Christmas filled with love

Christmas was wonderful.

Hubby made his yearly oatmeal chocolate cookies. He bakes I eat.

Paige and Tyler

   

Tyler took this picture of Grandpa.

He took this one too. He was pretending to be paparazzi .

He took this one too. Notice that I’m wearing the gorgeous necklace that I got for Molly Alexander’s Secret Santa swap from the talented Cindy Wimmer . Looked fabulous….it’s my go to necklace for so many things.

Here’s my son with Tyler after struggling with getting the Bat Cave out of the box.

DIL opening her gifts from Paige.

 

It was another beautiful Christmas surrounded with family. Now, on to the New Year to see what surprises await!

My Secret Santa Recipient

My Secret Santa gift arrived for none other than Jan Thomason a wonderful paper artist. I’m so grateful to Molly Alexander  for hosting this Secret Santa swap because through it I’ve met two wonderful people that I wasn’t aware of before. My recipient Jan Thomason and my Secret Santa Cindy Wimmer .

The earrings are Argentium  silver. I  cut out the stars from sheet copper with my jewelers saw and fused them into the silver with the torch. I  cut individual beams coming from the stars into the silver with a cutting wheel using my flex shaft for sparkle. Shining down from the stars are pale pink and clear Swarovski crystals. The ear wire is sterling silver and also was handmade by me.

They’re very shiny which made them difficult to photograph but I did my best.

Merry Christmas to all of my friends, new and old.

Secret Santa you rock!

Today is the day that my Secret Santa gift arrived. I knew it would be something good because of the list of artists that Molly Alexander invited to participate. Such talented ladies that it boggled my mind. I was honored that Molly invited me too.

So, when the package arrived I savored the moment. Carefully, I opened it. The anticipation was overwhelming. I knew from the return address that it came from Cindy Wimmer . This was gonna be fantastic!

I untied the ribbon

Took off the wrapping

A beautiful box!

But Wait!!! There’s something inside the box!

What is it????

It’s a GORGEOUS necklace

It suits me perfectly. It can be worn long or doubled

and looks beautiful either way. I love the bright colors

of the beads that Cindy used. And her wire work is flawless.

Thank you Cindy for a most wonderful gift. I will enjoy wearing

it often and cherish it forever.

And thank you Molly for letting me take part in this fun swap.

Secret Santa

A few weeks ago I received an email from Molly Alexander asking if I wanted to participate in a Secret Santa jewelry swap with some very talented women. The recipient wouldn’t know who their Secret Santa is until they receive their gift.

I just mailed out the gift that I made to ( Oops, can’t tell ;o ) You’ll know who you are when you get it.

I was thinking of the Star of Bethlehem when I made these.

Merry Christmas to one and all

Christmas is almost here!

 The decorations are all in place. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about the Secret Santa.

Yay Santa !!!!

DIL and I took the kiddos to see Santa the other day. Paige was being smart and asked for a “Red Rider BB Gun” and Santa laughed rolled his eyes and said “ for the thousand’t time your gonna shoot your eye out”.

Tyler had the same look one his face that you see in the above photo the whole time he was up there. Didn’t know what he wanted so he didn’t have much to say.

Tyler is entertaining himself while waiting in line.

They’re happy.

All in all it was a lovely day. I’m keeping busy with some special orders and getting ready for Christmas. Almost done with my shopping and decorating. When I have a chance to get some photo's I’ll post them.

Guess who we met?

Joe and I  went to Barnes and Noble where our favorite author was doing a book signing. Yes, we met Sue Grafton who was signing the latest copy of her new book, “U for Undertow” which just happened to be on both of our lists for Santa.

We’ve read her entire series which started with “A”.  I highly recommend her books. The main character is Kinsey Millhone a private investigator whose adventures are highly addictive.  You don’t have to start at the beginning if you don’t want to because every book stands on it’s own. But it sure is fun if you do start with “A”.

The best thing was that she is such a gracious lady. She had something to say to everyone she signed for and when I asked if we could have our picture taken with her she said yes. One of the store employees took a picture with my camera.

It was a real treat to meet her. I’m dying to start reading the book but Joe and I agreed it’s one of our Christmas gifts to each other.

The other fun thing we did was to see “A Christmas Carol” in 3-D.  Wow. The graphics were awesome.

Hope you all are having a great holiday season with all of the hustle and bustle.