Indulge Your Shelf

I'm pretty sure we're going to have a white Christmas!  It snowed on Monday... and it was my favorite kind: fresh, powdery snow! My 85 year old Aunt Delores, who was visiting for a couple of days, got out and shoveled the driveway with me! But it wasn't all hard work while she was here; we also made fudge! I promised photos of the finished snow men!  Here they are! These little ones are my own creation -- they stand up and clip to the tree; they are standing in a vintage tart tin! The little snow heads are from a great tutorial that was part of Artist Class, by Dawn at The Feathered Nest !  I really love making them! Click on over to my Button Floozies blog to see my latest button delights! I can't tell you how excited I am that my Christmas cactus is blooming, just in time for Christmas!  I've found three blooms -- the first of which is in the bottom-to-middle right of the photo above! We had another storm blow in last night!  Fingers crossed that th...

Here are some more amazingly wonderful things that have been delivered to my door! Would you look at this face?  This chocolate chenille bear was made by my buddy Angela and she sent it to me as a Christmas gift! It's been so long since I've even held a teddy bear; wow, it is a great feeling!  He's entirely handmade by Angela! You may remember that she was the one who made me this amazing quilt!  I have such talented and generous friends! Then, Heather was having a giveaway of this collection of fun and fantastic Christmas goodness from IKEA on her blog, Speckled Egg , and I won it! I'm having so much fun with these cute cupcake liners, which can hold cookies and homemade fudge;  and these really great cookie cutters, and bags and tags in the shape of this cute nordic Santa-looking chap, and his friends!  Thank you so much, Heather! Julia, aka Spotted Sparrow , gifted me a box full of great scrapbooking items that she no longer needed -- it's so awesome...

You may recall Pam's project to provide journals for homeless in her area; I was happy to create one for the cause: It was a lot like my usual journals; I did put in some extra, intentional inspiration, like this antique postcard which says, "All good wishes for a bright and happy future"; also this exhortation that time is a gift (a stamp that I have)...  and a notecard that says, Write Your Own Story. I like to imagine the person who might receive it and, with some luck, use it for good! Here's a covered box that I created for my friend Terri; she has a blog and an Etsy shop by the name of Junque Seeker, so I used my favorite new collage technique to personalize it with that name. I filled it with buttons! I covered another box -- this time, a vintage jewelry box, for Tami , in honor of her brand new Etsy shop, Somerset Lane !   I put some fun vintage trinkets inside of Tami's box; in the future, I hope she fills it with vintage Treasures that she'...