More Ornaments

Following is an ornament I made for newlyweds Scott & Laura. L. said she thought the ornament was nice, so hopefully they both liked it.

One side features a new bride with red flowers in the charm. The other side shows a couple in love. Newlyweds, I should think. ;) I thought that theme was appropriate since they were sharing their first Christmas together as a married couple.

blissful newlyweds


bride side

Thank You for All the Birthday Wishes!

My birthday started off wonderfully with a phone call from the Bean who asked me, "How's your birthday?" I told her all was well so far and that her mom had mentioned she sent me an email, but I hadn't looked at my email yet. She then informed me to look at my email when we finished talking and listen to it because she'd sent me a song. :)

Toward the end of the work day, I checked my email and found birthday wishes there and on my Facebook wall. Then when I came home, there were mashed potatoes and pastelles waiting for me. *yum!

All in all a pretty good day.

Labeling My Posts

I've started to add Labels/Tags to some of my posts. You'll notice the labels (tags) popping up at the end of various posts. It will be awhile before I've updated this blog completely, but for now I have today through to October 2008.

Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to control the font size for the labels. I prefer font size 1, but it looks like Blogger prints it in size 3. Does anyone know how I can fix that? My guess is I have to look through my template to find it. I'll leave that for another day. But if anyone knows where exactly I look for the label sizes in my template, that would be a great time saver! Thank you. :)

I'm itching to create, write, update things, make lists, watch movies I haven't seen. And play The Sims for a bit.

Hopefully I'll manage something productive. What I should do but want to avoid doing right now is paying bills. I have just a small amount of cash to assign to various creditors until my next paycheck is deposited. Bleh.

Yankee Swap Ornament

The snow is falling, and it's deceptively pretty outside. Not so pretty that I want to get dressed and shovel it. Instead, I think I'll stay in and add another post about the homemade ornaments I made for Christmas. This particular ornament was offered in the Christmas Eve Yankee Swap for my dad's side of the family. One side is a nostalgic Santa; the other is a pinecone.

My aunt's sis chose my small gift bag in the swap. Inside the bag were the little ornament and two pieces of chocolate. Surprisingly she kept the gift and didn't swap it out, but I suspect the chocolate had something to do with it. ;)

the Santa side:

Click on the photo to get a better look!



What the ornaments look like hanging on your tree:



the Pinecone side:

Get a closer peek at the ornament by clicking on the photo!



Closeup of the girl in the charm:




Both the Santa image and the Pinecone image were purchased from ArtChix Studio. The Yankee Swap Santa and the previous Santa were from this collage sheet. The pinecone and the previous Toulouse pic are from this kit. The charm's face is from ArtChix Studio's Tiny Bubbles sheet.

Apologies for the lack of quality in the photos. I'm experimenting how to take a better macro, and I've a way to go yet.

Handmade Gifts

This year I've been tighter than usual on cash, especially at the end of 2008. Lots of unpaid things haunt me in 2009 already. Not a great way to start the year, but since I've got less to work with, there's not much I can do about it right now. Anyway .. I remembered various supplies I'd purchased a year or two ago when I considered trying my hand at the beautiful ornaments I saw online. So I thought, as December approaches, why not go ahead and make some ornaments for gifts?

My sis told me Tuesday that my brother-in-law really like the ornaments I made them for Christmas. Whether or not that's completely true, that comment motivated me to start posting some of the Christmas gifts I made in 2008. So over the next week or so, the ornaments will be showing up in posts.

I've resized the photos. Click on the image to see the full size, except for the charm. The charm is already at its full size. ;) Feedback is welcome. This is all a learning process for me..

The ornaments are 1x3 inches in size. Each ornament had two sides. This one was presented to my boss and his wife for Christmas. One side is Remembrance Santa (for lack of a better name).



The other is the Toulouse side.





and a little close up of the charm



More to come over the next week!

Imperfect but Nearly Finished

I say nearly because it's rewrite-time for my nanonovel. I'm in the home stretch of Holly Lisle's writing course: How to Think Sideways, learning about revising my novel and finding the right ending for the book. Query letters, what to expect while working with agents and editors .. and now I just have to get crackin' on that NaNoWriMo novel of mine and make it all shiny. Shiny but not necessarily perfect. Nothing is ever perfect. And that's okay.

"Safe never starts. Perfect never finishes." - Holly Lisle

This morning as I got ready for work I daydreamed about this novel of mine, about my unfinished ones and the ideas I have yet to start. All the while I was smiling. I couldn't help myself. It was a good start to the day.

Next week, that's what I'll be doing. Daydreaming and revising but not necessarily in that order.

Time Passes Too Quickly

I found out today that a former coworker died yesterday. She was a dear lady and quite the spitfire. She was 95.

Her voice was distinctive and gravelly. She was a heavy smoker from age 14 until her late 80s/early 90s, and then she decided to quit cold turkey. Just like that. And as far as I know she didn't pick up a cigarette again. She drove (and not just locally!) well into her 80s until one day she decided she didn't want to travel the highway anymore and simply handed in her license to the RMV. She used to tell me stories how she and her brother would skip school as kids, go down to the local train station, hop the freight train and ride into Maine for a bit before hopping another train home again. Supposedly she was never caught by the truancy officer. ;) She was very contemporary in her thinking, too. I never heard any comments about "kids these days" coming from her. She carried on a conversation just as easily with a teen as she did someone her own age.

Independent. Friendly. Funny. Smart. She was a staple for many years at the local restaurants in the morning. Everyone knew her, and everyone liked her. It was hard not to.

RIP, Doris.