In His Grip

Christmas in the Park -- Gardner

We attended the 20th Annual Christmas in the Park in Gardner last night.  If you want a small midwest town Christmas experience, this haas got to be one of the best.  It is what you see in the movies, with the Christmas carolers dressed up in old fashioned clothes, the lighting of the mayor's Christmas tree, and of course the star of the show, Mr. and Mrs. Claus who make their arrival on the town's fire truck.  Indian Creek Community Church, Gardner has made this an annual event as well, passing out hot chocolate to all who need a little warming up.

 
This has got to be the most fun you can have doing a service project.  It was freezing cold last night and to offer a nice warm drink with a candy cane and whipped cream on top, who can help but smile and enjoy.  We handed out almost 20 gallons of the creamy chocolate stuff.

 
One of the highlights of any child's evening has got be getting to go into Santa's Workshop, where there is actually a naughty and nice list and elves working on Christmas toys.  Yes, the elf at the door put me on the nice list, even with Jeff protesting. Of course the big guy and his wife are there to see everyone as well.

 
So, is it wrong that I go to see Santa just so I can get the Gardner ornament that they hand out?  I don't know, just asking. 

Peace Wreath

We were shopping in Pier 1 Imports last week when we saw this great peace sign shaped wreath.  Our daughter Lindsey just loved it, but the Pier 1 wreath was a hefty $99 and way out of a first year teacher's budget. So we decided to make one of our own.  Not only would we make one of our own, for way less but then we could choose the colors to match the rest of Lindsey's Christmas decor.

 
We purchased two large wire wreath frames for $2.99 each.  Using one of the frames to make the peace sign on the inside.  We had to recruit Jeff to help with this part, he was a bit skeptical as to how this was going to work but was a good sport, anything for his daughter.

  

Next Lindsey wrapped the frame with bright pink tinsel garland to help cover up any part of the frame that might show after the balls are placed.

 
Then the fun part begins.  We purchased 10 packages of large shatter proof balls from the $1 spot at Target and 10 packages of the small balls as well.  Using a lot of hot glue, place the large balls onto the frame. Working the middle peace sign first.

 
Once the center is complete begin working around the outside part of the wreath. 

 
Once you have finished the outside ring, use the small balls to fill in the spaces.  Here you have the peace sign wreath for less then $30.  There were losts of both size balls left over for other Christmas decorating.

I am participating in the following link ups:  Its So Very Cheri, Between Naps on The Porch, Showoff Your House, The DIY Showoff, Keeping It Simple, Cottage Instincts, Skip to My Lou, Coastal Charm, Today's Creative Blog, Ladybug Blessings, All Things Heart & Home, Blue Cricket Design, Trendy Treehouse, Nikkis Nifty Knacks, The Thrifty Home, Sew Woodsy, Life as Lori, Tales From Bloggeritaville, Finding Fabulous, Its a Hodgepodge Life, Its Fun to Craft, Simply Sweet Home,The Shabby Nest, Thrifty Tickle, Tidy Mom, Truly Lovely, Antique Texan, Along for the Ride, Centsatinoal Girl, Somewhat Simple, Fine Craft Guild, Creations By Kara

Meet Our New Tree

For the last month or so I have been anxiously awaiting the delivery of our new baby tree.  If you remember last summer, our beautiful Bradford Pear blew over in a storm and our yard has been very empty without its loveliness and shade.  Wow, we were amazed at how much we missed the shade that our beloved Bradford provided to our front porch as well as the large window over the front door. In fact, my front porch flowers suffered as they were a more shady variety and then the shade was taken away halfway through the season. 

 
I knew right a way that just any little bitty tree would not do and I would not be happy with your typical, pitiful, stick with leaves on it that I had seen in my price range at the local nursery. However, as luck would have it, I found out that a local nursery was going out of business and needed to get rid of their "mature" trees for free.  Thats right you heard me FREE.  Well, not totally free you still needed to pay for them to harvest it and deliver it, but for $90 this lovely tree, was a bargin.  My friend, Sheri, need some trees for her place as well so being the super kind of gal that she is, she picked mine out and they were all delivered to her house.

 
Not being a hortaculture kind of gal, I wasn't really particular about what kind of tree I got as long as the only thing that my new tree dropped were leaves and not acorns, pods balls or those bean thingys.  Another friend of ours, Chad, owner of Adki Group, was kind enough to go pick up my tree from Sheri's and arrange to have it installed.  At this point the consesus is that my tree is some kind of Ash.  I cannot wait to see what it looks like this Spring and then again in the Fall. So I guess we really don't have a baby tree, more like a toddler as she is already over 12' tall.  Yipee!

Pink Christmas Ball Wreath -- Repost

This is a re-post from last year.  My pink Christmas ball wreath post has been one of the most visited posts that "In His Grip" has ever had so I am re-posting it today for my new readers that may not have seen how great Christmas can be if you make it pink.

This is the Christmas wreath that Anna made for me this past weekend.  She showed me this really cute wreath on a blog a couple of weeks ago and had me  buy some pink Christmas balls to so she could make one.  This was an easy peasy project.  Here are the steps so you can make one too. 

 
Take a wire hanger and untwist it and then stretch it into a circle.

 
Before stringing the balls onto the hanger you will need to hot glue the tops on.  This is an important step because as the hanger gets full and the balls tighten together they will pop off.  Do not skip this step, believe me!

 
You will need to use several size balls to fill in as much as possible the blank spaces.  Don't worry if the wire shows a bit, once the wreath is complete you can fill in by hot gluing small balls to fill in the gaps.  When the hanger is full twist the two ends of the wire hanger together and then cover it with a large ribbon.

 
I love the way this turned out and I think Anna rocks for making one for me.   Thanks, Anna, I love you!

I am participating in the following link ups: Between Naps on the Porch, Its So Very Cheri, The DIY Showoff, Keeping It Simple, Mad Skills Monday, The Girl Creative, Skip to My Lou, A Silly Little Sparrow, Coastal Charm, New Nostalgia, Today's Creative Blog, Blue Cricket Design, Me and My Bucket, Night Owl Crafting, Nikkis Nifty Knacks, Fireflies and Jellybeans, Paisley Passions, T-Shirt Diaries

My New Favorite Mug

I would like to introduce you to my new favorite coffee mug.  Isn't she pretty?  There are things that I just seem to have a weakness for and a great looking covered beverage container is one of them.  As I work in my studio, I made a rule 20 years ago that no uncovered drinks were allowed.  Needless to say, I always have an eye out for a great covered drink container and it seems to me that Starbucks is hands down the leader in not only functionality but they are totally the leader in the cute factor.  Because I use my cups everyday all day long they do eventually begin to look shabby and get that gross coffee stain look.  So when I saw this new ceramic design, I think the stain problem will be eliminated.  I feel so uptown with ceramic rather than plastic.  It doesn't take much for this midwest gal to feel a bit more sophisticated. 

Three Word Thursday

Look whose president...

 

Bleached Pine Cones

Some time ago I had this idea of bleaching pine cones.  We have trees in our yard that drop pine cones every year and I have used them for many different projects.  But I wanted to see if I could get the pine cones a lighter color so that the pink glitter I wanted to put of them would show up better.  Heck, the pine cones are free and bleach is cheap so why not give it a try.

 
I gathered a bunch of pine cones to fill this large plastic container that I had and then poured bleach over them, enough to cover them all.  Now here is where I should have done a little more research.  When the pine cones and bleach were mixed the bleach not only heated up but the bleach expanded and started seeping over the top of the container.  You guessed it, Jeff was not happy.  I quickly moved the whole thing to the sink.  I had no idea that anyone else had ever bleaching pine cones before.  After Jeff suggested I Google bleaching pine cones, there are a bunch of sites on how to's, they recommend a bleach and water mixture as opposed to straight bleach, oops!

 
When the pine cones absorb the bleach they close up.  I left them in the bleach for 24 hours and was disappointed that the did not lighten up a much as I had anticipated.  Darn. 

 
However, I put them in the oven at 250 degrees to speed up the drying process and as they opened and dried, they came out this beautiful light tan color.  Score!  This is exactly what I was hoping for.  Perfect to add a little pink glitter.

These are going to be a great addition to this year's pink Christmas. Oh, yeah!

I am participating in the following link ups:  Between Naps on the Porch, Its so Very Cheri, The Girl Creative, The DIY Showoff, Keeping It Simple, Skip to my Lou, Coastal charm, Domestially Speaking, Today's Creative Blog, All Things Merry & Brite, Its a Hodgepodge Life, Just A Girl, The Shabby Nest, Simply Sweet Home, Finding Fabulous, Its Fun to Craft, Thrifty Tickle, Tidy Mom

Pilgrim Pacer Fun!

Lindsey, Anna, Sheri and I ran in the Pilgrim Pacer this morning.  It was a great day for a race.  The weather was crisp, okay, it was downright cold and the route was pretty fun as it went through a golf course.  My time stunk, but you know I am really running for the fun of it and never plan to win, but I do like to improve my time.  Today was not one of those improvement opportunities. The most enjoyable part of the whole running thing is to do it with people you really care about.  I love having friends who are willing to get up at 5:30 am and do a workout with me.  That accountability thing is what gets me out of bed on those cold mornings.  Barn boot camp is the best!

 
Anna and I ran the 5K and Lindsey and Sheri ran the 10K together, so we were able to get some pictures of them as they finished.

 
They are looking like they were having a great time running together, side by side unitl...

 
...the finish line came into view and then a girl has got to do what a girl has got to do and give it that last burst of speed and if that leaves the 20 something in the dust then so be it.  Lindsey, you are going to have to work on that final race to the finish if you are ever going to beat Sheri.  Seriouly, she is like 17 years older than you. Ha, ha.

 
She still looks pretty cute after running 6.2 miles.  What a great day.

Three Word Thursday

Soften my heart....

 

Christmas Gift Making Extravaganza

This time of year the area around my chair is a little cluttered.  I have gathered all of the supplies for my Christmas gift making extravaganza that started two weeks ago.  My free time from now through the holidays will be taken up by making gifts for those that I love.  There is nothing better that a handmade gift that not only has a lot of love put into it but I have made it a habit of praying for the person, that will ultimately receive the gift, while I make it.  Not all the gifts I give are handmade, but this year I seem to have an abundance of ideas for the handmade varitey.  So let the Christmas gift making extravaganza continue.

Owl Themed Baby Gift

This past weekend I went to a baby shower for a friend of mine that is expecting twins before the end of the year.  Because owls are all the rage, I decided to make an owl inspired gift set.  The first things that I made were the owl hats.  I purchased the patter from RKAJ Patterns on etsy.  She has a lot of great crocheted hat patterns, including monkeys, snowflakes, Santa and much more.  Once the hats were complete I really wanted to make some outfits that would coordinate, so off to Target to pick up a package of onesies and some little pants.

 
I used an owl for a pattern that I had found over at Skip to My Lou and made it small enough to fit on these newborn onesies.  Next stop was the quilt store where I found that great brown mirco fiber fleece that is soooooo soft and flannels of both the lime green and blue that matched perfect along with the brown print to bind the blankets and use as part of the owl applique.  Last I added little squares of the flannel and print to the leg of the pants to make them coordinate with the rest of the owl ensemble.

 
Not wanting big sister to feel left out I made her a hat to match her baby brothers that will be interupting her world very soon.  I think these owls hats are going to be a part of my future as I have several friends with little ones on the way.  Like I said before owls are everywhere.

I am participating in the following link ups:  Between Naps on the Porch, Its so Very Creative, DIY Showoff, Keeping It Simple, Mad Skills Monday, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Skip to my Lou, Coastal Charm, Today's Creative Blog, New Nostalgia. Ladybug Blessings, Nikki's Nifty Knacks, Blue Cricket Design, Me and My Bucket, Fine Craft Guild, All Things Heart & Home, The Thrifty Home, The Trendy Treehouse, Santa's Gift Shop, Sew Woodsy, Saturday Mornings, Fireflies and Jellybeans, Life as Lori, Paisley Passions, Tales from Bloggeritaville, The Shabby Nest, Its a Hodgepodge Life, Its Fun to Craft, Finding Fabulous, TidyMom, Simply Sweey Home, Along for the Ride, A Vision to Remember

Owls Everywhere

Owls seem to be everywhere lately.  My daughters just love them.  Lindsey even has a bathroom in her home with an owl theme, she was an owl for Halloween, and she has owl jewelry.  As I was shopping earlier this week I came across this cute little owl find and thought I want to be "in" too so I purchased it.  Yes, Lindsey is jealous.  I think that it is pretty cute and not only that it was on sale for $7.  I love a stylish bargin. 

Three Word Thursday

Halloween night recap