my mouth water.  They're so crispy and so pretty.  Sometimes I even have one for breakfast with some peanut butter spread on the slices.  Yum!

A busy couple of days...the Christmas Teas have begun at The Center and yesterday was an enjoyable "Mary Engelbreit" luncheon.  We had a delicious lunch of "Oven-Fried Lemon Chicken", "Oven-Roasted Sweet Potatoes", salad and green beans, and then Pauline gave us a wonderfully informative glimpse of Mary's career and Lois had put together a wonderful slide show.  Then, it was off to the Log Cabin for some crafts!

This morning, I'm working on printing and adding more pages to my over-stuffed binders of pages and pages of this blog as I must delete some so that I can add more pictures to, what they tell me, is my over-stuffed photo storage.  Tsk-tsk...
But, I insist on keeping all these pages as a journal for my children...for some day... when they have time to read all this busyness of my life.  It is like a journal to me; if I don't write in my handwritten journal every day...there is always me documenting here, making each day important and meaningful.

Our Christmas crafts

Back again to the Christmas Retreat, one of the things we made were Advent Calendars.  Everyone's idea was different and they all looked so pretty on the tables.

Colorful felt!

Lori's little mouse already had his supper on one of her corners!

This is mine and, as you can see below, I decided to blanket stitch around the pockets.

Still sewing!

Two of the other crafts we did were this little felt tea bag holder.  I have to put a button on the front yet.  And this little "almond" birdie perched on a twig.

Here is the back of the tea bag holder (nice for a small gift) and that birdie again with his little felt hat.

This lovely little spool ornament was a gift from Angel.  She made it and gave it to me that night.  I just love it!

The Christmas Retreat

The first weekend in December is always the Christmas Retreat at The Center and we always begin by making ornaments to trim the tree in the fireside room.

I found this idea online and thought they were so pretty.  They're fast and easy and suddenly the tree was trimmed.  After supper, we had an evening of fun and crafts which I will show you later.

Morning came with a yummy breakfast and it was off to the woods to gather sticks, dried weeds and pine cones to make winter swags and bouquets.

The gathering.

Stopping for a picture, here is Julie, Diane (Jeanine's mom) and Julie's friend,  Jeanine.

Angel and Julie and their treasures.

Back to the Log Cabin to sort and paint and glitter...

and assemble our holiday masterpieces.

Next, more about our Christmas crafts...

Catching up...

In yesterday's class, I showed the girls how to make some sweet little ornaments.  I think they're pretty to hang on your own tree or to use as a gift tag or to hang on a gift bottle of wine!

Then in quilting class in the afternoon, I am still working on my Christmas wall hanging.  The top is finished so now I have to add the borders, batting, backing and quilt it!

I am on my way finishing these nice little table runners for gifts though.  These were some easy directions that I found a couple of years ago in a quilt shop in Door County.  So glad I did!

Back again to last week...

In my class last Wednesday, we made some special cards that you could give to special people.

First we made a kind of serendipity paper by gluing all little scraps of paper (each one concentrating on their favorite colors of the holiday) onto a piece of cardstock.

Next we turned the finished cardstock upside down and cut it into 1" strips, and then cut the strips into 1" squares.

After picking and choosing, we attached nine little squares onto a 5x7 folded card and added a stamped message.  Voila!  My thanks for this lovely idea to Jacqueline Sullivan.