Happy New Years!

Please enjoy your New Year's Eve, and I pray for safety for all!

Beaded Ornaments and a Giveaway!

Hi Friends! I thought I'd show you some of the mini beaded snowflakes I made for gifts this year...


I enjoy making these throughout the day and I've made several more and I thought I'd have a year-end little giveaway of THREE of your choice!
Here's the first set...

And a second set...

The giveaway is open to Sunday, January 3, 2010 at midnight central time zone.
Just leave a comment and I'll draw a name and post the winner on Monday and also contact you, so be sure there's a way for me to get hold of you!
You tell me which three you'd like to have, and I'll send them right out!
These would be pretty all winter long hanging in your window!

Wine Glass Doll...

Hi, Friends, I'm behind showing you anything I made over the holidays, so I'm starting with this wine glass doll I made first! She made me happy as it came together, I was thrilled with the results and so were my friends!
The idea came out of this book by Sally Jean Alexander

And here she is!

And a close-up of the goodies inside her dress...

I made one also for my friend Maria, but I don't have pictures of hers to show you. I plan to make one for myself too very soon, I just love it!

Elmo!

I couldn't resist showing you my grandbaby Madison with the Elmo we bought her this year. Gosh, are toys amazing these days or what?!!

A Warm Loving Feeling!

I've already moved ahead to February 2010 in my mind! Somehow New Years has already occurred and I'm feeling that "lovin' feeling" for Valentine's Day!

Maybe it's because I REALLY SHOULD start crafting my Valentine's Day gifts NOW instead of waiting last minute as I seem to always do!
I'm thinking ribbon, pretty cremes, pinks and reds...

You can find the directions for these Ribbon Roses here
After we both make a bunch of beautiful roses, this little cone with a pretty image or a picture of you and your friends would make a lovely gift!

Or make roses and fill a Handmade Heart and spread your love to your friends!

A child's eyes..

It capped off my day to just unwind before bed tonight to do a little digital scrapbooking...

To remind me of how fun this year was seeing it through a babe's eyes!

Our Christmas Heart...

Our Christmas heart this year in our family is overflowing because of this sweetie pie...

My 8-month-old granddaughter, Madison! She and I wish you all a very...

Pink Party Saturday!

ADD ON: I HAD TO SHARE A PICTURE OF MY SON DANIEL FROM HIS GRADUATION CEREMONY THIS MORNING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS DALLAS AFTER RECEIVING HIS ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING DEGREE! WAY TO GO, DANIEL!

Hi, Friends! Are you in a festive Christmas spirit yet? I am hoping you are and that this Christmas is bringing you much happiness and time spent with loved ones! Today Beverly at How Sweet the Sound wanted us to share a Christmas tradition with you.
Well, this is my girlfriends' second annual Christmas party/luncheon at our friend Maria's house and I told her today, if you have two parties it's now a tradition, and she agreed which made us ALL thrilled because she is a wonderful host and everything was so BEAUTIFUL and DELICIOUS! Lucikly too, our friend Debie who lives right now working in Osaka, Japan, was here and my daughter Megan and the love of my
life, my grandbaby Madison, joined us so it was a splendid day!
The tradition always begins at Maria's dining room table! She had new dishes this year and last to dress up the table...

And her home was so gorgeously decked out for Christmas!
Here we are, girlfriends all! (from left, Maria, Suzie Button, Debie, Gail)

And my beautiful daughter Megan and sweet baby Madison...

Maria made wonderful dishes from Ina Garten, starting off with this Roasted Potato leek soup so creamy and a depth of flavor!

And then this YUMMY Chicken with goat cheese and sundried tomatoes the goat cheese was mild really, delish!
And these Tagliarelle with Truffle Butter or in layman's terms, delish noodles with white truffle butter. Where do you get truffle butter?! Well, Maria said Williams and Sonoma had it but it was WAY expensive, she found hers more reasonable at Whole Foods Market! I mean this is AMAZING!

And on my plate also are Roasted Parsnips and Carrots again, just scrumptious!
We all exchanged gifts with a background of Christmas music!
And it was Madison's first time opening up a Christmas present! That was fun to watch!

Dessert was heavenly, but I'll save that for another day! Plus, I want to share some of the crafts I made and some I received, but I must get to bed now, I'm thrilled to say my son, Daniel, is graduating from the University of Texas with his Electrical Engineering degree this morning at 9 a.m.! He's worked so hard, he worked full time and went to school full time too for so long and we're so proud of him!
Happy Pink Saturday, everyone!

Christmas Craft Marathon!

Are you on a crazy CRAFT Christmas marathon sprint to the end like I am? I tell you, this happens EVERY year for me, I seem to do my best crafting when I'm staying up too late and under pressure to finish in time. I surmise I'm not alone in this quirky aspect of my personality. Could it be a trait of crafters? Hmmm...
Maybe our craft rooms all are REALLY like this too...

drawers overflowing, chaos and coffee to help us persevere!
I've made some really great items for my friends this year, but I can't show them here on my blog until next week after they've received them. I hate that too! I have no patience for waiting! It's been creative fun though!
I captioned a Christmas special of "Land & Sea" in Canada and they have a singing group called Simani that has traditional Newfoundland and Labrador music that I just love, even though I'm not a Canadian! So I thought I'd share this with you...

I know you'll LOVE it too! I love "Land & Sea." It's old-fashioned and has great human interest stories!
I'll try to finish crafting, clean up the mess, and visit you again soon here on my blog!

Pink Saturday with the Jolly 'Ol Good Fellow!

Happy Pink Saturday, Friends! Well, I am enjoying our little switch of just pink this month, aren't you?! Thanks as usual to our lovely host Beverly at How Sweet the Sound!
There are all kinds of decorations that represent Christmas in our childhood memories and into our adulthood and one of the most famous is this fellow...


We love him animated...

We love how he's willing to squeeze himself down a tight chimney just to bring us goodies!

We love Santa even if he's wearing white instead of red!

After all, Santa works hard to read all the letters he receives and even answers a few too!

Santa is willing to go high up in the sky to ride on his sleigh to bring toys to the children of the world...

and it's a lot of work for him on Christmas Eve!
So I have always had Santa as part of my decorations! And several years ago I found this at a flea market...

My favorite kind of Santa, a VINTAGE Santa, still in wonderful shape!
He's about 6 feet tall and I usually deck the frame with some vintage style lights, but Suzie Button is behind on decorations this year!
It adds to the season's merriment for me and Santa said HO, HO, HO, Merry Christmas!

Weight Loss.... Carbonara!

Hi, Friends! It's been a few weeks since I've participated in Weight Loss Wednesday
but there is, surprisingly, good news on the weight loss homefront, I lost 3.5 pounds since I last posted on the topic! Whew! And this is with having made it through Thanksgiving! I have a "cute" story on my Weight Watcher weigh in after missing three weeks of meetings (truly, I had to work and couldn't go, not MY fault!) in a bit, but, first, I wanted to share a recipe story first.
I bought this cookbook at my Weight Watchers meeting...

I was drawn in by the "comfort" word! Don't we all love those favorite comfort foods, especially as winter starts to head our way!
Last night I saw this recipe and made it...

Let's say it together, YUMMY! Yes, it was delish and EASY and FAST! I made a couple substitutions, instead of fresh chicken cooked up, I used frozen grilled chicken strips I had in the freezer and instead of white fettucine, I bought whole wheat, which, btw, will lower points due to the fiber in the product and it tastes better, yes, less calories and tastes better than white flour pasta! Weird!
Then I was flipping through this magazine I picked up at Half Price books...

and, lo and behold (NO! Not the star over Bethlehem, silly!) there's a "regular" recipe for...

SPAGHETTI CARBONARA!!

Ok, there's NO chicken in the higher calorie/fat recipe AND one serving is 21 points!!! 888 calories verus 311! 55 grams of Fat versus 7!!
That's more than most people's WHOLE day's worth of points! This is what Weight Watchers teaches you, is that it's really the small things that can really make a difference! Wow! Try the lower fat version, you'll LOVE it!
Now to the funny Weight Watchers story. Well, over Thanksgiving, my daughter brings a pumpkin pie to my house that she had because SHE didn't want to eat it, and Pumpkin Pie is one of my FAVORITES! So BAD news for me!
So I go to the meeting the week after Thanksgiving with my daughter who has been exercising like a crazy woman (me, well, (embarassingly admit) not at all) and she goes first. She lost .8 lbs, and complains when she gets off the scale and we all reassure her it's muscle she's gaining, which IS true! So I get on the scale and the WW lady says well, you've lost what she wanted to, 3.5 pounds! Which then Megan says REALLY LOUDLY in front of the WW leader, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! She ate a WHOLE pumpkin pie by HERSELF! Ha,ha! Which makes it sound like I sat down with a fork and the pie pan and just ATE it in one swoop! Well, that was the laugh of the meeting. She's so funny!
Ok, that's all, hope your week was a loss for you too!

A Tiny Treasure!

Hi, Friends! I thought I'd show you one of the goodies I found, not for a present for someone else, but a present for ME! It wasn't very expensive, so I had no need to feel guilty!
It's these pretty little girls...

They are 2.5 inches tall and SO Sweet!!
Plus the gorgeous set of pink/creme bottleneck trees sprinkled with glitter! I have a few crafts ongoing with the little girls and the trees and a few other goodies, when I finish crafting I'll post it!
I love sweet little treasures, don't you?!