Mail surprise, Teacher gifts and Special Ornaments!

I said I would be back the next day with more about decorating the tree and what came in the mail for my birthday but caught a nasty cold virus and it slowed me down a little.

 For my birthday I got this wonderful package in the mail containing this.......

I just opened the box...a GO! Cutter....Yipee!!

The goodies in the box, plus the family bought me several dies including the holiday die, bird die, and mats.

My grand kids needed teacher gifts and I thought it would be fun to make the gifts so we made these cute little ornament trees for their gifts.  The kids had a lot of fun making them.  My husband calls the Suess trees because they are rather whimsical, bright and colorful.

The whimsical gift tree!

My GD working on her tree.

 The grand kids love what we call "projects"  any time I say "Do you want to do a project?"  they know we are going to make something fun!  I love it, it keeps them busy and they use their hands, hearts, and creative minds to make something.

GS working on his tree.

The completed trees, what fun!

 We decorated our tree a couple of weeks ago for my birthday.  The grand kids did most of the decorating which was great fun.  I wanted to show some of my favorite ornaments that my Mom made - she is very creative.  It's where I get my artsy, fun, creative side.  I love to do anything creative.  I do think my Mom is better at it but I love to do it.  Here are few of the ornaments she has made over the years.

In the first years of our marriage my Mom made this 7" Christmas tree using costume jewelry as the decorations.

This snowman couple is 2" tall and sit in a tiny gift bag on our Christmas tree.

 

My favorite is this tiny little bear Mom crocheted when I was expecting one of my kids.  He always has a place near the top of the tree.  Love him and love my Mom!

Hope you enjoyed looking at the pictures of a few of my ornaments and the grand kids teacher gifts.  Just in case I don't make it back on here in the next couple of days.  Hope your Christmas is blessed and filled with JOY!

Peace,
Karen

I'm back and I've been busy!

Wow! I haven't posted in ages.  I have taken two vacations!  One with DH and one with DH and some great friends we have known since before our kids were born. Our kids are now in there 20's and 30's and we both have grand children.  They are the type of people that you don't see for quite some time but when you get back together you just pick up where you left off like it was yesterday.  So, much fun and so much laughter - at least the two of us girls (the guys just look at us like we are crazy)!  It was so good for me! No one will ever know just how much it meant to me but the laughter alone was good for the soul.  Needless to say, it was a short but wonderful vacation.

I've worked on a couple of projects.  This cute zipper bag is one patterned after one I saw on the Crafty Gemini.  She has amazing tutorials.  This one here was much larger, you just can't tell from the picture.  It was for my Mom - she loved it!

 

This one was for me. I use it everyday. It's a smaller change purse or business card size.  See the business card?  It is for a friends card company, as in Christmas, Father's Day, Easter, Thank you, Birthday cards, etc.  It's called  RLPCo.  for  Red Letter Paper Company.  It's a wonderful Christian company.  The link is to her Blog and you can link to her store from there.  Check it out and maybe you can get some last minute Christmas cards!

 This is a pillow my GD and I worked on together.  She picked all the colors for the strips and told me exactly how she wanted them.  Then we drew the butterfly and put it together.  Fun project!

She loves to have her picture taken.

Playing with the new pillow!

 Whenever a stuffed animal gets a hole in him/her, he goes to Nana's stuffed animal hospital (aka Nana's sewing room) for surgery.  This bear had just had successful surgery on his neck.  The grand kids were happy to get him back so they could give him lots of love - I got a big hug, too!

All fixed up and ready to play.

 These are the current fabrics I'm using in a project I'm doing.  Anyone know where I got the fabric?  It might surprise you.

So, that's a little of what I've been up to.  I will add some more (hopefully) tomorrow about decorating the tree and what came in the mail for my birthday!

Have a pieceful evening!
Karen