Christmas Photo Challenge

Will you Join Us?? We are going to attempt to take a picture each day of December and post it--I guess you could call it a December Daily album---only more low key. We are going to be taking pictures of something Christmas related. We will start December 1 and would love to have a lot of people join us. I will post some ideas to the sidebar of things you could take pictures of. Christmas has so many different meaning and memories for each of us. If you miss a day, we won't judge you and if you post five days in one we won't say anything either, we'll just be happy to have you join us.

Family Caring & Sharing

So... I used to work with one of the ladies that really helped with the Caring & Sharing, so every year she calls me and asks if my family, or I, would be willing to do something. I have a little problem (okay, big problem) and I can't usually tell people no. So, I said yeah, we can do something. I had a few ideas, but they kept getting pushed back and back because I never had time to do them. So, this was all done at the last minute. I knew I wanted to do a window, and Merlynn found a couple at an estate sale a few weeks ago. I spray painted it, then sanded it. I think it turned out cute. I was kind of bummed when I took the stuff over because there were quite a few windows this year. It is really simple and I only screwed the vinyl up once.

I really like the shutters we did for mom, so I wanted to do one that would be a wall hanging with a wreath on it. My aunt Janell had a set of the swinging doors that she gave me and I spray painted them glass. Let's just say, 30 degree weather is NOT the best time to be spray painting anything. But, the sun was shining last Saturday and I got them finished. The wreath--that was quite a pain. I just hope no one can tell I had to dismantle the $20 wreath I bought and wire it on to a $3 so it would look right. But, I think it turned out okay.

Caring & Sharing Festival

For the last several weeks, I have been working on project for Rupert's Caring & Sharing Tree Festial. Our K*Kids club at school has done a tree for the last couple years, which I have helped with. Well, this year I had to pretty much figure out all the ornaments and stuff. It was a bit on the stressful side when added to all the other projects I've had going on. We went and set the tree up this afternoon and it is CUTE!! Yes--the kids did make all of these ornaments (we told them exactly how to do it)!!

Craft Night

Well, since I am such a procrastinator, I had NOTHING planned for Relief Society in December and the only thing I could think of was crafts. I don't really love to do crafts for Relief Society because it is a lot of work--but I wasn't getting any other inspiration, so last Saturday, I literally threw together a few things I could think of that would be cheap and easy. They are nothing grand, but they really are going to be easy and they won't take too much for me to put together. Since I have been slacking in posting lately, here they are.

Forget Not..

Wow...we had a big Relief Society night last night. I've been working on it for a while. Of course, I forgot to take my camera to take pictures, so you get the mock-up version, which really doesn't look as good. It turned out to be a really pretty good night. I was happy with it...and completely exhausted afterward. We based the night on President Uchtdorf's talk from the General Relief Society broadcast, Forget Not. He had five things that women should not forget, one for each of the petals of a forget-me-not flower. These were our table centerpieces. I had lanterns on three and then stacks of old books on the other three. I will admit I was pretty nervous about it, but they looked great when they were done. Merlynn found the cool old glass canning jars at an estate sale last week.

 This was the time intensive part. We made a small stitching of a forget-me-not flower as a reminder of those important things we need to remember. Here they are all stacked up. I was able to incorporate them into my table decorations.

I am feeling kind of bad because I never post on here. Like I haven't been doing anything--which is pretty much true. I seem to be spending hours and hours on school stuff this year---which probably isn't any different than other years, but it sure seems like a lot. I come home and do nothing. Well--the next few weeks are busy with projects and things, so hopefully I will remember to take pictures. It is my turn to teach the Relief Society lesson tomorrow. The idea of it is basically that love should be our motive for everything we do. I really liked this saying, so I made a little card to hand out, then I am going to have them write something they can do with love as their motive.

Shutter Board photo holder

I have wanted to do something to this effect for a couple of years---but I could never find any shutters (so if anyone know where some are--I want them). Instead at an estate (junk) sale, I found some of those swinging kitchen doors for $3. I figured I could at least figure out how to get all of the slats painted, so when I found what I really wanted I would be ready.

Well, when mom painted her living room--we said she had to have some new decor---and get rid of all the 20+ mismatched frames with the grandkids' pictures in them. I thought the shutter thing would really work.  I don't think she thought it was such a great idea--but she rarely like my ideas.

I finally got it painted--which was pretty painless, we hung it, clipped the pictures on with binder clips and......I really like it. We think we need one more section, to have three and enough room for all the pictures. It looks much better hanging on the wall than it does here. I definitely breathed a sigh of relief that it looked decent.