Someone I know is turning another year older...and, unfortunately for her it happens a few days after Christmas. As if that wasn't enough, it's 1 day before the birthday of her eldest child. Bummer.

Well, I can't change those circumstances but I thought I'd try to smooth things over a bit with a home-made gift. So I buried myself away in my craft room and the following emerged:

I have had the opportunity lately to make some baby blessing keepsakes for some of the women in my Mom's group. The blessings, which were written by somebody else, are just sweet little prayers for the new arrival - it covers almost everything! I've done the keepsake a few different ways - a few times I did a decorative pocket with the matted blessings tucked inside and then other times, just matted each blessing on some nice paper. This time, I wanted to bring out the big guns: Chipboard Coasters.

I have been wanting to make a Chipboard Coaster book for awhile, but I never get around to it. So here was my opportunity.


The thing I love about doing stuff like this is there are NO RULES! I've seen tutorials on how to do it - but if you know me, you know I'm a CRAFTING REBEL! I rebel against the tutorial...I go my own way.


Each page of the book has kind of a different look, different colors - I'm all over the place. I wanted kind of a distressed look, so I sanded things, painted, stamped, deckle cut, etc. The topper was I modge podged each coaster. I can't help myself with the podge...if I could, I would podge everything. I love the podge. My favorite part is peeling it off my fingers. Anyway - had a small moment of trepidation with the podge on this project....halfway through I wish that I hadn't gone to the podge, but in the end I think it worked ok.




The book is kept together with some twine, which is reinforced with.....you guessed it....a little podge. It's probably not as good as all those tutorial books that are out there, but hey - it's handmade with love. I hope the recipient is blessed.

Welcome to this world, little Jordan!

Operation Birthday Party is underway. The Command Post is operational, I've got the platoon leaders at the ready with their orders and the heavy artillery is poised and ready for deployment. 1st and 2nd platoon will deploy from base camp covert, with light and noise discipline to establish a perimeter. 3rd platoon will come in behind and charge in providing suppressing fire and securing the objective in an attempt to outflank the enemy party crashers.

It's clear that I have lost my right mind...either that or I've seen Band of Brothers one too many times. Maybe both. Regardless...the birthday party is a go.

You know - I won't go into my years of birthday party issues with you here...it's just not the right place and I may launch into another Airborne flashback. But at a certain point, it's time to let go of the things that hold us back.

I woke up this morning with a song in my head - a specific lyric of the song kept rolling over in my mind:


It's from a song entitled, "Come Undone" and just because I'm shameless, I'm going to do a shameless plug for my brother, who wrote the song (along with his band, TapWater) - please check them out - they are PHENOMENAL musicians - world twang, baby!

Anyway - this lyric kept rolling around in my head...now I don't know about you, but I have 2 big oak trees in my front yard and despite the freezing temps that seem to hug the days around these parts, they are STILL holding onto their dead leaves!! It's sort of an odd phenomenon.

I started thinking about the oak tree, holding onto its leaves, not wanting to let go of the deadness it holds onto. It reminds me of myself...what am I holding onto that's dead...that's lifeless. Or more than that, what am I holding onto that's sucking the life from me? I used the "birthday party issues" as a tongue in cheek example, but I have more dead leaves to ponder than that.

So how about you - what are your dead leaves? Just a little thought for you and me as I tie off my last goodie bag and head off to sleep.

Love & suppressing fire,
k

Well it's that time of year again in case you've been under a rock...you know, ho ho ho and jingle bells and all that. I really love Christmas - it's a time of family, fellowship and celebrating the birth of Jesus. Plus, there's always better food around than usual and time off from school and work. What's not to love about that? I have no problem with gift giving and receiving, but over the years I have been soured at the consumerism of this country - especially around Christmas time. It has made me not want to participate. Every year it gets worse - this year I saw Christmas decor out before Halloween! I hear the message loud on clear - let's completely skip Thanksgiving - a holiday where we STOP and give THANKS for what we HAVE (read between the lines: no buying stuff!) and move right on into the season of buying. I find it funny...no, down right hysterical that the media is telling me day after day that we are in a recession, the economy is tanking. Yet the mall parking lot is packed and there are people coming out of stores with lots of bags looking for their SUV's. There are no bread lines at the mall, people.

See now I've gone and done it...I wanted to do this precious little post about Abby and I doing our sweet handmade Christmas crafts and my soap box found its way out next to my keyboard again. Sorry 'bout that.

On with the show, shall we?



So what I was GOING to say was...it's that time of year again. The time of year when we need to give a gift to the teacher in our life. Although this is Abby's first year of real school, it's her 3rd year of having a teacher at Christmas. We've been around the block a few times. So we like to do little handmade thingies that are inexpensive but show thought and love...this year is no exception.

You can ask my Mom (in fact she could probably produce a picture that tells the same story). I have always been a handmade Christmas gift kind of girl. When I was young, I would use my own money and buy a ton of candy. I would parse the candy out into little baggies and tie them up with ribbon curly cues. Then, I would put little name tags on them and put them in a basket and take them to school to pass out to my friends. The bags were always well received.


This year, Abby and I did "S'mores in a Jar". We filled mason jars with a graham cracker/brown sugar mixture, marshmallows and chocolate chips (Publix had a wonderful sale on Ghirardelli chips - perfect timing!). Then, we kinda "do up" the mason jars with some fun tags and an ornament. For the tag I did a simple piece of white stock paper covered with a fun design from "My Mind's Eye" (one of my faves). I embossed a gold Christmas and added a star brad. Inside we have the directions on how to make the s'mores bars as well as a little message from the kitchen of Club Amaro. Add a little raffia, a mini clothes pin and a fun ornament from the dollar bin at Michael's and WAA LAAAA!



We made 2 for Abby to take to school...one for her main teacher and the other for her class "literacy" teacher. To go along with her S'mores in a jar, Abby made a card to go with each. I just had to share the one for her teacher...it is precious.

The front:


The inside:


I love Abby's use of things laying around...a sticky note pad for the front and an index card for the inside. For some reason, she can't write stuff directly ON the card, it's got to be written on something, then attached. She probably gets that from me...

So there ya go...the craftabulous creations currently happening at Club Amaro. You are in the know. Hope you are all doing well and spending more time out of the mall than inside of it.

love &