Holiday Crafts and Thinking Ahead

Yup, it's that time of year again. Time to start craft projects for Christmas. This includes gifts and cards.

OK, you've got me: I already started! But, now, I am truly motivated to finishing. I am not one to be frantically trying to mail out cards a week before Christmas, nor to be running around stores on the 24th still looking for gifts. 'Tis the season to celebrate, reflect, and worship, not run around as if mad, stressed out, and over-caffeinated.


Here are the images I created for my Christmas cards. Not bad for someone who never created a piece of pixel art before a few months ago. I am still not completely pleased with the sky behind the angel. The style doesn't quite fit into the rest of the images. The other's have distinct lines and/or patterns while that one is rather chaotic. If I have time I will change it, otherwise I am pleased with my overall effort.

The card idea came from my recent foray into creating digital and pixel art. For this project, I designed and created the 4 simple 100x100 pixel art images (small, I know, but my mediocre talent isn't up to creating a masterpiece) and glued them to a border a cm larger and cut-out with beveled scissors. Then I glued that onto notecard sized cardstock covered in colored tissue paper. Inside I will pen some of my favorite applicable bible verses and holiday sentiments. I played with the idea of incorporating ribbon, but I am not convinced yet. I don't want to overpower the small images with too much around them.

The images can also be seen on my deviantART page. I will probably take a picture of the actual cards themselves, along with their coordinating envelopes, and post it there as well.


I am also working on a few crafts for gifts. I have a bead loom project in the works as well as a few jewelry pieces. The bead loom piece, featuring candy canes, is approximately 3x5 and will be sewn onto a backing for a wall-hanging. I played with making it into a decorative pillow but, to be honest, finances prevent me from buying the stuffing and trim needed to finish it in that manner. I am confident, however that the wall-hanging will look just as nice and be as appreciated. We can't always do what we like, but that doesn't mean we don't have to like what we do. In other words, I am happy with what I can do with the piece, and it isn't a bad compromise.

The canning and preserving is officially finished. I am confident no more mushrooms, produce, etc. will be entering my kitchen in any quantity sufficient enough to preserve. I did help my sister this past week with a batch of green tomato salsa. A lot of fun, it was neat to sit in my sister's kitchen and cook together. I took one of the jars home for Ryan and I. It looks to be rather hotter than we were expecting but, if necessary, I can tone it down with added fresh tomatoes or tomato sauce when I open it.

Getting this done is what has allowed me to start thinking ahead toward the holidays. This doesn't just include the various craft projects and decorating. It also includes one of my favorite holiday tasks: Baking! Pies, cookies, breads and other delicacies are starting to fill my thoughts. By necessity, there won't be as much of a variety this year. Because of my canning efforts, however, there will be plenty of what I do bake!

Along with the baked goods will come all the cooking. I don't usually do the main dish, as we eat with Ryan's family, but I have brought a secondary main and side dishes along with my baked goods. It works out well for all of us. I generally stick with a bread, roll or biscuit, a potato or noodle dish, and/or a vegetable dish and a dessert or two.

Oh, my head is spinning and I'm starting to ramble. I will have to go and start writing my lists of what to start and when!

Feeling Old

Feeling old isn't necessarily an age thing. Sometimes I feel very young. Yesterday I felt old. I think it had something to do with the fact that it was my niece Dante's birthday. 14. 14!!! The most beautiful baby I ever held, is now far from a baby. Then I realized her brother Paxson is 17. Yup, 17!! I held him in my arms when he was only weeks old and now he's driving. In another year, their brother Will will join them and soon, so will my niece.

I didn't feel like I had 17 and 16 year old nephews and 14 year old niece. I liked the age of the youngest, Max, better. He's 3. I felt like the Aunt of a 3 year old. It was just "one of those days". I rarely get them, but yesterday I did.

Then today, I returned to visit. And, surrounded by most of the kids, (Paxson wasn't around but Will, Richard, Dante, and Max were) it felt right again to be the Auntie of them all. It wasn't so horrifying anymore that if they were getting older, than so was I. It's so neat to see how they're all growing in stature and mind.

Note: The birthday picture above I created for a birthday card I made my niece. I have to admit to creating it quickly because I was feeling impatient with myself that day. I already have ideas to improve upon it and repost to my deviantART account.

Relief and Worries

It has been a relief to finish with all the canning and most of the preservation. I enjoyed it and there was a certain sense of pride involved in the making as well as being happy to be able to provide produce for our table over the winter when it tends to be more expensive. It took up a lot of time and energy though, so I am glad to be done for the season, except for a small batch of mushrooms to dehydrate here and there.

I wanted to take a picture of the pantry now that I am through because it is an interesting mix of store-bought and home-canned food. The problem is that the pantry is in the front room, the only place we had space for it, and the door is slightly blocked by the computer desk. It won't open all the way so lighting and placement of the camera is awkward at best. Oh well.

Total accumulation of preserved foods (not counting items given away as gifts or already eaten): 5 quarts Pears in Lite Syrup, 6 half-pint and 1 pint Ginger Pear Preserves, 4 pints Apple Butter, 3 half-pints of Plums in Lite Syrup, 14 pints and 1 quart of Cinnamon Red Hot Apple Wedges, 21 half-pints and 8 pints of Blackberry Preserves, 5 half-pints of Blackberry Dessert Sauce, 7 quarts of Stewed Tomatoes, 7 quarts of Apple Pie Filling, 5 quarts of Apple Sauce, 10 quarts of Blackberries for Baking, 2 half-pints of Green Beans, and 1 pint of Dilly Beans. The Green Beans and Dilly Beans were a gift from my sister for helping her out with her canning.

As well as the canned items there are still two batches of Pear Fruit Leather and a gallon bag of cinnamon apple wedges that I dehydrated. In addition I have a small jar of dried green beans and also some dehydrated mushrooms that Ryan's dad went out into the woods and picked for us. We would have had more fruit leather and apple wedges but hey, they were very good. Edit: Plus a small jar of dehydrated zucchini to use in casseroles. The zucchini came from Ryan's sister.

I am worried that I have not found a job yet and that Ryan is still laid-off from work himself. It makes money tight. In the end, God provides, I know. But I am human, and can't seem to stop worrying. I have 4 applications around town at various places. Surely something will come of them. I continue to check the Employment Office and the Help Wanted section of the local newspaper. Ryan does the same, not trusting that his old job will be available again soon. We should be OK, but I dislike having to scrimp, especially around the holidays.

We tend to be frugal people anyway, but it is hard. Thank God for our small garden, and the gardens and orchards of friends and family! Without them the bounty of preserved food wouldn't have come into being.

All in all, we are blessed. We have a roof over our heads, food for our table, clothes for our bodies, family, and each other. I will stop complaining! Enough for today. I think I will go and pick the last of the green tomatoes off the remaining plant in the garden. I don't think the weather is going to cooperate long enough to finish ripening the rest. Maybe I can bread and fry them or make green tomato preserves (to keep in the refrigerator, not can *grin*).

Introduction: Oh No! Not another "Beginning"

I have stretched myself so thin over the internet, trying to find a good place to write. I tried so many places but, for one reason or another, I didn't find a good comfortable fit.

I have uploaded my art to a deviantART account. It has a journal spot, but I tend to write generally as it pertains to the pieces I have submitted. My art tends to keep my attention when I am visiting that site and it just doesn't seem the place to focus on other things.

In regards to my art, I will post some of my efforts here and there in this journal as well as talk about it. It is one of the things I enjoy. I am not great, I will not set the world on fire, but it is soothing, entertaining, and just plain fun. At times it can also be cathartic.

The small piece to the right is a sampling of a larger piece I have published on my deviantART page. (My deviantART ID is Oceanbird).

I am a member of a forum for a popular MMORPG I play. It has a blog spot as well, but I tend only to focus on things to do with the game when I visit the site. Not really the place I feel like going for writing about the everyday.

I created a webpage back when I was wanting to teach myself how to do such things. It had a blog built in, so I used it. However, I had soon learned how to do everything I could with the free, simple template offered by my web service provider. I abandoned the site when I could learn no more, and its blog lies abandoned.

So, (with clinking of glasses together) here is a toast to yet another beginning. May it be a place to write about all aspects of my life as the muse visits me.