Journal Your Christmas 2009

Yes, it's true! I have signed up to participate in "Journal Your Christmas". It started on December 1st and goes thru early January. I just signed up last night, and as you can see, I'm already behind. But it's all good! See...the cool thing is that if you pay once, then you can participate every year until...forever.

So, here's what I'm thinking...this year will be my preview and warm up year. I'll get all the materials and information and if I have time to post or scrap book, then I will. If not, then I'll just start digesting the resources and thinking about what I'll do for next year. Then I'll have a whole year to prepare and ponder and get ready to do it for real. And next year they'll add even more cool stuff!

I just started downloading the materials and supplies and I'm very excited about how much is included so far! She is very thorough in giving you all the tools you need to complete an awesome project.

Don't worry, I'm sure I'll post something about Christmas in the next month or so.  It just may not be every day.  But even if it's not about Christmas, it will be interesting and insightful (at least I like to think so).

See you soon!
 

How to Preserve Fall Leaves

Just before we left on our trip, someone asked Terry to bring home some fall leaves from NC and I actually remembered to do it.  The last day we were there I took a Ziploc bag on our walk downtown for lunch and gathered a dozen or so leaves of various colors.  Red, green, brown, golden, orange and shades in between.

After collecting so many beautiful colors, I didn't want them to go to waste, so I'm preserving them in a solution of glycerin and water.  Have you ever done that?  When we were kids we used to press them in books and iron them between sheets of wax paper, but I've heard that the glycerin process works much better.

I need to leave them in this solution for 3 or more days.  I hope they look almost as beautiful when they're done as they did when I picked them.

In case you're interested here's a description of how to preserve leaves in several different ways.

I promised I'd show you the fabric that I bought for my first little fabric birds and here it is. The darker fabric is a rich navy. I'll use the two navy fabrics for one bird and the reds for another bird, then see where we'll go from there.

I know the colors aren't as bright and cheery as the ones that I showed, but they'll go well with my decor in the living room. If I really like them, I'll make more colors for the different seasons.

Let me know what you think.

Why is that door green, you ask?

Sorry, I'm not sure what happened with the pics on my last post. If the ideas sound intriguing go to the website and see what I'm talking about.

Since the pace has slowed down over the summer and I've been feeling a little bored lately, I am trying to do some creative things at home...just little projects here and there to keep the creative juices going.

When I was at Home Depot the other day, I picked up one of these cans of RustOleum Chalk Board paint that can be made into custom colors. Unfortunately the colors shown on the can I bought were a little different than these shown at the link. These are updated with a bit more variety. Anyway, I had a can of Spring Green made up for a few projects around the house. BTW, the standard green and black can also be found in spray cans.

As soon as I got home, I painted the inside of the hall closet door, as you can see above. Here's my thinking...this door is directly in front of you when you walk in the front entrance. This way, if Terry or I are not crossing paths for some reason, I can leave him a note on the chalkboard and leave the door open, so there's no way that he'll miss it. Pretty cool, huh? I'm debating about painting the door between the Family Room and Laundry room the same way, as shown here at this great looking blog called, The Inspired Room (I'll have to go back to visit that one.) Not sure yet if I want it visible all the time...could look a little messy. What do you think?

The original reason that I bought the paint, was that I saw pics somewhere (in a magazine, I'm guessing) of some glass canisters with chalkboard labels and loved the idea!

First of all, you can clearly label and re-label any containers that you have so there's no guessing what's inside. Second, you can customize the color to match your decor. Third, you can re-purpose old containers to make them all spiffy and help save the planet with recycling as well. Just imagine all those glass jars in your house or that you see for pennies at yard sales or thrift stores (Linda) that could be dolled up with chalkboard labels and ribbons, then given as gifts or sold on Etsy or at your next community craft sale. This photo (left) will give you an idea of what I'm thinking. These labels have a more ragged edge than the ones I saw before, but you get the idea. You can go either way with that, make them larger or even round if you're skilled at painting. Once I get some finished, I'll post more pics.

Here are some other really great and unique ideas that I came across while searching for the photo of the canisters.

Tins with Chalkboard Labels - you could also do this with round tins of cookies or other goodies with a pretty ribbon and kind words for a teacher or friend
Chalkboard wall calendar - Martha Stewart's site
Chalkboard Idea Globe
I like this repurposed recycle bin with Chalkboard label
There are more great ideas here at The Pleasures of Homemaking - I think I'll steal the idea for the galvanized tub to do with my drink tubs for get-togethers. OH, and I can do the same on my large glass beverage servers to label, water, lemonade, tea, etc. AND on my coffeemakers for Regular and Decaf!

Wow! The possibilities really are endless! Let me know what else you've thought of for this great paint.

OMG and check out these amazing colored chalkboard MARKERS here!!! These are the kind that you see used often at restaurants to display their daily specials. I think they're worth looking into.

So do you have enough inspiration for the day? If you come to my house and see everything painted with chalkboard paint, you'll not it got a little out of hand. Have fun creating!

Next time I'll show you the fabric I bought for my sweet little fabric birds and we'll see if we can find a pattern for fabric quail. Has anyone seen one? I heard it's out there but haven't had a chance to look.

Homemade Gift Bag:
Check out this fun gift bag that I made. I was wrapping the last of our gifts this year and ran out of Christmas gift bags. I had this plain brown bag and decided to add the snowflake stencils with a white pen, then the fuzzy red snowflake ribbon on the top. Maybe someday I'll have time to do more homemade creations...I enjoy doing it, just rarely actually get around to it.

It was easy peasy!