Christmas Eve dinner awaits!

Last Thursday night we had a progressive dinner over here for all my church ladies and this is how we set up, AND this is also how I set up for today's dinner. We now have 29 people with just us and my Mom, Dad and siblings. So how do people do it who have bigger families!?

I know, Buffet Style and outside! That is what we do when we go over to my Husband's parents house. He is the oldest of 9 children and now all 9 have families, so it is well over 50 not including any strays that are invited over. The more the merrier! (in AZ we can eat ourside with heaters)

I hope that how ever big or small your holiday festivities are, that they are wonderful and with those you love. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Grandparents Day at Nash's School

I had a fabulous time during Grandparent's Day at my Glamson Nash's school on Wednesday. He wrote me a darling letter and we made crafts. During the "boring time" Nash perfected his many different facial expressions to reflect his many moods. That boy is Hilarious! Yeah Nash!

This is my "Kitchen Santa" collection. The middle Santa is from my childhood. My Dad managed an AJ Bayless store and He got to keep this velvet CokaCola Santa. I have also collected vintage Santa mugs for a while. I only displayed a few this year. I just haven't gotten into the "real" decorating mood. I just cringe thinking about putting it all away, weird state of mind I know. Maybe it's just a weird time right now with the economy and all. Do any of you feel this way , just this year, for some reason?

I got this image off of Scrapologie. I reminded me of my 5 girls and how they loved and still love to dance. (sigh... those were the days) I remember wishing they would grow up, now they are and I wish they were still small. Really only sometimes, because I LOVE having grandchildren, so there you go. Hope you are all doing well as the stress of the holidays rushes in. I'm making it easy on myself and giving $. (sorry kids, not enough to pay your mortgages though...) Oh, and you can see my girls dancing here.

Fabulous Swap Items Received!

I just received these darling items from Jillian Haupt!!!!! I can't tell you how delighted I am with them. THANK YOU Jillian, you are amazing!!!!

This cute paper doll is made from one of Jillian's original paintings, how inspiring is that! You can see Jillian's art by clicking here .

New "Vintage" Christmas Ornaments

I've been wanting to make these ornaments made of Styrofoam balls and sequins for years now and finally made these this last few weeks. Yes, it took Sooooo much time to take a tiny pin, thread a seed bead and then a sequin onto into it and then push it into the Styrofoam ball! It drove me crazy, so you can see how I finished off the rest... glitter and pom-poms!

All of the above ornaments are of our grandparents, but the beautiful woman below is my Mom.

Christmas Cards thru the Years...

I thought I'd share a sampling of our family Christmas cards thru the years. I didn't save our first cards, we probably didn't send any out those first years as we were so poor (like all young couples first starting out). I started individualizing the first cards with little drawings and it all went from there...

This "Star Trek" card is one of my favorites. I copied a family photo and "whited out" some detail and drew over the photo to make it look like we were characters from the show. Back before PC's I used a lot of White Out and clipped and glued everything together. I sort of lived at those copy stores back then.

Now again for this year, I am trying to think of something "clever" for our family Christmas card. I have a "Love/Hate" relationship with this tradition of ours to make the yearly cards because it is really hard to think sometimes!

I'll show you our 2008 card soon...I hope!

More Christmas Stockings

So I fixed the spelling error and made Sloan's Christmas stocking and they are all hung...now to figure out what Santa will fill them with!

Christmas Stockings

About 10 years ago, I made all new Christmas Stockings for the family. I had seen these fabulous cowboy boot stockings made out of leather in a magazine, but they were $30 a piece at the time and so I made my own pattern and made these felt stockings. This year we have added two new family members - Carma and Daisy (shoot!!!! I just realized I spelt Daisy wrong!!!!) ugh.... and Conway is due in February. When I was putting all the stockings up (a grand total of 23) I also realized I never made Sloan's (she was just a new born last Christmas). So back to the sewing machine and I'll show you a photo of them all up when I get done.