Boxer Puppy for Christmas and a few other dogs too!

This is my cousin's boxer puppy!
He's so cute!
Lets call him Steve!!!!

Look Steve has his own puppy teething ring!!!
You are too cute Steve!!!

Gussy found a girlfriend!
That's Maggie his favorite Puppy friend!
Um... and Blue no longer has ears...
actually he is no longer living at my house because he had to
move on to greener pastures after his stuffing was systematically removed by two crazy dogs!

This picture just makes me smile!

Enjoy the New Year Holiday and see you in 2009!
Best Wishes!

Last of the Christmas Items to Share

This was the handmade felt Christmas Tree Top that I ended up making for my tree. I couldn't figure out what to do for the top, but after looking online at different things I realized that a dove symbolizing peace was the perfect thing! I modified some ornaments and patterns from online and made my own tree top--it doesn't light up, but it does make me happy to see it!

This was a fun and creative wrapping job I did for my mom's Christmas present. I think she was actually more excited by the wrapping than by the gift. :o)

This was the ornament that I made for Lydia--she has a dachshund named Eddie and I made her a tiny felt version of Eddie. It was so hard to sew! Nothing that tiny again!

Hope everyone had a Happy Holiday!

Handmade Gifts from my cousins

For Christmas my cousins got together and made all sorts of fun handmade items. Here are a few of them:

Salt Dough Ornaments--the star is my favorite!

This is a mug filled with chocolate that the kids melted and poured--
they are peanut butter, white chocolate and milk chocolate
and there are some chocolate covered pretzels in the back too!

Thanks for the Christmas gifts kids! I loved them!

Steph and Michelle's Ornament Swap!

This year my friend Stephanie and I decided to do our own ornament swap at home. We asked every participant to bring six handmade ornaments which we traded with one another. Actually we chose to set them all out on the table and took turns choosing them. They were so fun! There were some really great ornaments and the party itself was a lot of fun to co-host as well!

This is a photo of my parents, Lydia, Stephanie, and myself. We were the ones who came early put everything together and then stayed late to clean it all up! You can tell us by our aprons--even my dad joined in the fun!

This was Stephanie before the party putting together her cookie tree creation!
It turned out lovely!

Here is Gussy waiting for the party to begin and hoping for snacks to fall from the heavens! He's dressed for the occasion too in his cheery little Christmas bandana

These were the ornaments sitting out on the table. We had pinecones, crocheted snowflakes, decorated glass bulbs, felt ornaments using all sorts of fun stitching, beaded ornaments, painted ornaments, and collage ornaments. Honestly it was a great mix and left me wishing that there was one of everything for me to take home!

These are some of the ladies making their choices.
See you all next year at the next ornament swap!!!

Online Ornament Swap (last one)

The last few ornaments from the online ornament swap:

Probably one of my favorites! This one is made from an altered domino!

Cute little handmade house!

Fuzzy little hand felted penguin--he got smushed,
but I think I basically got him back to normal.

There was one more ornament too--but unfortunately someone stole him!
I got the package in the mailbox, but it had been cut open and the ornament had carefully been removed. Someone probably thought they were stealing a gift card or something and not an ornament, hopefully though they at least gave him a place to live instead of just throwing him into the garbage!

Online Ornament Swap

Here are some more ornaments from the online Cake and Pie Ornament Swap that I did on swap-bot.com:

This one is totally creative and was done with a button maker!

This one was done in plastic canvas--it's making a comeback!

(This is a hand felted heart ornament!)

This ornament is my mom's favorite!
On this side it has a tiny glittery deer on it and on the back side
it's equally as cute and has a glittery M on it.
My mom loves it and points it out to me every time she sees the tree!

December 6th

It is currently December 6th, 2008 and I am going to list 6 things that I'm thankful for:

1. Being inside today since the weather is nice and snowy! It's so pretty to look at from the inside and it makes me thankful that I have a house and a nice warm place to be today instead of being without a home or heat--I'm really thankful for that!
2. Children who say the silliest things that make you laugh and smile! Like the kid who wanted to wash a real dinosaur so it wouldn't be "stinked" anymore and a kid at the library who is from another country and tried writting the words "I like you" but instead wrote "I live yes".
3. Subway! They have great cookies! And the sandwiches aren't bad either! Today I splurged and bought myself lunch since I had to work on the south side and the weather wasn't very nice--and it was worth it! It's so nice to treat yourself to something normal that makes the day feel better than normal!
4. Mail from friends or family! I am so excited when I get mail or email from people who I don't see every day--I'm also excited when I do get email from anyone but honestly snail mail is always much more fun to recieve!
5. Books. I work at a library--this should be a given. But I really have to say that I love reading!!! I'm so excited that tonight I'm going to go home and put on an apron, make dinner, bake some treats for my swap tomorrow and then read a book curled up on the couch with my dog. Should be perfect! I might even leave the window blinds open and turn on only the Christmas lights so that it's nice and dark and I can see the snow falling outside! Sounds heavenly to me!
6. New Recipes! I look forward to trying new recipes and tonight I have one set out to make for the party I'm cohosting tomorrow. I can't wait to try it. I hope it turns out fantastic!!! And I also can't wait to try another recipe that I found online recently for some Cranberry and Orange cookies. They sound great to me! So do scones--does anyone else just really want a scone sometimes? :o)

Best Wishes everyone who might see this! I wish you well and can't wait to come and post some pictures from the ornament swap next week!!! Woohoo!!!

Michelle

Online Ornament Swap

This is my tree with homemade decorations on it--and yep that's the old paper chain garland you see on it! It's currently missing a tree topper, but I plan to figure out a way around that soon! Anyone have any good ideas?

This is the ornament that I got in the mail today--it's a cute little sheep ffrom Lorraine in California. She was so thoughtful that she even sent the pattern to make more for yourself if you wanted to! That's a great package!!!

This was the first ornament that I actually got this year from the swap--it's a fun little snowman! This cutie came from Corinne in the UK. He made it all the way over here safe and warm and I was so excited when I got him that I actually put the tree up just because of it! Thanks Corinne!!!

Only 8 more ornaments to go! I can't wait to see what other delights come in the mail in the near future!

Happy Holidays Everyone!!!

Meanwhile back at home....

Back here in Fort Wayne I'm hosting an ornament swap with my friends Stephanie and Cheryl. Well, Cheryl isn't really too into it, but Steph and I are going all out!!! Actually I ended up making this fun little creations for our swap. I'm giving everyone one of them as a party favor for coming! They aren't completely handmade--they are actually glittery plastic bulbs that I used beads and wire to make decorative ornament hangers with and put together. But the idea of the swap was that you had to make or embellish something, so I think they still fit the bill! I would be happy if I got one! Actually though I made a few extras for myself! :o)

Online Ornament Swap

I'm participating in the Cake and Pie Ornament Swap which they are hosting through www.swap-bot.com. I was so excited about it this year because I decided to do an old fashioned homemade Christmas Tree this year and wanted a bunch of hand made ornaments to hang on its lovely little branches. So this week I sent out all of my ornaments and here are a few photos of what I sent out to my 10 swap partners:

These were the greetings that I stamped and put in all of the packages! I love that stamp which came from http://www.starvingartistamps.com/These are a few of the ornaments that I created--all of them are hearts in

Christmas colored felts.

I love the buttons!

It was fun to embroider a bit--I used to do it when I was younger but it's been awhile. This is all 10 of the ornaments before they were wrapped and put in padded envelopes with a couple of pieces of chocolate and were sent on their way! I hope the other ladies like them. They weren't too hard and aren't too special, but they are lovely to me atleast!

Best Wishes!

Swap-bot.com Nature Swap

I just wanted to put a post on here about the Nature Swap I did on Swap-bot.com--I received my package from Linda Crabtree and I loved it! She filled all the requirements and added some extra bits of ephemra that I can play with. I really appreciate it! Here are some quick although not great photos of the lovely things she sent and the beautiful packaging that she sent it in!

The best part of this great gift was the bar of soap in the corner of this picture. I don't know what fragrance it is or anything, but as soon as you opened the box it smelled wonderful! She does sell her own soaps at www.ljctree.etsy.com if anyone is interested.

Happy Thanksgiving--in Retrospect

For Thanksgiving this year I decided to make dinner for my parents and myself. Plus two happy little dogs who hid under the table eagerly awaiting scraps!

It turned out wonderfully--well, almost. First there was the crockpot turkey--good but oddly enough not that moist, but the flavor was even better when I used the leftovers to make turkey and homemade noodle soup. Then there was the array of

comfort foods: Sweet potatoe casserole, green bean casserole, stuffing, salad, cranberry salad (purchased by my mom from a place in Waynedale and it's really pretty good), mashed potatoes and gravy too.

Then there was this:

Yeah, it looks good, but it's really not that good in general!

It was a pumpkin cheesecake and it never really set up that well.

It looked lovely, but honestly the taste was just kind of lacking something... maybe

it really needed more actual cream cheese.

It was my first time to use a springform pan though and it turned out pretty--although the butter cooked out of the crust and just kind of burned on the bottom of my oven. Argh!

Cheesecake: 1, Michelle: 0

Oh, and the other problem that I had was the deviled eggs!

They tasted great, but dang if they weren't the most impossible thing to peel!!!

Michelle: 1, Deviled Eggs: 1

(That's a tie!)

Oh, but the piece de resistance:
Homemade Pumpkin Pie
(in a store bought crust)
The most yummy thing of all!!!
And let me just say that I think I ate all of it myself basically!
Yummy, yummy, yum!

Anthony Hamilton in Concert

So the reason we went to Cleveland Ohio on Veteran's Day was actually to see Anthony Hamilton live in concert. Can I just say that the man is fantastic--he has so much soul, he's got a great voice (just as good as what you hear on his records) and he's got the energy of a teenage girl!!! He was amazing!!! Check out some photos of him at our concert at the House of Blues!

This was his wife with him. Apparently she's from Cleveland, Ohio and is working on a CD of her own right now. She's gorgeous and has a great voice! They make a super fantastic couple and they even kissed on stage a couple of times--the sweet pecks on the lips that make you happy to see them together (not at all jealous)!

This was him when he first came out--with his nerdy, huge glasses and his gold jacket.

I think the jacket was crazy, but hey, it worked for Elvis I guess. :o)

This was him after he took of the nerdy stuff. Although the man did look really nice in that hat!
This was him in the crowd. He was great! He went all over the crowd
and sang and danced and was crazy!

This was my mom and I. She was tired--we stayed up late and had to stand the whole time, but regardless it was a great concert, mom even liked it! And she's not one for R & B!

Hot Dog Man, this one's for you!

This is a giant hotdog in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. It's hanging from the ceiling and it is probably twice the size of that car that's down in the lower level! So, for everyone's sake, I hope that it's not an evil road weenie!!!

A little more Cleveland, Ohio

Here is a little more from Cleveland, Ohio.

This first one is from a piece of street art I saw down by the river. Someone painted over it, but it still was pretty cool.

This is the entire piece.


Okay, so we were driving to visit a friend and we saw the sign saying,
"Dollar Paradise--World's Largest Dollar Stores"
although we thought it was supposed to be THE Worlds Largest Dollar STORE--not just one of the largest chain or whatever their criteria was. So basically we went for nothing, but it was still fun and we took some photos in front of it too!



What do you buy at the Dollar Paradise? Well you buy pop that is bottled in Cleveland, Ohio of course! 25 cents a can--can't beat that price!

Oh, and No Fishing!

Don't you love this sign?

I think it's too cute!!!