Guess what I've got going on today??? Go on, guess!
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
Wa-hoo! Guess what else?? Go on, guess?
Aside from taking my mom out for dinner and to Fiddler on the Roof Saturday night (and Christmas Open House) I have NOTHING on the calendar until Dec 29th! Whaaaatttttt???
True story!
I'm going to LEAVE those squares empty! NO coffee dates. NO lunch dates. NO firm commitments. Oh sure, I MAY end up doing those things but they will be spur of the moment things, not schedules! I'm going to spend this weekend baking with the kids, wrapping our doors like presents, making the kids' wish list books - oh, and sending out Christmas cards. Yes, many will arrive late but ya know what? That's OK! Listen to me ... NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO BE DONE BEFORE DEC 25. You don't have to visit, phone, meet with or write to every person you've ever met in the next 10 days! Don't stress! This is supposed to be a magical, FUN time of year - ADVENT ... as we celebrate and await the birth of our saviour! Get back to basics, do what you WANT to do, what you ENJOY doing and ditch the "shoulds"!
What did I do this Tuesday night (instead of Christmas cards)? made Sock Gnomes with friends! HOW stinkin' key-UTE are these????
You'll spot a few Stampin' Up! buttons, ribbon and a hint of Melon Mambo on some of the noses - other than that it was all dollar store sock, felt, ribbon and a HUGE sack of rice from the Chinese Food Store.
I roughly followed the video here ....
I did make a few changes. #1. I used white wool to tie the sock at the top and the nose. The elastics were redundant (plus I bought ones that didn't stretch enough to actually get around the sock!) . #2. I could find white felt at any of the dollar stores so instead I bought a HUGE fuzzy throw for $4 at the dollar store. It will last me 100 years! #3. Although we did make SOME of their beards 3" x 4", like she said, we made most of them 5" x 4" for a wider beard. #4. Instead of using a styrofoam cone in the hats I bought a pack of 40 styrofoam cups for $1.25. The cones were $1.25 EACH so that significantly increased the cost of each gnome. The cups worked great! Want a taller hat? Stack more cups! We found 2 or 3 was the perfect height for the standard size gnomes. Oh ... and make sure you DO use white rice - we belw through our 15 pound bag pretty quickly (making 12 gnomes) so I found a stale box in my pantry. It was brown rice. It did alter the color of the nose as the white sock was more of a tan color. We preferred the white. We added some blush or ink to some of the noses for a little pop of color.
We all had a great time. Each gnome has it's own "personality" and most of us made more the next day! They are slightly addicting!!
So that's what I did this week ... instead of Christmas cards. What will YOU do this weekend just for fun?? Whatever it is, I hope you have a stampy time! Just breathe and have some laughs!
TTYS!
Tam
No comments:
Post a Comment