Christmas Cards

The Munces have a unique Thanksgiving Day tradition. We don't travel. And we don't let anyone come over. Four days at home with a wood fire burning, watching movies, eating good food, and playing with the kids. It's perfect. A nice restful break before the hectic Christmas season. We don't even go shopping. But, I do use the long weekend to get a jump on my Christmas cards. They have gotten more complicated over the years. Last year's card required a bit of stamping and die cutting. I tried to scale back this year, but it looks like I've failed miserably.

I've concocted a three panel, 8" x 5" card that will have to be hole punched and tied together with ribbon. I'm also thinking about rounded corners. Eek! I send out over 100 cards, and would need 12 die cuts per card. Maybe I should rethink that....

Oh, and I also use Photo Stamps to make custom stamps for the cards.

I'm happy with the direction of the cards so far. Our friend Ray Lavoie shot these photos back in June. For the photo of the kids, I had him set up the tripod in the dining room facing into the playroom. We then encouraged the kids to play with different toys over a period of only about five minutes. Any longer and the sun would have shifted too much and you would see shadow changes in the composite photo. I love how it's all coming together.

Threadless

I hate Japanese food


Waiting for sleep


Haikus are easy

If you haven't checked out Threadless before, do it now. They are running a short $10 sale. I've ordered plenty of shirts -- after all, Christmas is coming!

Kids Tote

It's actually not for kids. It's a gift for my mom's birthday. But my kids and my nieces drew the photos that I embroidered on the front and back of this tote. I gave it to my mom today, and she loved it.

Loving Small Machines

O.K. I know it's not home made. I know it's not crafty. It's the new shuffle. It showed up on my door step last week (thanks to my sweetie husband) and I'm in love. Small. Cute. Perfect.

Totoro Love

My kids are big Miyazaki fans, and Xander got a bunch of his films for his birthday a few weeks ago. Both Quinn and Xander are currently obsessed with My Neighbor Totoro. They march around the house singing the theme song, and Xander keeps saying that he wishes he could see totoro in real life, not just on TV. So, it looks like there is probably a doll project for me here. I'm thinking Chu Totoro for Xander and Chibi Totoro for Quinn. What's funny is that Quinn really looks quite a bit like Mei from the film.

So, my project list is really starting to grow. I have to finish up a project for my Mom's birthday in time to give it to her this weekend, and I'm really swamped trying to pull together enough handbags and scarves for Pattyfair the first week in December. I'm hoping to show up with at least 10 handbags and 10 scarves. Right now I have only four handbags and two scarves completed, so I really need to get moving. Time to put away the computer and thread some bobbins!

Handcuff Lariat

About a week or so ago, my friend Jolie sent me a link to Erica's fabulous jewelry site. I fell in love with this handcuff necklace straightaway and bought it about two minutes later (sometimes Paypal makes it just a little too easy, don't you think?).

The necklace arrived on Friday, and I've been wearing it all weekend. I just love it, but should probably take it off before going in to work tomorrow. Handcuffs in any form aren't exactly appropriate "business-casual" attire, eh?

You should also check out Erica's bee necklace, and cicada earrings.

It's been a while

Well, I kind of disappeared for a while there. All I can say is that the new job is keeping me really busy, so I haven't had time to document the small amount of crafting that I've been able to squeek in. So here's a few brief highlights of the past couple of weeks.

Xander turned four and we celebrated with a Pirate party. Here's the invitation I made for his party. Xander loved it.


I also found time to make a couple of trick-or-treat bags for Xander and Quinn.


Here's a photo of the fabric I used for the liner of the bags. I bought it months ago and was happy to finally be able to use it.


Here's the wee ones in their costumes. Okay, you can't exactly see Quinn. She was pretty excited about her bag.




Luckily, we also had a little time to visit the pumpkin patch before Halloween and enjoy one of the last nice days of fall.

Now that it's November I need to get back on a serious crafting schedule if I'm going to have anything to bring to a craft show that I'm participating in on the first week of December. I had better get going....