Check out my crafty self
Hello, all of my adoring fans (said sarcastically). I'm back by popular demand. Not really, but I have some things I want to share with you! Remember a couple of posts ago I left you a little teaser about a mini album I created for my Secret Santa? Well, Janet Perry (of the famous Perry Sisters of New Jersey) was my Secret Santa! I sent her a box of goodies and the mini album. As far as I can tell, she loves it! So I can post a few pics of it now:
This simple album was like 20 pages full of the same SEI patterned papers that I've been hoarding for like, a year or so, and I used MM and Heidi Swapp embellies. I also used various rub ons. A sort of hodge podge of stuff that turned out quite lovely, if I do say so myself. Really the pics don't do it justice. It's WAY prettier in real life (and I put ribbons on the binder rings, but I can't seem to find that pic right now). Not one to brag but I'm just sayin'.....
Okay. Here's another couple of pics of a pink clock that my dear friend Josiane acquired for me at Target. It's the one and the same that Heidi Swapp used in one of her Year to Remember projects this year on the Big Picture website. I downloaded the PDF for the instructions on how to take apart and alter the clock. What should've been a no-brainer, for me, was a major undertaking. I bent the metal hands (darn thin metal!), used glitter and glue on the hands instead of the metallic pen suggested in the PDF and it was HELL waiting for it to dry, hence the impatient thumbprints and lumpy glitter all over the place... AND, I smudged the black ink around the word "cherish". I went over the smudges with my white Uniball Signo and you can hardly tell (yeah, right). So, the end result doesn't exactly look like hers, you get the picture, k? I did use light blue glitter on the hands and kinda like that effect instead of silver. Here you go (sorry for the blurry photos-I promise it wasn't intentional...*cough*...)
Not bad, but not that good either. I realize this. That's why today, I hit up Josiane for another clock to try it again and what do you know? she has extras! I will use this clock in my scrap room for now or I may gift it to someone later. I don't know. Part of me wants to just throw it away!
Anyhoo, I was feeling a little blue this past weekend. It was the first Christmas without my dad. Although in more recent years we didn't spend Christmas together (my parents were divorced a long time ago and my father remarried a couple of times after that), I like to remember the good times that were had around Christmas when we were together, as a family. Dad was always Santa (the present distributor), and we played Elvis' "White Christmas" over and over and over again (my mom's a BIG fan!)...I remember that we had to wait until 12:00 a.m. on Christmas Eve to open our gifts, which looking back now seems a bit cruel, but we waited and waited. At 12:00 midnight sharp, we were ripping into boxes and stockings like nobody's business! I remember some of those presents today: a pair of striped leg warmers (think Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" song), a boom box one year; a giant poster of Mick Jagger (complete with makeup and spandex -lovely....)..OH! and my first album ever: Michael Jackson's Off the Wall! Oh.My.Gosh. I wore that album out! and then it got stolen from show and tell at school (and don't DARE ask me what an album is, I'm already feeling my age and then some!) I remember my dad giving his trademark smart ass opinions of most of the gifts, too. A REAL life Archie Bunker, he didn't hold back. That was my dad.
And I miss him so much. I really do. I didn't think it would be this hard. And I wasn't prepared for all this emotional stuff I'm feeling now. I think about him all of the time. I brought flowers to the cemetery on Christmas Day. It was very peaceful. Andrew was running around like a banshee so I was a little distracted. I cried a little. I always get a little sad when I see the crypt marker. I wish I'd known more about my dad's military service. He'd always say that he was an expert rifleman and that he trained recruits. How much of that is true, I don't know. I doubt my Mom even knows. My dad was a great "embellisher". I found it hard to tell when he was being honest or just messing with us. He got a kick out of messing with us, that's for sure. It makes me laugh to think about it. That was my dad. While we were at the cemetery, Andrew asked me, "Is Grandpa Max in there?" and I told him that yes, he was but that part of him went to Heaven. And then he asked me (because it was Christmas), "Does Grandpa Max get presents in Heaven?" and I started to cry when I told him that Grandpa Max will be getting lots of presents in Heaven forever.
Obviously Dad can't read this blog, but I know that wherever he is, he knows that I'm thinking of him. I miss you, Dad and I love you. Put in a good word for me, okay? Peace out for now, ya'll.
This simple album was like 20 pages full of the same SEI patterned papers that I've been hoarding for like, a year or so, and I used MM and Heidi Swapp embellies. I also used various rub ons. A sort of hodge podge of stuff that turned out quite lovely, if I do say so myself. Really the pics don't do it justice. It's WAY prettier in real life (and I put ribbons on the binder rings, but I can't seem to find that pic right now). Not one to brag but I'm just sayin'.....
Okay. Here's another couple of pics of a pink clock that my dear friend Josiane acquired for me at Target. It's the one and the same that Heidi Swapp used in one of her Year to Remember projects this year on the Big Picture website. I downloaded the PDF for the instructions on how to take apart and alter the clock. What should've been a no-brainer, for me, was a major undertaking. I bent the metal hands (darn thin metal!), used glitter and glue on the hands instead of the metallic pen suggested in the PDF and it was HELL waiting for it to dry, hence the impatient thumbprints and lumpy glitter all over the place... AND, I smudged the black ink around the word "cherish". I went over the smudges with my white Uniball Signo and you can hardly tell (yeah, right). So, the end result doesn't exactly look like hers, you get the picture, k? I did use light blue glitter on the hands and kinda like that effect instead of silver. Here you go (sorry for the blurry photos-I promise it wasn't intentional...*cough*...)
Not bad, but not that good either. I realize this. That's why today, I hit up Josiane for another clock to try it again and what do you know? she has extras! I will use this clock in my scrap room for now or I may gift it to someone later. I don't know. Part of me wants to just throw it away!
Anyhoo, I was feeling a little blue this past weekend. It was the first Christmas without my dad. Although in more recent years we didn't spend Christmas together (my parents were divorced a long time ago and my father remarried a couple of times after that), I like to remember the good times that were had around Christmas when we were together, as a family. Dad was always Santa (the present distributor), and we played Elvis' "White Christmas" over and over and over again (my mom's a BIG fan!)...I remember that we had to wait until 12:00 a.m. on Christmas Eve to open our gifts, which looking back now seems a bit cruel, but we waited and waited. At 12:00 midnight sharp, we were ripping into boxes and stockings like nobody's business! I remember some of those presents today: a pair of striped leg warmers (think Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" song), a boom box one year; a giant poster of Mick Jagger (complete with makeup and spandex -lovely....)..OH! and my first album ever: Michael Jackson's Off the Wall! Oh.My.Gosh. I wore that album out! and then it got stolen from show and tell at school (and don't DARE ask me what an album is, I'm already feeling my age and then some!) I remember my dad giving his trademark smart ass opinions of most of the gifts, too. A REAL life Archie Bunker, he didn't hold back. That was my dad.
And I miss him so much. I really do. I didn't think it would be this hard. And I wasn't prepared for all this emotional stuff I'm feeling now. I think about him all of the time. I brought flowers to the cemetery on Christmas Day. It was very peaceful. Andrew was running around like a banshee so I was a little distracted. I cried a little. I always get a little sad when I see the crypt marker. I wish I'd known more about my dad's military service. He'd always say that he was an expert rifleman and that he trained recruits. How much of that is true, I don't know. I doubt my Mom even knows. My dad was a great "embellisher". I found it hard to tell when he was being honest or just messing with us. He got a kick out of messing with us, that's for sure. It makes me laugh to think about it. That was my dad. While we were at the cemetery, Andrew asked me, "Is Grandpa Max in there?" and I told him that yes, he was but that part of him went to Heaven. And then he asked me (because it was Christmas), "Does Grandpa Max get presents in Heaven?" and I started to cry when I told him that Grandpa Max will be getting lots of presents in Heaven forever.
Obviously Dad can't read this blog, but I know that wherever he is, he knows that I'm thinking of him. I miss you, Dad and I love you. Put in a good word for me, okay? Peace out for now, ya'll.
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