Christmas Party

Each year, the day before Christmas Eve, our office has a luncheon. This year it was at the Marriott. There's always delicious food and a short program. This is me and my friend Laurie standing by the Christmas tree in their lobby.

One of the best parts is that our name card is a gift card to Target! I haven't used mine yet (surprising, I know!), but it's much anticipated. God has really blessed me!

Goodies for Christmas

Everything that you'll see below are items home-made:

These are banana-nut mini muffins. I had been saving bananas in the freezer and finally had enough to make these. I had gotten a mini muffin pan for my birthday and was glad to have a chance to use it again. They're just the right size to pop in your mouth which makes them good for a get-together.

These are a good family recipe! They are a type of rice krispy squares with peanut butter and peanuts and chocolate on the top. I cut them pretty small because of the gifts that I made for the male co-workers.

I was so excited about these brownies because they're my grandma's recipe! They turned out just fine and I was so glad. I made the icing with a recipe from my Better Homes & Gardens cookbook - no bake fudge icing. I again cut these small to fit in the container, but that's how my grandma did it too -- bite-sized.

These are my favorite -- white chocolate covered pretzels. Yum!

These are a modified version of what Barry likes the best -- chocolate covered peanut clusters. The reason why they're modified is that we crunched the peanuts into smaller pieces so that they could go in those mini paper cups.

I made up all these smaller things in order to fit the containers that I had. They were greeting card boxes that we had a preponderance of here in the office due to a Christmas mailing that went out. I covered the top with wrapping paper and lined them with plastic wrap before putting the goodies inside. They worked just perfect for these 4 items (peanut clusters, pretzels, brownies, & rice krispy bars)!

Last, but not least, this is a peppermint red velvet cake for my dear friend. I found out around the first Christmas that I knew her that she loved peppermint. I found the recipe and tried it out and it's been a mainstay ever since. It's three layers and all home-made.

I think this is the end of my baking for the holidays and hope that it's enjoyed by all!

Some Gift Sets

So here is the set of cards all together... 6 in total - 3 birthday & 3 thank you. I made up 2 of these sets and have some cool fabric bags to put them in. An easy gift, right?!

This card has the same colors as the one in the group picture, but is just a tad different.

Here is a new design that I found on the CPS site. It says, "wishing you a happy birthday" on the inside of this one.

Here's an old stand-by. Since my sister gave me her Sissix, I have gone crazy with the die-cuts.

I thought this quote was pretty neat: "The smallest act of kindnes is worth more than the grandest intention." -Oscar Wilde I wrote "thanks" on the inside of this one.

This one is my favorite of the whole set. I cut out all these stars and then overlapped and used 3-d tape to pull it all together. I think it's a masculine-looking card.

I couldn't do a set without this favorite design. I tried to use all the pink papers with this one.

I'm trying to sell some cards to earn a little money for Christmas. I have them out at work, but so far no bites. I guess I'll hold on to them and see if I can give them as a gift.

Birthday Cards

I found this cool design on Card Positioning System's site and thought I'd try it out. It's by no means as creative as the others listed there, but it works for my simplistic ways. I had this paper that already said Happy Birthday so I didn't have to write anything on the front. I used some swirls I had left over from a die cut project I did and then added a jewel and some organdy ribbon. Inside I wrote: wishing you a happy birthday!

The zebra print & pink one is for my friend Skye and the purple one is for a co-worker.

Couple cards

A co-worker and his wife just had a baby and I made this card to say congrats! I used a couple scraps of paper -- the cute baby hands and complementary colors to the paper that is the background. I added two silver heart brads and the sticker that says baby boy. I wrote the baby's name across the top and congratulations on the side of the blue paper.

This is a 2x3 inch card that I made up to say happy birthday to another co-worker. I put some 3-d tape on the back of the piece with the frog to make it stand out some. I added a couple celebratory stickers and wrote, "hoppy" belated birthday, dave! Here's the back where I added 4 candles since he turned 40!

Here's the card and 4 cookies that I gave him.

I've gotten so behind in my personal card-making so I expect to get a few more cards made to catch up. A couple weddings and unfortunately a couple deaths. Maybe I'll get them done over the weekend!

Rudolph Red Nose 5K

Here is the group of us that ran the 5K (L to R): Rick Potter, Rick Mosley, Jamie Lubiens, Allison Davis, and me

For some of us, this was a last minute decision, but for others, it was planned and trained for. My goal was to get under 35 minutes, but I did my best race time and got 35:10. If I had only been a little bit faster!

It was about 30 degrees at 6:30pm when we began the race and my toes were cramping up, but overall, it was not too cold. I ended up taking my gloves off toward the end and really wanted to take my sweatshirt off, but figured it was better to keep it on. The race came before the Nashville Christmas parade so we did have a lot of people cheering us on for a portion of the way.

Perhaps the next one I'll be even faster, but I suppose that being able to run the whole way is as good an accomplishment than most would have.

Christmas Cards - in Creole & French

Although I'm not all that certain what each card says, I know that they are something unique. A co-worker who is from Haiti asked that I make these cards for her. She cannot find anything like this so, it was a pleasure and a neat adventure to write up all of this. On the inside, the left side had a verse that she had chosen and on the right, a message that she had written. Each card follows the same pattern: ribbon down the left side with 3 stars on it and the message written on red across the top. I should have gotten more of the poinsettia paper, because I sort of liked those ones better, but the red did just fine.

The beginning of holiday work!