Repurposing Materials for a Christmas Card

In exchange for one of these FABULOUS bracelets my friend Dawn makes, she asked that I make her a couple of cards--one being a Christmas card for a swap she is doing and another for her daughter's piano teacher. (I wonder who is getting the better end of the deal on this exchange, hmmm? Yeah, umm, me no doubt.) I started on the Christmas card this evening. I love this wrapping paper! I've had it for awhile now and have been wanting to use it on something. The beads, from a magnetic bracelet that Lydia broke, will soon be garland. I plan to do some stitching on this too. I had fun digging through my stash for stuff to use on this but man did I make a mess of my craft room!

I Am SOOOO Inspired

Wow...Everybody Likes Sandwiches is a great blog. I am so inspired to get busy in my kitchen! Check it out people.

Plarn Anyone?

It's been so long since I've been in my craft room that it is RIDICULOUS! It always seems to be last on my things to do list these days but this evening I picked up an issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors and it inspired me to get in there and make SOMETHING. Reading this magazine I realized I really love fiber arts and collage and would reallllly love to take some classes.

We watched Al Gore on Letterman last night and he was promoting his new book Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis. He sparked our interest so we bought this book today and I've started reading it. Now I'm inspired to make some projects out of recycled materials so I started to look around online for plastic bag ideas because I am just disgusted with how many of those I dispose of and oh my goodness, there is a plethora of things to make with plastic bags. Did you even know there has been a word created for plastic bags used as yarn? Yeah, it's called "plarn". I love that.

A Very Spooky Halloween

We carved punkins last night. Lydia's is on the left. The bat is mine and Ken carved the skull. I love the skull! Didn't he do a good job? Lydia won the carving contest again this year.

After pumpkin carving last night and much pleading from Lydia, we took her to the haunted house at the Rising Star Mill in Nelsonville. We were 5 steps into it and she said VERY sternly, "I want to get out of here RIGHT NOW!" There was no going back at that point so Ken walked through the rest of the haunted house with her wrapped around his neck clinging for life. It was put on by the YMCA and it was pretty spooky. I was scared even a few times.


We also made some cupcakes. Not as cool as the brain cupcakes we made last year but they are just as tasty.

More about Berlin and the fall festival

So, more about our trip to Berlin. I'm telling you, if you want to find some cool shabby chic/vintage stuff, the Saving Grace Salvage Company in Berlin is the place to go. It's well organized and they have a wide variety of goodies. My most favorite find was the vintage jewelry! Because...my friend Dawn makes THE MOST beautiful bracelets (and sells them on Etsy by the way) out of this stuff. I scored a bunch of pieces for her (and it just happened to be her birthday) and I was smiling the whole way home, seriously. I didn't take any close-ups of what I got for her and I wish I would have!
We met Simone Lapierre (I am probably really messing up the spelling!) who is a beautiful girl inside and out, I'm telling you, so nice. She was face painting when we met her. Besides being an artist, she is also an actress.
She also helped Lydia make a lantern.

We did some shopping too and Lydia picked out a new outfit for her American Girl.
Saw some chain saw carving...
...and of course, no trip is complete without a stop at Taco Johns!
On the way home Lydia told us she had a lot of fun. I think this is a day Lydia will remember when she gets older because we had a lot of fun as a family.