Two

::Two aliens…

…they stowed away in the back seat on our trip to visit family.

::Two Thanksgiving celebrations…

…his family, then my family.

::Two cakes [or what’s left of them]…

…one said “Happy Early 30th!” the other “Happy 28th again”

::Two culprits…

…who ate my cakes.

::Two pounds…

[Picture not available]

…gained after a week of gorging myself on pie, stuffing and two cakes, I guess it could have been worse.

I’m now going to enter my 28th year of life for the second time around.

Hope everyone enjoyed a lovely holiday. For me, it was double the fun!

xo

nessa dee

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey All,

I will be taking a little blogging break while I’m visiting friends and family for the holiday. I hope you all have a wonderful and thankful week!

xo

nessa dee

P.S. I’ll be wearing my maroon socks on Thursday. Gig ‘Em Aggies!

IF: Music

xo

nessa dee

Glitter, Glitter Everywhere

Can you guess what we did over the weekend? I’ll give you a hint:

Have you figured it out, yet? Yep, our house is an explosion of tinsel and lights. It’s a bit early for us, I usually pull all of the decorations out the day after Thanksgiving, but since we’ll be travelling that day, and since I kept promising my eager children that we would start decking the halls soon, I was doomed. But, now I get to enjoy everything even longer!

I think my absolute favorite thing when decorating for Christmas is giving the kids free reign to hanging our ornaments we’ve collected over the years. I put myself in charge of the boring ornaments like the glass balls, and berry sprigs, but my kids get the rest. For me, as a child, there was such magic in unpacking and hanging all of the ornaments. It was just as exciting as opening presents on Christmas morning. Now, I love getting to see the wonderment in my kids’ eyes. It sparks such great memories. Plus, seeing where my kids choose to hang their ornaments is just icing on the cake. It’s not perfect, but it’s so much more charming and beautiful than I could have ever dictated. And every time I walk by the tree, I can’t help but smile.

The kids get their own tree to decorate as well. It’s housed in Audrie’s room and it’s full of bright colors, birds and memories from our Disney vacation the Thanksgiving before Finn was born. It’s always the first thing out of its box when we start to decorate.

And then there’s the advent calendar. Audrie and I made this last year, and it’s now one of our favorite things. I’m not sure where to hang it yet, but it will find its place, get filled with candy, and utilized to its fullest, my kids will make sure of that.

By the end of all the decorating, with boxes and glitter and pine needles everywhere, I kind of turned into the Grinch. But, once I got everything cleaned up and out of the house, and saw how excited my kids were when everything was done and lit and sparkly, my heart grew three sizes and quit being green and grumpy.

Now, back to work.

xo

nessa dee

Crafty Friday: Ornaments

It’s hard to ignore the excitement that’s been filling our household lately. With all of the Christmas decor in stores, toy guides in the mail, and the few early bird Christmas trees appearing in windows, the kids are ready to get this holiday party started. So we decided to kick off the holiday decorating with a festive craft project.

Here’s what you need:

-scrapbook paper
-plastic lids
-cereal box
-glue
-buttons or sequins
-ribbon
-scissors

Step 1: Take an empty cereal box and cut small triangle shapes out of it, approximately 4 inches tall. These will give the ornaments a sturdy foundation.

Step 2: Use the triangles as templates to trace the shape onto the scrapbook paper of your choice, and cut it out.

Step 3: Cut a strip of ribbon 4-5” long. This will be the loop to hang the ornament on the tree.

Step 4: Load the cardboard triangle up with glue. Make a loop with your ribbon and stick it in the glue at the peak of the triangle.

Step 5: Take your scrapbook triangle and place it on top of the cardboard piece and ribbon so the ribbon will be sandwiched between the two triangles.

Step 6: Embellish your “tree” with buttons or sequins to act as ornaments.

We used the same process to make little birdie and round ornaments. For the round ornaments, plastic lids formed the foundation instead of cut pieces of cardboard.

Let the decorating begin!

xo

nessa dee

P.S. Stop on over at The Shabby Nest and see what other people have posted for Frugal Friday.

Space Farming Pirate

Rocket plowing…an alternative to tractors. At a speed of 17,000 miles per hour, you can have your fields plowed faster than you can say John Deere. You might even have time for a quick trip to space and be back in time for supper.

Plus, when your done, your plow becomes the latest accessory in male fashion. Farm/space life not for you? Than try your hand at pirating. “But I don’t have a sword or a peg leg!” you might say. No need to despair. You can be just as menacing with a straw, lid, bongo drum and mischievous smile:

xo

nessa dee

And Stretch, Two, Three…

Meet Patch. He’s the latest character that will be joining his friends in the shop soon.

This set of paintings will be making their way to a gift shop at a charming bed and breakfast…

I also have a bunch of new paintings in the works at the moment, but a lot of them are waiting on me to overcome lack of motivation + a little fear.

I enjoy most of the creative process when making my mixed media paintings. But part of what I enjoy doing [sewing the decorative stitching] goes hand in hand with my least favorite part of the process…stretching the canvases. I have to start the pieces with unstretched canvas in order to sew around the characters. Then, I have to cut the stretcher boards to make the frames, which is where my little inkling of fear sets in. Every time I’m sitting in front of the jigsaw, I visualize slicing right through my thumb, the blood, and the fainting that is sure to follow. I wonder how long it would take before anyone would notice that Mom is passed out on the garage floor, missing a thumb. Morbid, I know, but I think this fear helps to keep me extra careful when working with the jigsaw…maybe. Then, after the cutting comes making the frames, followed by the seemingly endless stapling. It’s really not all that bad, but it’s tedious, and well, the tedium tends to drown a lot of the motivation I have to create these pieces. So what do I have to do? Push through, keep on trucking, and catch up on my favorite shows while wielding the staple gun.

My plan is to have these paintings stretched, painted, and up in the shop ASAP. I want to get these guys ready to greet the Christmas season before the turkey and stuffing induced sleep stupor sets in.

xo

nessa dee

Family Portraits

What we did last night:

We even got Trixie into the mix…

 

We’re a bunch of dorks, I know.

xo

nessa dee

Fall

More pictures from our leaf hunt:

xo

nessa dee