Merry Christmas with Shutterfly

So, this year for Christmas cards, I really wanted a candy cane Christmas look. You know, with pink, lime green, baby blue, red. (Well, what I really want is to redo all my christmas tree ornaments and make them into this look, but that is way too expensive!) Anyway, the place where I usually get my cards done didn't have anything I wanted to use, so I decided to try Shutterfly at  http://www.shutterfly.com/ instead. (I am not promoting them, nor do I have any affiliation with them.) I uploaded my photo, edited, etc. It took me several times, as their site was having a few problems. So, after typing my family's names in a few times, I submitted it, and paid for it.

An hour later, I was showing it to my son, who promptly noticed his name was missing from the card. (Oops!!) This is what he said, "Nice mom! You forgot about your son!" (This is the son who always says he is the favorite son!) So, I quickly emailed Shutterfly to have the change made. Basicallly, what they said was, sorry, we can't change it. You can refuse the order and then reorder. Not so hot customer service. I sent them a reply about how disappointed I was, etc. They did however, the next day credit me with the entire order and ask me to reorder. Much better customer service!!

Today I received these. These are the incorrect ones, and the new ones are supposed to be delivered tomorrow! YAY!! I still love them, even after all that drama!! Thanks Shutterfly!!

Cute Fabric Rose Bracelets

 These are some fabric rose bracelets that my sister-in-law made for me for some gifts this year. They tie with a ribbon and look so cute on. She does them in a variety of colors and will add bling to the center. I think they are so adorable! Here is the link to her blog. http://beckaboots.blogspot.com/

Cute Fabric Rose Bracelets

 These are some fabric rose bracelets that my sister-in-law made for me for some gifts this year. They tie with a ribbon and look so cute on. She does them in a variety of colors and will add bling to the center. I think they are so adorable! Here is the link to her blog. http://beckaboots.blogspot.com/

A Foggy Morning

It is a very delightful day indeed when I can take my husband's dog out for a run. I have been trying to do this 3 or 4 times every week. Some weeks are better than others, as everyone knows. This morning, when we were out, it was so foggy, I thought I would take a pic. You can't really see, but the fog is rising up off the lake in the far distance. It was quite a sight. Of course, Gracie, the dog, didn't care. She just wanted to catch a duck!! That would really not be delightful!

Unique Christmas Gift

Wild Man Beard Conditioner!! Who would have thought? I have been looking all over for small gifts that are unusual. Here is a little something that I think is so funny, and quite unusual, which I purchased for my brother who sometimes sports a goatee or a beard, mainly to annoy my mom. I found is off of http://www.etsy.com/shop/wildroseherbs and it was fairly inexpensive. They delivered very quickly and I can hardly wait for him to open it!

Breakfast at The Hangar Cafe

So, a few lovely days ago I turned "29" again, and to celebrate, we decided to go out to breakfast. Here we all are, with me being the photographer, as usual, eating at "The Hangar Cafe" at Chandler Airpark. If you haven't been there, I highly recommend it. It is a small, little place, but extremely good. Love it! They offer some traditional breakfasts and are open until 2pm every day. That was a delightful day!

Merry Christmas Banner!

I was walking through my local Pottery Barn the other day. They had a banner very similar to this hanging above their stocking stuffers, which said, ironically "Stocking Stuffers"! I loved it, and so instead of hanging up my lighted garland in the entryway, decided to do something similar. This is what I came up with.

These are easy to print on card stock. Punch 2 holes on the top, one on each corner, just inside the red border. Then, string it with ribbon, or twine, to hang it. Couldn't be simpler. Love IT!

A Simple YW in Excellence Night

We recently had our YW in Excellence Night. It was a simple evening, with the girls singing some songs they had learned throughout the year for various things. We had a videography committee that had made videos of girls answering various questions about personal progress. Some of their answers were so amazing. I loved all of them. We combined those into a video presentation.

And then the girls showed off their amazing projects they had worked on. But we got this idea from Jenny Phillips at http://www.jennyphillips.com/ to go through old Ensigns and cut out various pictures of Christ and mod podge them onto blocks of wood. They were basically free. The only things is when you are using magazine pages, the paper is different than if it were scrapbook type paper, so when it dries, it is a little bumpy. I did not mind this. I thought it looked as if the picture were old and was really lovely. We displayed them all on a table and let the girls choose which one they would like to take home. A simple evening, but nice.

Simple Nativity

October & November flew by! I can hardly believe it is December 1st! Nonethless, the Christmas season definitely is in full swing. We recently, and by recently, I mean yesterday, finished 27 sets of these little beauties!

The free pattern came from Melinda over at Under My Polka Dot Umbrella. Here is the link for the pattern : http://undermypolkadotumbrella.blogspot.com/2009/09/nativity-patterns.html

It is a pretty simple pattern and we went ahead and just stained them, since we had so many to do...27 sets x 12 pieces each is a whopping 324 pieces we traced, cut, stained and individually wrapped so the girls we gave them to could open a piece every night for a "12 day of Christmas" experience.

We gave the girls cards that went along with it to read every night. Here is the link to the cards we gave away.

The artwork we used came from one of my favorite sites: http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/

and is titled Noche de Paz Cards. Love them.

The daily quotes came from a great little book "52 Weeks of Fun Family Service" by Merrilee Boyack. It is available at www.amazon.com.