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Friday, December 30, 2016

So Long 2016......

I realized when starting my Christmas post that I never posted pictures from October and November (accept for my new Skechers purchases) so I'm doing a little catching up!

October 11th was my dad's birthday!  Since David and Erica's wedding fell a couple days prior - we celebrated the following weekend with a "tailgate" party!





I created some pumpkins out of mason jar lids.  Each lid is covered with a strip of scrapbook paper - The turned out adorable!


 They turned out sooooo cute, that I created a bunch to give as a "treat" for Halloween at school!
Gotta love Pinterest!


I attached this gift tag to each pumpkin!


These cute little buckets were created by using my pumpkin face punch and a printed tag for the lid.
Each bucket had different types of 100 calorie candy bars!


I have always wanted a glass block scarecrow. So, I gave it a try.
SOOOO cute!


I also saw these "cupcakes" on pinterest.  It's made from a 1/2 Styrofoam ball, a TON of flower diecut punches stuck on with white balled straight pins and topped with an adorable little plastic cherry!
The bottom is a paper cup cut in 1/2 and a scored piece of cardstock. 


You attach the top by hinging it to the cup, so you can place a "surprise" inside!


Each Friday, Erica, Dave, Bill and I try to go out to dinner.  We've been trying some new places and ended up at Uncle Julio's!  Check out this dessert!
It's a Chocolate Pinata filled with Churros and Fruit! YUM!



Now that I'm caught up - Here's our Christmas 2016!


This year I made two different Christmas Cards.
In the past, I've made several designs and find that I always have a bunch left over.


Family picture from this year (Thanksgiving)



I mailed out about 40 cards. Each year we receive less and less
so I may rethink Christmas Cards next year!


I started wrapping in early November at my brother, Dave's house where he lets me store my "stash".
It's hard to tell from this picture, but this was about 40 gifts or so wrapped the first week.

In the end, I wrapped well over 120 gifts!


Each year Ryan receives an ornament or two that coincide with something that occurred or something he was interested in that year.

This year we recognized his Associate's Degree!


This is a two sided metal ornament - allowing for an actual picture of the degree on the reverse side.



Ryan and Ashley put up the tree this year! They did an awesome job!


These are my Lightboxes the night before Christmas!



Before.....


After.....


And now that the holiday has past - here a a couple of gifts I created for friends and family.

 Julie's Metal ornament from Shutterfly

Dave and Erica's Ornament 


A new ornament for our tree 
And an ornament for Ashley


These are the new desk calendars from Shutterfly.  They sit in a wooden block and you change out the picture/calendar each month.

Here's Ashley's Calendar


and I made one for Erica with wedding pictures


This one was ordered a little late and should arrive any day - It is for my friend, Julie!


As you can see from my summer posts - I began sculpting books for Christmas presents.  I needed to make a few more "name" books to give to teachers I work with (that I didn't know I would be working with during the summer).

Bennefield


Blessing


Wegrzyn 


and then I created one from my chiropractor: Dr. Tronolone!


I wrapped each book in cellophane so they would be able to see the book, but also protect it during transportation.  It did take two people a day to figure out the book was actually folded to their name!


Here are some of the books I had to transport to school.  There were actually more, but I had to give one early and some were for neighbors and relatives.


Here are some of my Christmas gifts!

Of course, my number one gift(s) were my favorite GIFT CARDS from some of my favorite places!



Last but not least - Here is my newest pair of Skechers! 


New Year's Eve / Day is sneaking up quickly - hoping 2017 is a little bit better of a year for us!  Hoping Bill's knee is fixed soon (we have a doctor's appointment coming up on the fifth) - it is looking more and more like a total knee replacement.   

I still have about 1 1/2 weeks of Winter Break and hope to continue cleaning out closets, purging and organizing.....and maybe using some of those gift cards!
















Sunday, December 11, 2016

More Jimmy Shoes!

Just a quick update on my latest Skecher purchases.  It's been super busy and there have been some crazy sales.............so it was time to take advantage of some of the sales and add to my Skechers collection!

 I'm posting the latest purchases to avoid a duplicate purchase!













Only 14 more days until Christmas - tree is still not up, but finished the Christmas Cards today!

I've wrapped over 100 gifts already and have a handful left to buy and wrap!

Check back - I'll post some pictures soon!

Super snowy here today and would LOVE a snow day tomorrow - I can dream, can't I????