Teacher gifts this year

As I work at the school, I happen to know the gift recipients quite well.

These were quick to make and won't end up collecting dust on a shelf.

I made hot chocolate sticks with this recipe from See Vanessa Craft.

Instead of a wooden stick I used paper straws patterned like birch trees.

Crushed candy canes or mini marshmallows on top.

Add into a mug of hot milk and sip it through the straw...

Did I mention this was quick?

Jars in brown paper

 I love giving my colleagues something homemade for Christmas.

Preferably something edible they can enjoy over the holidays.

This year I gave some jam I made in the summer.

Now I love brown paper packaging.

I think it is because it can be decorated in a wild array of cool stuff.

I wrapped the jars and tied with fabric strips.

Added cool tags I found online and made jewel crusted initials on top of the jars.

(a great way to use up odd chipboard alphabet pieces)

 There's a trick to make the brown paper wrap snuggly around a jar.

You need to measure a square that comes well over the lid.

Fold into quarters and cut the edge to round it up.

Then you crumple it up into a tight ball and gently spread out.

The paper will fold oh so easily around the jar.

Tie it up with ribbon or a piece of fabric.

This one gor a little ornament I made.

Pass it forward handmade- part 2

This time I was on the receiving end, so exciting..
I had admired this on Lisa's blog and she made me one!


Stars...
..happy sigh..

Thanks Lisa!

It's been all about friendship

There's been such a lovely air of friendship at work this week :)


I made this tree to remind us...

What has been great fun was a Valentine's secret friend.
Three days of giving and receiving.
Sneaking surprises...

On Monday I gave my friend a green package..

...filled with chocolate hearts and a hair pin.

The pin I made from fabric scraps and a button.

On Tuesday she got more chocolate and a notepad I printed out.

And on Wednesday it was a sweet little origami box with...

...a bracelet I made from glass beads I had hanging around :)

My secret friend gave me some fab pesents too... I'll show you over the weekend!

Cold partly sunny day

The sun was lovely this morning.. sitting inside on the couch makes you forget how chilly it is outside ;)
It's also very quiet as the girls have been at my dad's since Monday.


There's only one teensy little problem with the sun...
Shows just how dirty my windows are.
I'll just have to let that thought go, as it is too cold to wash them, heh.

The tulips look pretty in the sun too.

Today I carried Mary's house upstairs and brought this one down.

It is a shopping center no more.
Downstairs will house the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes shop and the two upper levels will be Esther's home. She's a witch.

I'll need to make stairs for a side entrance, but as for stairs inside.. well.. Esther prefers to apparate rather than climb stairs.

The pink wallpapers HAVE TO GO.

I'm hoping this change will motivate me to finish the house this year. As it had been standing in limbo for a long while.

Guess what?

I'm 40 today :D

I've decided to pass all midlife crisis and enjoy it all.

I got a really great present today too...

Wanna see?

Oh yeah... the 50D!

I'm off to play.

My week

* It was busy. And eventful.

* On Tuesday I came home and there was no water coming out of the tap... sooo how am I now going to make spaghetti?? There was a leak in the water main a block away. Luckily the water came back in just 30 minutes and dinner plans didn't have to altered.

* On Wednesday I came home and wondered to the girls why they were digging a hole in front of our house. Got inside and guess what?

Oh yes.
No water.

Another leak, this time right in front of our house. The water had been turned off just 30 minutes earlier. We needed to go to our miniature club meeting and dinner had to be served now. Great. Off to the store for lots of water (seeing as the water had been turned off for 6 hours the previous day) and microwaveable food.
When we got back at 8pm this was still going on:

OK, so it's a lousy pic in the dark through the window, but there are diggers there ;)
We got water after 10pm.

* If you ask me, I'll take no electricity over no water any day. Makes it a challenge when you can't even flush... eeewww...

* I've received not one but two miniature/dollhouse themed advent calendars!


I have itchy fingers...


*There was nightschool again this week... I srtill haven't done my psychology paper.. putting it off.. blech.

* Saturday evening I made a quick stop to the tropics.
It was our staff Christmas party and the school gym had been transformed with palm trees, bambu fencing, garden tables and chairs, parasols, and naturally a bar ;)
The food was incredible, there was a fabulous band, a funny stand-up comedian and a couple of bartenders right our of the movie "Cocktail".. they were pretty inpressive with all that juggling.
Fun night.


* Except for the bit when my neighbor called to tell me the city water peeps had been checking that same pipe in front of our houses.. it is still leaking.


* I left early enough, I was home by midnight, because on Sunday morning I had to be downtown for a miniature market.
Here's my table set up.

Small table, crammed full.. It was fun. Met some great people and chatted with friends. And found a few treasures as well...

* Mika picked us up because of this:

White-out.
Blizzard.

Really poor visibility.

I had no view out of my livingroom windows either.



* Looks like summer is over...


*Can you see I put my Christmas lights up outside?
On Saturday, before the snow.
Good timing.



* Hey, we have SNOW!!! Pretty pretty snow.

* It's apparently so cold that polarbears and pandas in igloos (I have no idea, don't ask..) have moved inside :)


* I'm home with TWO sick kids today. And will be tomorrow also. Niina has a tendency for really high temps, poor kiddo is wiped out. Saara is so congested, I can't send her to school. I won't be the mom who lets her kids make everyone else sick.
They spent the morning in our bed.


* I'm baking bread. Snowy days make me want to bake...


*No diggers around, yet.
Frantically washing laundry. For once wishing I had a dryer...


* I should be making dinner and shoveling snow... hmmm.. the snow just might win and dinner will have to wait for a bit.


* Did I mention I love the snow?

Don't you just love your mailman...

...during these days before Christmas? I do! He brought me a fabulous secret santa package from my TIPster gal Karen. I'm grinning here!

I got some great stuff to play with and the girls got some Pepperidge Farm goldfish and Cheetos!

Another thing I'm really impressed with the way our new neighborhood grocery store owner is making an effort. They held a kids concert the other week at the store, 20 minutes with a favorite crocheted teddybear Titi-Nalle (big as life, think Barney, but white and 500% less annoying LOL) which ended with goodie bags for the kids. These two weeks before Christmas you have been able to get a cup of hot coffee or glogg (Scandinavian Chrsitmas time drink) and gingerbread coookies when you go shopping. Today they had gingerbread decorating for kids (no age limit heheheee) plus tonight the doorbell rang and I was given a bag with a Christmas card and bread as a present.

I said it was impressing.
wow.
All this just a 300 meter (about the same in yards) walk away.
Gotta love that.

About the 'Journal Your Christmas' class I'm taking:
I signed up for the class here http://www.shimelle.com/ . Check out some of the classes starting, there are some interesting ones!
I get a daily email prompting me to journal about something specific that day. Also included is an artistic challenge, some days I'm able to incorporate it, others not. I'm just glad that isn't a big deal, after all it is an art journal and there are no rules.

And TA-DAA!!!
I'm caught up!!!! Here are days 17 to 20.

The journaling is about giving out the perfect gifts, as in the recipient is 'getting' it too. I have a tradition with my dear friend that every year I make a new ornament for their tree. And every year they speculate what I'll think of this year.

Christmas dinner. OK, I wasn't able to do the artistic challenge, but I did include a photo of the bread I baked... does that count? And I had to edit that Shakespeare quote just a bit :oP

My letter to Santa. Yes, I've been extra good this year :o)
That Santa ding is one of my faves.

mail. *grin* I had saved that moomin stamp for something special. This was it.