Black Tree Goes White...AND...Last hurrah for the elegant pumpkins!

Many of you will remember my black dead tree from Halloween. Well, I couldn't bear to throw it out, so I took it out to the backyard, sprayed it white, and did this to it.

Below, is the Pottery Barn inspiration for my apothacary jar, two photos down.

The pumpkins came down today, only to be promoted to the Thanksgiving table. I loved the effect. : ) *Someone asked about my dishes. They came from Mervyn's. But I got them on clearance a few years ago. : ( Sorry. The green goblets are from Walmart, last year.

And what it's all about.................Family

Wednesdays With My Mom

Isn't this a cute picture? My mom and dad were on a picnic with friends. I'm not sure if one of the friends sat on the ground to take this, or if my parents were experimenting with a timer and tripod.

The last couple of weeks have not been very exciting...nothing to write home about. We've gone to Drs. appointments both weeks.
Here, my mom is doing different skill tests to check perception, memory, etc.

When asked to write a sentence, she wrote, "What a day!" Cute! To reward ourselves for going to the Dr. last week, we went to the Dollar Store afterward just for fun. This week, we came back to my house to watch Little Women. What a delight. Mom enjoyed it very much!

And last...A Thanksgiving Blessing. Look what was waiting for my viewing pleasure when I went into the backyard yesterday. She was just sitting there, in all her royal beauty. I just had to snap a photo of her. Probably the last of the season. Just one more thing to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving to All.

Part III of "I Can Make That", Party

I've seen these little lavender filled bags at some specialty shops for $10.00 and up. I think mine cost $1 or less??? And believe me, they were so fun and fast to make.
Silk looks best. I had some leftover from all my Fall pumpkins. So I cut them out to be 4 1/4 x 4 1/4, and then made 1/4" seams.

Always trim your corners to get rid of bulk for when you turn it right side out.

I decided to stamp my words on, using embossing powder, and embossing heat tool to make the words stand out. But you could certainly use rub-on too.

Time to fill the bags with lavender. I had another kind of bag just sitting around the house that already had lavender in it, so I opened it up and used that. I used half rice, half lavender.

You can chose to either top stitch all the way around and thus close up the opening, or...

You can hand stitch the opening closed. I think I prefer hand stitching because the pillows look a little softer.

Next, another "slide" necklace. Only this time I found the silver picture holder at Michael's. I used a 40% off coupon. I liked this one because I could attach a charm on the bottom. Sara is loving the Eiffel tower one I made for Part I. : )I used the same great collage paper again, printed a crown off the Internet, cut it out and glued it on the paper. Then cut the whole thing out to be the size of the frame.

This little guy is what I considered part II over at Chris's "Make it Party": http://j-a-girl.blogspot.com/2008/11/welcome-to-party.html

Tutorial link is in my post below from yesterday.

But...I HAD to show you what my little Princesses made over here tonight while I watched them. Sorry...can't help myself.

When Princess C. saw my paper mache Santa tonight, she said, "Nana, I want to make something like that." So between the two of us, we came up with this idea. Boy were they thrilled. : )

If you've ever worked with paper mache, you'll understand why we skipped that part when making these little snowmen. Those are sewing pins for the face and buttons. The girls loved putting those on (as you can tell by the abundance of them). So cute!!!

Recognize the little $1 Mary Engelbreit boxes we glued the snowmen to? I love those things. Anyway, the girls proudly showed Mommy and Daddy as soon as they came to pick up their little munchkins. What a great night. : )

If You Can Figure Out What This Is...You Deserve A Hundred Dollar Bill! : )

Okay, if I had to guess from this one picture, I would say a mutated frog!!!
It all started when I went over to Mimi Sue's cottage (her link is in my sidebar) and just about died after looking at all these adorable snowmen she made. On her Site, she told of this link which has a tutorial: http://joli-paquet.blogspot.com/2008/11/snowman-box-tutorial.html Thank you joli-paquet and Mimi Sue.

My inspiration: The Polka Dot Pixie and Lori Mitchell. I LOVE their work!

Looking better.

Finished product. And if you're in love with these two trees, like me, you will find them at Hobby Lobby this week at half off, which makes them $10 each. : )

So proudly waiving his flag.

I dug this little bell up out of my button bin. I think I've had it since 1832 (J/K...maybe), just like the little red pom-pom for the flag above too. See, even in 1982, I knew I would need that someday. Hee-hee. : )

I decided to shake things up a bit for the big day next Thursday. I took some of the things off my living room table and moved them over here. And then added a few more things just for fun. The table looked sad after I took down the Halloween display. So...

And since I figure half the blogs will be about the midnight showing of Twilight today, I wanted to throw these in so I will look like I'm still "all that". See Sara, I'm right on top of today's lingo. I've switched from "hip and happen'" to "all that". What's that you say, "all that" is from the 90's??? Well, at least I've made it from the 70's to the 90's. No wonder all your friends think your Mom is the "bomb". Ok...I'll stop.

Here's my cute daughter, Emily. I had to meet her at the theater with the ticket Sara picked up for her a few days ago. Em lives 45 minutes out of town. Isn't she just the cutest, cutest thing? Her T-shirt says Team Edward. She went with a bunch of her married friends and Sara went with a bunch of her young friends. However, Em and Sara found each other in the lobby and Sara tells me they got some pix taken together. How fun!!!