I'm Hearing Jingle Bells

It's 64 days until Christmas! Woo-hoo! I love the holidays.  There's nothing like getting together with family and friends and celebrating the birth of our savior!

A Christmas tradition I absolutely love was going to my Grandmother's house and making various crafts and cookies and candy.  Every year we would go down too her house and she, my aunt, and my three brothers and I would sit around the dining table creating lots of little Christmas goodies.  Christmas is still synonymous with peanut butter balls for me! I'm so excited that Lilly is now old enough to participate! I'm especially excited that we will be in South Carolina this year for Christmas--at least that's the current plan--so she will get to do it the way I did--around my Grandmother's table!!

This year will be very crafty for me! My business is in full swing this year and I'll be doing my first craft show!  I'm so ready to get started on all of my Christmas crafts for the year!  It's going to be a handmade Christmas this year.  I'll be making or buying handmade gifts for everyone on the list and Etsy is certainly the place to do it!

I'm thinking these great ornaments by The Quilted Turtle done with pictures of Lilly, Steven, and I would make great presents for Lilly's grandparents and great-grandparents.

The Quilted Turtle Photo Ball 

I'm also in love with Glitter Ball ornaments.  And they are SOOO easy to make.  I'm thinking I might do those for the Aunts and Uncles.  GameCocks colors anyone? This you tube video has a great tutorial!  The creator of the ornament pictured has a fantastic tutorial as well using stamp pad re-inkers,  but I love how cheap doing it with pledge is!  I do love the idea of using scrap-booking rub-ons to add an image to the front.  I haven't seen a blog tutorial on how to make them, just videos, so I may make one and try to post next week.  I'm thinking about selling them at my craft show and offering them to be personalized with monograms!

Love this with the rub-on! Stampin it up comes highly recommended! 

I'm definitely going to be posting lots of tutorials (mine and link-loved) and yummy recipes over the next few months! There's no time like the holidays to get Crafty!  Got a tutorial or recipe you'd like featured just let me know or post in the comments section!

Woohoo! The Net is Back!!

Wow! Do you know how annoying it is to have to go to McDonalds to use their wifi everytime you need to list something? I'm so thankful we've been able to get the internet at the house now! I'll now have lots more time to post on this blog, and to list products in the store! It's especially great since Christmas and my (cross my fingers) huge Christmas rush.  Be on the look out for many more products!

Keeping it Real

This is now my second time to be a stay-at-home-mom ful time. The
difference between the satisfaction I felt the last time and now is
HUGE! And you know what? It has absolutely nothing to do with how my
husband behaves, it has everything to do with my own attitude and most
importantly my walk with God.

Now let me preface this by saying that one, motherhood is hard and I'm
not perfect and don't always have the best attitude and two any
remarks made about my husband are how I felt because of my bad
attitude and are not meant as a cut-down to him.

I used to sit around at home all day mostly on the computer and
playing with my daughter. I wouldn't clean all day except til about an
hour before steven came home then I'd run around like crazy making it
look like I'd done something. He agreed to let me stay home as long as
I kept the house up, so you can only imagine his feelings toward me
since he was working 12 hour days to allow me to stay home and I want
even doing what I was supposed to do. I used to be so mad that he
would come home and be in a grouchy mood. A mood that I most likely
perceived to be there though it may not have actually been there. I
began to harbor resentment for his not helping me out around the house
even though the responsibility was really mine. And it was completely
my fault for letting my house become the mess it was. Writing this now
I can see that I ws focussing the disapointment I had in myself on my
husband.

Now what made such a big difference?One day I asked him a simple
question "how do you feel about your job?" I'd always thought he loved
it since he'd come home and think about work so much, plus he was do
darned good at it! His answer astounded me "Its just a job, the
money's nice, but it's certainly not my ideal job". I was amazed. Then
it hit me. I'd been complaining and harboring resentment toward a man
that worked almost 68 hour work weeks, and gave up his dreams just so
that o can have my dream of staying home and selling things I've made.
Talk about an attitude changer!! Now when I get to feelin miserable
with staying home and such I look back on his answer to that one
simple question. I think it's something every stay-at-home-mom should
ask her husband. Or every wife for that matter.