I hit the Jackpot

I hit the jackpot in Pine City Scrapbookers when we went through there :)
I just love this store/retreat.
It is one of the last Scrapbooking stores that I know of….I still have to travel 6+ hours and cross the border to get there….but it is always a treat when I do :)

I picked up quite a few dies this time.
I have so many ideas for Christmas cards now, I don't know which one I will choose to make…yup, still haven't even started on those.
I thought those circle dies with the image in the centre were lovely and LOVE the one with the deer and how its antlers take up 1/2 of the circle.
Also can't wait to cut out those trees and teacups.

Onto My Day:
Being as it is the 12th of December, it is the day we put up our tree.
I know many of you mentioned that you enjoy putting your trees up early because you enjoy looking at the lights every night.
I am right there with ya.
There is just something so peaceful about looking at the tree lights in the quiet of the evening.
But I like the anticipation of the season, so that is why I like to wait till now to put up our tree.

I hope you all have a very Creative Day :)

Tracy :)

Trimming the Tree

I love the Christmas season.
I love the lights, the decorations, the baking but mostly spending time with my family.

Our tradition is putting up the tree 12 days before Christmas.
Today I broke tradition…we put it up today.
The girls were happy, as they hate to wait so long to put up the tree.
But I like to wait…I like the anticipation of it.

So today I thought I would share with you some of my favourite tree ornaments.
As most of you know already, I love the deep colour red and I love hearts :)
This ornament is just so pretty with gold added to the red.

Another heart shaped ornament :)
I love how the light shines through this glass ornament.
There are tiny dots of glass that forms this ornament.

We use to have a Christmas store here in town.
It was located in a heritage house, the store name was called Coo's.
I am naturally a thrifty person, I usually just browse and drool in these types of stores... but when I saw these 3 little angels I just had to get them….one for each of my girls.

We changed things up a bit this year.
I usually string gold beads on the tree.
But Kristy did the tree by herself this year, and I am a bit of a perfectionist with the beads being perfectly spaced, so we went with ribbon this year.
I have to say it was a lot quicker.
Thank you Kristy :)

Even Luna joined in, teehee.
Kristy would have freaked out if she saw Luna rolling around and hiding under the tree skirt, but Kristy was at work.

Look at those big innocent eyes, how could anyone get mad at her ;)

Onto My Day:
Kristy and I brought up all the boxes to decorate the house.
Drove Kristy to work, then came home and decorated the outside of the house…I even cut some cedar branches and added them to my milking cans I have on display outside :)
I tidied up the house and put on my new Christmas table cloth and placemats out.
I then unpacked my Winter village but realized I need new snow batting, so will have to hold off on that until tomorrow.
I can sure get a lot accomplished when I'm not on the computer all day ;)

I hope you all had a very Creative Thursday :)
By the way, the ornament photos and the last photo of Luna were taken with my "big boy" camera, the other 2 were from my iPhone….which I usually use for all of my photos :)

Tracy :)

The stockings were hung

I wanted to share with you a bit of my daughter Ashley's Christmas decor.
Isn't this beautiful….it looks like it should be in a magazine.
I love how her colours are all silver, gold and white…stunning.
She even found wrapping paper and stockings to match :)
I have to pat myself on the back for that mantel though ;)

I spent most of my day preparing for our celebration with Wayne's side of the family.
He has a big family and it is always nice to get together.
It seems we all don't get together as much as we used to, especially with all our kids older now, and don't celebrate a birthday every month together.
Every year I make Wayne's moms recipe for Wild Rice Casserole.
Wayne's mom made it every Christmas. I have made it every year since she passed away.
I thought I would time how long it takes to make as it is a process…it took about 2 1/2 hours to make and that didn't include soaking the rice over night. But I have to say it is well worth it :)

Have to put a few more gifts under the tree then off to bed before Santa bypasses our house ;)

I hope you all had a wonderful, merry day :)

Tracy :)

Its Done, Its Done, the Big Project is Done!!!!

I am so so happy…. the Big Project is done!!!!

Before Ashely even went house shopping, she had this plan to have a mantle in her home.
So of course she asked me to make one…and of course I said "Yes, we can do that", lol.
She had seen the plans (I will share them when I get the link from her) and we went to work.
It was a long process because I could only work on it at when I was at her place.
This isn't where it is going to stay though, I just wanted to get a quick photo of it for you all to see :)
Ashley was planning on having shelves inside the opening for her video games systems and dvd players. But I think she has changed her mind about that.
She is planing on mounting her big screen above the mantle once it is on the correct wall.
I love how it turned out!!!!
I want to make me one now…but have no idea where I would put it, lol.

I always put my tree up on December 12th.
So today was the day.
Kristy did most of the work, except for the beads. Those suckers were being difficult this year.
I need to put on Christmas music on when we decorate….do you?

Day 12 of Heidi Swapp's photo challenge.
"Naughty/Nice"
This one was a bit of a challenge for me. I had a couple of options playing in my mind.
I didn't have any coal for the naughty stocking so I grabbed some black paint and painted some spoon sized shredded wheat to make them look like coal :)

For Canadian Scrapbooker's challenge the prompt was
"Frosty"
It wasn't until later that I could have taken a photo of a snowman…Frosty the Snowman.
It was a cold one today, so a photo of our frosty truck windows seemed to fit the bill for this challenge.

Onto My Day:
Wayne took the day off of work today as we had a meeting.
After the meeting we went shopping. I know its about time right, lol.
We are almost done!!
We went to visit Ashley at her house during her lunch break. She needed an extension cord for her jeep as it was so cold this morning her jeep almost didn't start.
She is feeling under the weather, so I bought her a plug for her tub so she can take a nice long hot tub after work tonight.

Well I am off to drive Kristy's friend home, warming up the jeep, as it is freezing out there.

Hope you all had a creative Thursday :)

Tracy :)