Catch up time...

Last week, I had so much going on I think I just dropped into bed every night when I got home. Monday evening, I went to the store and ran some errands after work so it wasn't bad.

Tuesday, I pulled all my Christmas boxes out of the storage area so I could start doing some of my decorating. About all I got done was moving things out of the living room so I would have a place to put the things I wanted to decorate with. Then I stopped for the night. 

Wednesday was play practice for the Children's program. 

Thursday I had to decorate the set for the program. One section of the stage was a tree lot. This is just the beginning of it, but the tall tree was a fake tree from our storage at church. Check out the 3 little trees in the front. Those are tomato cages with garland wrapped around them. Thank you Pinterest for the idea. I think they turned out just fine. 

Friday was the last rehearsal and I had to go back to watch it to see if I needed any more props or to move anything and make changes. 

Saturday, I just about wore myself out. My day by me getting up and making 4 dozen cookies. Don't worry, I did the break apart and bake kind. Then at 9:00, I left to go to a movie theater in Knoxville where I attended the Spring Premier for Thirty-One. 

Immediately after that, we met up at a local restaurant and had our Thirty-One local group Christmas party and gift exchange. 

I hurried home when that was over so I could make the other 2 dozen cookies. We were supposed to take 5-6 dozen. I got those done, wrapped another gift and then headed out at 6:30 to a cookie exchange/gift exchange gathering with some of the women from my church. I didn't get home until almost 10:30. 

Sunday, I got up and prepared the craft for Children's church and printed off the lesson. Then headed out to Sunday School and church. 

I came home from church, had lunch and started to set out a few of my Christmas decorations and threw in a load of laundry. Then I had to leave so I could be back at the church for choir practice for the adult Christmas program which is next Sunday. After it was over, we had to move the choir chairs back out of the way and I had to finish putting the decor up for the children's program. Since I was already there, I just hung out till the Children's program started. 

I got home a little before 8:00 and I didn't do a single thing but eat a bite of supper and lay on the couch till time to go to bed. I am so thankful that I don't have any commitments this week and that the family will be coming over here Friday night to celebrate our December birthdays. Now to get my decorating done tonight so I can enjoy the week.

Christmas songs

Friday Foto Friends

So glad to hook up with Ms. Debbie at Jeremiah-2911 for Friday Foto Friends. 

I haven't finished decorating yet, but I wanted to share a Christmas picture. This one is from a couple of years ago, but this is my favorite display I do in my kitchen every year. I love the aqua and red together for Christmas. especially since some of it is Pyrex! 

Hope everyone has a great day. 

Joy

Joy to the World has always been my favorite Christmas song. 

Everything I do in my life, I try to find the joy in doing it. 

One of my favorite bible verses is about being content in whatever situation you find yourself. I think personally for me, that is the true key to joy. 

Then this morning there was one of those "let me analyze you" things on Facebook. This one was to let Facebook read your posts and determine what your life motto is and I thought it would be fine to see what Facebook thinks my motto should be. So I did it and this is what popped up....

It was definitely one of those God things. Then on top of that, I have something I am expecting that I needed pretty soon. I was told two days ago that it will take 7 - 10 days to get here and the lady said probably closer to 10 days. Well, last night after my prayers, I was drifting off to sleep and just said a quick little prayer. All I did was say, God if that could arrive tomorrow or Friday it would be great. I woke up to find an email that it is arriving today. Now tell me that He doesn't answer even the simplest prayer. It reminded me of Allen's favorite road sign he saw many years ago and we would use this quote all the time.

I love it when a plan comes together....especially when it is God's plan.

Pyrex around the world....

I went on Pinterest to get an idea for decorating for our Children's Christmas program at church. You know how Pinterest just pops up random things on your home page when you go on it? Well, these cute little bowls popped up. They are East German Pyrex. I had no clue. I knew there was JAJ Pyrex from England and Agee Pyrex from Australia. But East German Pyrex? Turns out the inventor of the type of process for the glass in Pyrex was a man in Germany. He eventually sold his process to Corning Glass in the early 1900's who then duplicated the process and branded it as Pyrex. The rest is an empire that keeps vintages nuts like myself on their toes for pieces to complete their sets. So I googled the German, English and Australian pieces and found a few to share with you today. Wonder how many times I have seen these in the U.S. and passed them by because I didn't realize they were Pyrex.

My no-sew pillow from a placemat ...

My sister does no-sew pillows all the time. People on the Dollar Tree Crafts Facebook page doing them constantly. So I decided to join the crowd. I had some Poly Fill, a seam ripper and a hot glue gun. So I spent $2.00 on a placemat at Family Dollar. I gathered everything together.

Then I sat down on the couch and ripped the seam out. Didn't take but a few minutes. 

Because of the lining in the placemat, I had to gently work my hand in it to loosen it up from the back side, creating my pillow case effect.

This I started stuffing with the Poly Fill and moving it around and shaping and bunching until I had my pillow shape.

Next, I started hot gluing the seams back together that I had ripped open. I worked a little at a time so the glue wouldn't set too early. I pressed it together tightly until it was good and sealed.

And this was the finished project.

It now rests in Hubby's chair along with my favorite cream afghan. I loved doing this so now I am committed to make four for my friends.

This morning I was organizing the desk in the living room to make room for my printer. We had this bulky pencil holder that I have always hated. So I moved it off the desk and went in search of a better one. It was too plain for me.

After thinking and thinking, I grabbed an empty Hellman's jar. I cut a piece of scrapbook paper that was Christmas-y. I just rolled it up, inserted it in the jar and it unwound. Then I pulled out some coordinating ribbon I had on hand and wrapped it around and sealed the back side with two sided tape. And I had a nice snazzy pencil holder for the holidays. The beauty is that with the two side tape, I can remove the ribbon, pull out the paper and replace it with something blue and snowy for January, hearts for February, shamrocks for March...I guess you can see where I am going with this. I must say I love my little pencil holder now.

What have you been crafting on lately?

Weekend Wrap Up

It was a very exhausting but fabulously fun weekend. I had 4 days to enjoy it. It started off with Thanksgiving dinner at my daughter's house. The first year that my son-in-law cooked Thanksgiving dinner and it was delicious. Then my daughter and her family and my son and his family all gathered that evening for desserts at my house. We had an awesome time. It was different than any of our other Thanksgivings and I really missed Allen being with us. I failed to get any pictures. But we did pour over the Black Friday ads. I shopped on Friday and Saturday and was able to pic up some good deals. Like buying 7 items at Kohl's. My total cost for all 7 was $46.37. My savings was $123.87. So that alone made it worth my while to fight the crazy crowds. I went again with my daughter on Saturday and got even more savings. I picked up a cute basket with fresh greenery for just $8.00 for my coffee table. And when I came home I had a package that was a vintage trade I did. I got these two little carolers as part of the trade. I love the way they look with my vintage deer I found last year.

I was looking at pictures this weekend and found this one. This is my twins 37 years ago. They had just turned 1 year old so I had their birthday/Christmas picture made. One of my favorite pictures of them. 

That was also the year they were crawling and starting to walk and getting into all kinds of mischief.

I also found a picture of me and my sister and one of my brothers. The baby brother didn't come along for about 4 or 5 years after this picture.

One of my favorite pictures of me and my sister at Christmas time. That was the year we got TWO baby dolls each for Christmas.

I didn't get my tree put up yet, but that is a story for another day. Other than my coffee table and couch, I haven't done any decorating yet. Hoping to get started on it this evening. have a great last day of November.