Merry Christmas!

My wish for you is that you all have a peaceful and joyous Christmas with your family and friends.

Winter Solstice

As promised, here is a photo of our tree. It is so hard to get a photo that shows exactly what our tree looks like (Heather, maybe you can give me some tips on this) but I did my best. We found the tree with the most holes and cut it ourselves, used the larger lights and decorated it with all of our family ornaments. In years past I have had 2 trees, one with the family ornaments and one with the Christopher Radko ornaments I collect. Both of them had tinsel I bought at garage/estate sales. You know, the old lead tinsel. There is nothing like it on a Christmas tree. Reminds me of the trees we had as kids. These days I put up one tree and use over 200 glass icicles. They are so much easier to put on and take off.

The Winter Solstice is here and we are all cheering the knowledge that the days will get longer starting today instead of getting shorter. It gets very cold and dreary here so the hope of more sunlight is a welcome relief.

Updated Class List

Hope everyone is getting all their holiday chores finished. It is coming fast!

Just wanted to let you all know that I updated my class list for January. They are listed in the left hand corner along with the store phone numbers so you can call and reserve a spot. Join me for a fun Valentine class at The Stamp Shoppe in Schofield, WI or Endless Creations in Green Bay, WI. There will be 5 fun Valentine cards and fun for all.

Good Kitty

Such a good kitty, don't you think? Scruffy just sits in his chair and looks at our tree. I am always amazed that he doesn't get into things, especially this year. You see, I have over two hundred glass icicles on the tree that hang down and tempt him. I finished decorating the tree yesterday and am finally working my "to do" list down to a bearable size. Soon I will take a photo of the whole tree to share with you and am hoping that all of you will do the same. Take a moment to photograph your tree and post it on your blog. I love looking at everyone's tree and it would be fun to see your trees too.

Success!

This is the fun group of ladies I had at my calendar class last night at Endless Creations in Green Bay. "Hi Ladies!" They braved a big snowstorm just to come out and make calendars and am I ever glad they did! We had a great time stamping, coloring and chatting. Their names from left to right are, back row, Trish, Paula, me, Kathy. Front row, Mary Ellen, Mary Jo and Mary Kay. They are all super stampers and we had no problems getting all 12 months finished in 2 hours. Also wanted to thank them for coming early so we could beat the worst of the storm and a special thank you to Sonya for dropping in and chatting with us. She also helped me out by demoing the Stamp-a-ma-jig. Great job Sonya!!! Thank you all so much for making my first class at Endless Creations such a success. I look forward to seeing you at my Valentine class next month. Ooops! I almost forgot, if anyone would like the kit, I sent them to Endless today, they should have them tomorrow. Please call the store if you would like them to hold one for you. Thanks!

VMAA challenge night

I know this card needs some 'splaining, Lucy! Last night was the 3rd edition of the VMAA. For anyone who doesn't know, it is the Virtual Meeting of the A Muse Addicts. It is a fun night of stamping for everyone who participates which consists of 4 challenges and 1 bonus challenge. Anyway, the fourth challenge was to make a card that shows a memory of your Christmas' as a child. In our family, on Christmas Eve, before the kids got up, my Dad would set a "trap" for us. He would use lots of empty boxes and string in our staircase to build a trap. When we tried to sneak down to see what Santa brought, we would set off a lot of noise as the boxes tumbled down the stairs. It was always great fun for us kids to see if we could make it through the trap without making noise. I don't think we ever did make it to the tree without waking our parents, or did we???

Loot!

Look at all this loot! The Fiskars sale was so much fun. My friend Renate and I got there right after the doors opened and boy, did we get some great stuff. I got all the scissors and punches that I could carry. There is just a sample of my goodies in the photo. They had a huge warehouse that was full of all the paper, punches, scissors, embellishments you could carry at killer prices. Couldn't resist some of the more fun things like that punch set in the background. Got that whole set for $5. Yup, $5!!! I will probably have to wait till after the holidays to sort through it all and figure out where to put it. So sorry all my online friends couldn't have joined us in our search for "the good stuff".

Calendar Class

Had my calendar class today at the Stamp Shoppe and guess who showed up? Linda! Yay! It was a lot of fun to stamp with her, she even helped me out with one of my designs. Now that is a good friend. My next calendar class is at Endless Creations in Green Bay on Monday night. Join me if you can.

Was going to post yesterday and wish my brother, Dan, a happy birthday but somehow the day got away from me so "Happy Belated Birthday" to the BEST brother ever!

My friend Renate and I are heading out to the big Fiskars warehouse sale tomorrow. Should be a bunch of great bargains waiting for us there. They had sale day #1 a couple weeks ago and I got more scissors than you can shake a stick at for a dollar each!!! They had all kinds of fun stuff for $1, $2 and up. Even had edge scissors for a quarter. Yeah! Love that sale. Will try and get a photo and post it tomorrow with all the goodies I manage find.