I’m one year older.
One year further away from my birth.
One year closer to my death.
One year less afraid of that occurrence.
One year less worried about how people feel about me.
One year more worried about how I feel about myself.
One year closer to attaining my goals.
One year stronger in character and set in my ways.
One more year to look back with very few regrets.

One year closer to driving like a complete lunatic and making everyone else on the road angry.

Funny – all of those things apply this year, too! I feel more and more blessed with each passing year, and though I woke up in a bit of a panic this morning that I’m reaching “old”, I am so grateful for that. I am so glad that I’ve made it another year on this planet, that I’ve had a little bit more time to somehow make a difference to at least a handful of people. I’m grateful for the friends who have stayed with me, I am grateful for the friends I’ve yet to make.

Days like today are special, they are days to wake up and realize that you MATTER. You matter. What you do is significant, even if only to one person. And that’s a big deal.

Have a birthday muffin, on me!! (it’s a couple of years old, but I’ve brushed off the mold. Promise.)

Each year since 2001, when our youngest was born, I’ve handmade these beautiful photo dough ornaments from scratch. Last year, I shared my entire process for those who are interested in the dough recipe and the supplies and materials I use to create these sweet homemade memories. You can find those instructions here.

This years ornament was quite fun. First – I chose a whimsical shower curtain from WalMart to use as our photo backdrop and chose complimentary acrylic paints to decorate the ornaments. Next up – the photo shoot! I selected clothing for the girls to compliment the backdrop, and we had a fun little photo shoot in my studio! From there, I mixed up the dough and baked the ornaments. I printed out photos and sized them on my monitor to fit into my little heart shaped window, and then got to work on decorating the dough ornaments!

I followed the whimsical pattern on the backdrop and painted the whole heart a cool shade of pewter. I painted the edges and inside of the heart opening with silver glitter – that concealed the rough edges of the dough ornaments. Then I painted a random pattern of circles and bubbles in a pretty teal, and once that was dry I outlined a few of them with a lime metallic sharpie. I used a glue gun and attached a few sparkly gems, dated with a navy sharpie, and then sealed them with mod podge. I traced each ornament onto sticky back felt, punched holes in the felt for the wire – lined up the photo on the back, applied the felt to hold the photo and give the back of the ornament a soft, finished look – and wired them up with floral wire!

It is definitely a day long task, just decorating and assembling – but in the end, it is completely worth it. Just in the past 8 years, we have all come to cherish these ornaments and I know that in the years to come, they will take on an even deeper meaning for us as the girls grow older and leave the nest. Some day, they’ll be fighting over who gets them! Perhaps we should draw up a joint custody agreement in preparation for that event. hehe!

I have to share our previous years, so you can see the progression. It’s fun to look around the tree for each year and not only see how the girls have grown – but see how much more elaborate the ornaments get from year to year.

Merry Christmas to you and yours, I wish each of you a blessed day!!

I have three of the sweetest handmade ornaments on my tree – little noodle angels that were hand made by my mom and sisters a few years ago. This one was catching the light just right this morning so I chose her to share with you today.

You can sort of see how she was made – so tiny!! A star glitter halo around a wooden ball for her head, a bowtie noodle for wings, elbow macaroni for arms and a tiny little bit of pine to look like she carries a tree. All of this, painted and glittered – just adorable, and genius. I had to get the glue gun out this year to make a few repairs, but they are all just as precious as the day they gave them to us in handmade paper boxes.

Yes, we are an artsy craftsy bunch of people!

Another new ornament to our tree is a gift, from my best friend of 25 years.

Each year, my dear friend sends a care package with lovingly selected gifts for everyone in my family. I know. I lucked out in a BIG way. She’s totally amazing like that!

Last year, I opened up my very small package to reveal this incredible hand painted egg. One side, painted in 24 karat gold, is the Irish Claddagh symbol. The heart held in the hands show love, the hands represent friendship and togetherness, and the crown on the heart symbolizes loyalty. Sweet little shamrocks adorn the spacing between sides, and on the other side is a shortened version of the infamous Gaelic blessing –

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

You may not know, but my grandmother, Julie, came to the US when she was just a teenager, on a boat from Ireland – to care for her sister in Chicago. She met my grandfather in McHenry (she was a nurse) and they bought a farm in Hebron, Illinois where they raised 9 kids! My fondest memories of my grandma were when she would talk to me in Gaelic, and also – waking up to the smell of fresh bread baking when we stayed with them at their home in Florida. I still have relatives in County Cork, Ireland, and it is my dream to visit Ireland one day, if not move there!

I am not the kind of Irish gal that has a lot of green shamrocks around the house, but I do cherish the heritage my grandmother left us and hope one day to be able to explore the area and home she was raised in. That’s what makes this ornament so very, very special to me.

This year, I joined in on an ornament exchange hosted by my good friend Lisa at Lisa’s Chaos. Did I mention that Lisa, her husband Dennis and my family met up a few months ago for dinner at a fabulous little Italian restaurant here in the Quad Cities? No? Well we did, and it was amazing, and it was so cool to meet up with someone that I’d only ever talked to online. Her husband is sweet and funny and together, they are quite a team. So it made sense to me then that her ornament exchange would attract like-minded people who not only enjoy nature, but who are sweet and kind and good-hearted.

I love it when I’m right!

Lisa paired me with Tracey, from These Nine Acres. A photographer, wife, mom, and owner of a HUGE piece of land (in my eyes) out in Maryland, she is one talented lady and also, has a shop on Etsy you should check out.

Not only did she send this gorgeous owl to adorn my tree, she threw in a set of Thoughtful Question cards. Dinner conversation cards – genius! Especially for me, who lacks skills in random topical conversations that don’t involve … um … art, design or my kids!

So, the ornament I must share with you today is my brand new addition, this lovely owl from a new friend, met through a just-met friend. I love the internet.

Thank you, Tracey!

Welcome to my Christmas Tree, where symbols of Christ can be found tucked away fondly in the best nooks and crannies of our Douglas Fir.

We began collecting crosses a few years ago. Each year, we will choose a cross ornament to add to our collection – and over the years we anticipate that our tree will be filled with handmade ornaments, special ornaments from friends, and most importantly, Christ. Christmas is, after all, the celebration of His birth.

Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be sharing more ornaments from our tree, both new and old – captured with my (absolutely fantastic) new camera (that makes me seem magical, though truly, I am just a regular girl).

I will also be making our annual dough ornaments – how they turn out each year is always a sweet surprise!

I’d love for you to tell me about your tree – do you have special ornaments? Upload them to flickr (or somewhere) and share the link here! I’d love to see them!

Well, hello there!

It’s been quite some time since I’ve updated my blog with a “regular”, non-giving-something-away, real honest to goodness words from my own mouth kind’a post. So here it is!

This summer has flown right by. Once I put my garden in the ground, things picked up. I’ve signed back on with EWebscapes as a freelance designer so I’ve got a few projects going on there, a few on my own – and then toss in a weekly giveaway, children at home and bored, a husband who is on active duty with guys overseas, a complete gutting & revamping of my studio space, a couple of road trips, tons and tons of PICKLES, planting an insane amount of daylilies at our Church and OH YEAH, I can’t forget about Facebook!!

And that about sums it up.

You’d think that with all of this, I’d have lost a few pounds this summer right? Wrong. Add that to my pile of “things that frustrate me to no end.” I wait, for school to start – and I hope that things become “normal” again. What, pray tell, is normal to me?? Will I even recognize it? I wonder.

Today, I decided to stop for a few minutes. To give you a glimmer of hope that some day, I will write again, I will write more often. As my time over the summer is so short, I am finding that the little space that Facebook provides for status updates is just enough to keep my creative spark alive, and it makes me anticipate the time I will be able to sit down and craft a fun and creative story to share.

My weekly custom portrait giveaways are also giving me exactly what I need each week to stay creative as well. It is not a large investment of time, and I still feel very committed to it – 34 weeks in and I still enjoy it, giving that piece of time to someone each week is extremely fulfilling to me, and so I shall push on through the end of the year!

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your support through the years and especially during “dry” spells, where stories are sparse and my weekly drawing is your only eye candy until the next week. I cherish your comments and e-mails and, well, thank you. So much. Because I know you’re busy too, and that you understand but don’t forget. I love you for that.

On with the day now – and don’t forget, it IS Friday, and this week’s custom portrait giveaway will close at around 5pm tonight!

On Mother’s Day, I offered my readers a free desktop wallpaper that I’d created from a photograph I took in my studio of a beautiful White Iris. (You can still download the 1024×768 if you haven’t already.)

Pete (of Shakey Pete) commented and said that his mother raised Iris, so my wallpaper triggered a fond memory of his mom, appropriate on Mother’s Day, I think. His comment made me think. I love comments like that, so thanks, Pete. You brought my daughter and I a little closer on Mother’s Day. I appreciate that.

There’s a story behind this White Iris, which I’ll get to here in a second, but Pete’s comment left me curious. What kind of flowers would my own children grow after I’m gone that will remind them of me, and why? I thought for sure that Catybug would say “Gerbera Daisies!” or even “Stargazer Lilies!” But no. That was not the case.

Now let me tell you a little story.

Last Wednesday, my children attended youth group – at two different churches. Catybug went with her girlfriend after school to attend youth at her church, and I dropped off my little Chickeymonkey at our church.

On the way home, I had to run an errand to pick up food for our guinea pig and bunny. I find the best food for them at Teske’s, our local pet and garden center. I also really, really enjoy visiting the parrots! So, as you could probably guess, I visited the parrots first.

Right. Why carry around loads of food if you just have to put it down to play with the critters? Common sense.

Without any regard to how much time had passed (Because apparently, I have an eternity to shop while I’m at a pet store. Time stands still while you’re making cooey and clicky noises to birds, don’tchyaknow.), I visited with the animals. Then there was an uncomfortable moment where I was forced to either pet the Eclectus or buy him, so I ran and hid in the corner of the store and sucked the thumb he nearly bit off.

I digress.

I picked up 10 pounds of food for the critters that DON’T bite me, and ohhhh my gosh – —- a new truckload of flowers? Did someone say they got more flowers? Ooooh I had to check out the garden center.

Now, rewind to earlier in the day. I’m talking to my dear, sweet friend Taba, and she’s telling me how she’s swooning over White Irises, and she really wants some. We’re talking about flowers, and I remind her of my Monkey Butt (aka Baboon Bottom) Batik Iris that I’ll actually get to see this year, and blabbity blab blab green thumb girl talk.

Okay, got all that? She wants the White Iris. She wants ALL Irises, really, all of them. All in her yard. Right now. Yea, yea, so do I.

Fast forward to me in the garden center, carrying around 10 pounds of smashed condensed timothy hay and corn flake chips. And then, then I spotted the Irises. The WHITE Irises.

I chose the one that was on the verge of blooming. I thought, I’m going to name her Taba (which I did) and next year, I’ll split it and send her some for her garden! Irises, for those unfamiliar, have a bulk of the root at ground level, so one big giant stem teeter tottered above the root in a 4″ square pot. They had braced it up with little green stakes, so I carefully pulled it out from behind a half dozen other random colored Irises, and with one hand wrapped around 10 pounds of critter food, I carefully balanced a teeter-tottering White Iris in my right hand.

And continued on in my search for anything else I might want to add to my garden.

20 minutes later, I found more stuff. Crud, I found more stuff. I’m looking around for a cart, for anything I can put stuff down on – but found nothing. My left bicep was beginning to throb from the weight of the critter food and obviously, if I wasn’t careful with my right hand, my Iris would topple.

I gently set it down, set the critter food down, and went on a search for a tray to put all of my finds in.

Of course, the critter food and the new (mexican heather) went into the tray, but the Iris, the Iris was special. I held everything else in my left hand, and the Iris in the right.

Careful…. carreeeeful….. I asked the checkout clerk if he had a tall brown bag to put the iris in, so it wouldn’t break. Together, we slid it down to the bottom of the bag. Aaaah. Safe. Wait – no – he didn’t know what color the pot was, so we had to reach down in there and pull it back out. Crap. We got it out – put it back in. Phew. Okay. Safe again.

I paid for everything and loaded everything carefully into the back seat of the car. I put the Iris against the back seat, and braced it in with the critter food.

Are you getting all of this carefulness? I could not and probably wasn’t EVER this careful with my own kids as newborns. But this Iris? I could. not. break.

On the drive home, I called Taba. I was so excited to share my fortune! WoohOOOO and I’m going to split it and mail it to you and wheee! We’ll have the same White Irises! YAYYYY what are friends for!! Splitting perennials, that’s what!

She asks what the official name of the Iris is, and I’m just about in my driveway, so I pull into my driveway, park in the garage, get out of the car, open the back door, grab ahold of the Very Special SUPER CAREFULLY HANDLED White Iris and pull it out of my car…..

And busted the stalk.

Yep. I did.

So, when my eldest daughter returned from youth group, I told her this story. She laughed, and laughed, and laughed s’more. She even cried. She almost spit her ice cream out her nose.

It makes sense to me, then, when I asked her what flower she’d plant to remember me by, she replied “White Irises.”

Glad to know I’ll be giving that girl chuckles from beyond the grave!

Every year (since 2001), I’ve made these beautiful dough ornaments for our Christmas tree. This year I want to share with you my whole process, in case you’d like a crafty project or gift idea. It really is an any occasion craft, you can use different shapes, cutouts, themes and decorations to make it suit whatever you have going on. It’s a wonderful and sweet handmade gift!

The first part of the project (which I failed to take photos of) involves the dough ornament itself. First, you’ll need to pick out your shape. I have nested heart cookie cutters, so I chose the biggest one, and the second to smallest so that I have enough room for the girls photo. (I take the girls Christmas photos myself in my studio the day before.) Here’s my ornament shape:

The next task is making the dough – which is super easy. In a large bowl, combine 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt – and then add in 1 cup of water as you’re kneading the dough. This will make enough dough for about 10 of my ornaments, but I double the batch so the girls can make their own ornaments each year, too. Knead the dough really well, so it’s pliable and easy to manage.

Whatever surface you’re working on, you want to be able to get your dough up easily. Use a flexible cutting board, or wax paper to lift it off the table and peel back away from the back of the ornament. Put a little flour out on the surface and roll your dough to about 1/4″ thickness. If it’s cracking, you can dust some flour on it and then spray with a mist of water from a spray bottle, smoothing over with your hand.

Create your shapes using your cutter, and transfer them to an ungreased cookie sheet. To make holes for ribbons or hanging wire, just pop a hole into the shape using a straw, not too close to the edge so the dough doesn’t crack or break over time.

Before you bake them, use a toothpick to go around the edges and clean off any jagged dough edges. Once these dry, they take a bit of work to file off – so do as much beforehand as you can.

Bake your ornaments at 200 degrees for 2 hours. When they’re done, let them cool to the touch. Then, if you need to, use a nail file/buffer to clean off any jagged pieces from around the edges.

Now, you can prep your creative surface for painting! I use aluminum foil or wax paper to make it easy to move them around as they’re drying.

I’ve got my base color, dark blue, on a few of my ornaments already. The design is different each year, and usually I know how I’m going to paint them and have all of my materials/paints/backing/wire purchased before I start my project. Since my photo backdrop is a mottled blue, I decided to follow it through to the ornament. It’s also flecked with red, so I chose a red self-adhesive felt backing paper and red decorative wire.

Here’s my palette. I’ve got the dark blue drying, and I’m going to “sponge” on a light blue, white and pearly glaze. These are all acrylic paints you can pick up at Hobby Lobby for a couple of bucks. You really don’t need much, the small bottles are perfect. I put the paint on top of the other in a crazy pattern so it transfers to the ornament randomly. I paint through the holes and around to the back a little bit, just in case any edging shows through.

Prepare to get messy! I just wadded up a paper towel for this part, just dab it onto the plate and then onto the ornaments.

Here’s how they look after the first coat. It’s a bit too light, so I let it dry (acrylic takes a minute or two to dry) and add another coat of the dark blue over the top.

Once I finished blotting them and allowed the paint to dry, I went over the ornaments with a coat of Mod Podge to give it a really glossy lustre. This seals the dough and helps it last longer, too!

Next, I get the self-adhesive felt out. (I found mine at Hobby Lobby in the crafting area with all the felting tools.) I wish I had found this stuff years ago!! It made the whole process wonderful and opens up a variety of ways that these ornaments can be made and used.

Flip the felt over, and trace the outside of your ornament and mark the holes. Just do one at a time, because they do tend to all come out different based on how they cook, if they’re slightly misshapen in the transfer to the cookie sheet, etc.

I’ve printed the girls photos and sized them so that they’ll fit perfectly inside my little “window”. I set the photo under the opening and trace the opening onto the photo, then cut around it giving about 1/4″ overlap.

I cut out the felt, used a hole-puncher for the holes, and have everything ready to assemble the ornament.

Flip the ornament over, and align the photo to the backside, lifting to make sure it’s in position. Then just peel and stick your felt to the back, carefully lining it up to get it into position before pressing it down firmly onto the ornament.

Here’s the front side of the ornament.

Here’s the backside, felted.

Now I just take my wire (or ribbon, or hook, whatever you’re going to use) and wind it through the holes and around itself. I like to date my ornaments, this year I dated the back for everyone else and designed the front date of ours using a silver metallic sharpie, outlining in a black sharpie. Colored sharpies work GREAT for designing and decorating the fronts of these dough ornaments!

Here are a few of them all assembled, aren’t they sweet? Once they’re all done, I slip mine into a sandwich baggie do they don’t get scratched or damaged. I store years worth of these in a heart shaped container, each individually wrapped, and they all still look wonderful!

Merry Christmas, everyone!!