good news, bad news

• good news: I sold two Christmas ornaments thru my etsy site!
• good news: I joined a small group of vintage/heirloom type crafters to "band together" for marketing ideas, advertising each others' shops, that sort of thing.
• bad news: I don't have very much inventory right now to put in my shop for exposure! (I should be working on personal Christmas cards, and other things, not shop inventory)
• bad news: I haven't sold anything since then! (okay, it was only last week, but still...)
• bad/good news: I picked up Phoebe's ashes from the vet yesterday... now to find an urn to keep them in.
• good/bad news: they made a small cast of her pawprints to go with them! I was so touched!! The vet's office also sent a sympathy card, that the entire staff signed, with a copy of The Rainbow Bridge poem included- how thoughtful!!
• good news: a couple nights ago was the latest in the year that it's fallen below 50 F for a nighttime low.
• bad news: last night, it got down to 33 F here, only in the 50s for a high temp today, and it's supposed to do it again tonight!
• more bad news: the furnace didn't work when I turned it on! and, to top it off, no one from the heating place called me back today- the builder's Customer Service office is working on it (I should have called them first, I guess...), but they'll have to see what they can do, working with my schedule. I don't understand why they're surprised that people can't be home during the day!!! I leave for work at 5:15 am, and get home at around 3:30 pm... it's not too bad in here, probably around 65 F, but I'm glad I have a down comforter and flannel pajamas, that's for sure!
• good news: tomorrow's Friday!!!

Well, I'm off to check out the dinner options- maybe I'll cook a pizza, so I can turn the oven on! (unfortunately, I don't think that will help too much, as open a space as the kitchen/family room is!)

edited: just wanted to say the time Blogger lists for this post is an hour earlier than the actual time I posted this... don't know why, but don't really want to look into it right now.

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

The Thanksgiving holiday only lasted till Sunday afternoon at our house- lol!! We decided to get out the Christmas decorations, the Christmas music, and got to work. I'm glad we did; we're going to be gone for about a week at Christmas, so this gives us more time to enjoy them. Turns out that Tom will be doing some intensive traveling for the next couple weeks (he left this morning for Texas and will be back next Wednesday), so I'm glad we did it before he left. The camera is on fumes of battery power, and won't re-charge for some reason (it's annoying, too- it's only 5 years old, but it's already practically obsolete), but Tom did manage to take some pictures with it. This also gives you a bit of an idea of what it looks like inside our house!

The pic above is standing at the kitchen island looking towards the family room area. We aren't putting up a full-size tree this year- next year we'll have one (it will be in the Living Room, hopefully next to my piano!) Instead of a large tree, I've always hung ornaments on garland (this is practically cat-proof), so that's what we did again this year.

This pic is standing at the island, looking into the kitchen. I was going to crop out the messy corner of the island, but that would be cheating, a bit, and you wouldn't get an idea of what the room actually looks like. My Santa and snowman collection (the bigger ones, anyway) fit pretty nicely above the cabinets! Grandma's springerle rolling pin hangs above the window over the sink, just like it did in her house.

This table is in the small hallway outside our bedroom. It's a mixture of things from both our collections- Tom's spun glass snow, my bottle brush trees, etc. I've accumulated most of my decorations from antique shops, flea markets, or thrift stores (except for a few special ones from Grandma's collection, or gifts), and most of Tom's came from his Grandma. She gave him a Christmas ornament every year while he was growing up- a nice tradition! My goose feather tree (in the family room, across from the couch next to the TV) and Tom's Nativity set- the tree is decorated with some of the smaller, more fragile glass ornaments, and some of Tom's collection. My favorites are the cotton boll (lower right on the tree) and the gold-painted peanuts(near the top), both of which I remember hanging on Grandma's tree every year.

I hope everyone else is getting into the holiday spirit!!!

(by the way, the weather is turning wintry here- it may freeze tonight!)

Turkey-day crafting

So, I needed something to do while the duck was roasting... in between basting and turning the duck, that is! I finished up three Christmas ornaments that I dreamed up last week. I love antique Christmas ornaments, and have quite a collection myself- I decided to make some Victorian style scrap ornaments. Finding real antiques like these is rare, and expensive, as they are delicate and weren't made to last for 100+ years!

They weren't difficult to do, just a bit time-consuming... the angels are clip art saved from the Dover website. I cut out the two below... the background above is edged with glitter; the backgrounds below were made with heat-embossed cardstock, to look like stars.

The ruffle was made using regular tissue paper, cut 1 inch wide. I (very carefully) sewed along the edge with a large needle and thread, then (also very carefully!) gathered it into a ruffle, which was glued onto the back side of the cardstock. The ruffle was then covered up with a backing piece of cardstock, and the whole thing was flattened under the unabridged dictionary to dry.

The angels were embellished a bit with metallic pens and glitter, and attached to the ornaments with 3-D foam tape. They are going up for sale in my etsy shop; we'll see if anyone likes them! I also just signed up for Paypal, to make it easier to buy from me... hopefully it's easy to figure out! (and hopefully I'll need to figure it out- LOL!)

good mail day yesterday!

Yesterday's mail held more than the usual junk mail and bills!! I had extra ATCs from cards I made recently for swaps, so offered them up for trade on twopeasinabucket. The picture below is what I received in return. The two top cards and the colorful fibers are from Daria... I saw pics of these, but they're all much more beautiful in real life- the postage ATC with the embossed music and the shrink plastic treble clefs is just gorgeous!! The bottom ATC is from Jacque, from her vintage swap- the cute little girl and the bingo card definitely does make me want to smile!!!

Thanks to everyone who left such nice comments here about my latest craft projects!!! They really weren't difficult, just a bit time-consuming, but easy enough to do while sitting in front of the TV. Now, someone just needs to see them in my etsy shop, and want to buy them! I really need to get a Paypal account, I think that might be the ticket to selling relatively inexpensive things that people wouldn't want to use a money order or check on... I also need to make more things to sell... I also need to figure out how to market my etsy shop, since there are thousands of people selling on that site... I also need to figure out how to fit it all in! (Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated... :-) )

In other news, fall is certainly taking its time in getting here- yesterday it was 89F (>30 C, for you metric folks) degrees, a record high for this date! It's supposed to be in the low/mid 70s (about 22-25 C) for high temps! I don't want freezing weather, or anything, but temperate weather would be nice!! Last year was like this too; I remember going to Thanksgiving dinner wearing shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. Cold weather will definitely be a shock when we get back to Illinois at Christmas, I'm sure! (Mom, will you turn the heat up to about 82, to get the house nice and toasty for us?? just checking!)

Fall in Illinois meant raking leaves; fall in AZ means picking up rocks! At least for me, anyway... we got a load of rocks ages ago to spread along the sides of the house, and had some left over. They sat in the road, because there's lots of small gravel mixed in, which we didn't want, and we really didn't know what to do with it. Now, I'm working on cleaning it up, since we got a letter about it from the Homeowner's Association. I'm sorting it, by hand, and the larger rocks are going in the backyard in a pile, to await further landscaping instructions... I know why this kind of stuff is called "back-breaking" work, that's for sure!!!

Tomorrow afternoon and evening I am going to start in on the Thanksgiving meal. I'm being pretty ambitious, which may backfire on me... (Mom, are you sitting down befire you read any farther? just checking!) I'm going to make cranberry sauce (Gram's recipe, and it will be served in a cut-glass bowl, just like it should be), rolls (from a mix, but still...), and wait- a pumpkin pie (with pre-made crust, but still...). Then, I need to bake the sweet potatoes to have them ready. That way, on Thursday, I only need to make up the relish tray (including my favorite green onions and cheddar cheese), mix up the sweet potato casserole, and roast the duck. So, we'll either be eating like royalty, or we'll be hitting the local Domino's for take-out pizza!!!

I have a doggie who needs the ball thrown to her a little, I think, so I should end this (more like a million times, if she had her way)... Everyone enjoy your long weekend, if you're having one!!!