WFMW - birthday favors at after Christmas sales

In the middle of a Wal-Mart aisle yesterday Olivia and I changed her birthday party theme from "ladybugs" to "cupcakes"!

Having a birthday exactly 4 weeks after Christmas can be challenging. However, now Olivia and I have a plan for a great party. We stumbled upon some great cupcake themed party favors in the 50% off aisle. These definitely Work for Us!
I also found some stuff to fill the gigantic apothecary jar my sis got me! It will be so fun to change it out throughout the seasons. Thanks, Paige! So keep your options open when visiting those after Christmas sales! You might find some things to use at other times of the year.

Does anybody else have trouble with font sizes in blogger?

Christmas 2009

We had an absolutely wonderful Christmas! We all got what we wished for, plus more!

Christmas Crafts

Whew, today is our last day before Christmas break. The kids are excited about their parties at school/babysitter. Olivia has all the gifts for her teacher, aides and bus drivers. Daniel has gifts for the babysitter and his friends.

I'll give three more mid-terms today. A downside of being a high school teacher, instead of elementary, is the lack of Christmas gifts. High schoolers just don't get into bringing gifts for their teachers! Oh well!

I wanted to share the crafts I did this year before they head out the door.These are some candles I got at Michael's big Thanksgiving sale - about $1.70 each and they smell great! I added vinyl initials and some cute ribbon. These are going to teacher aides, teachers and church children's choir leaders.
Mom and I had the idea for these since the ice storm in January! I made decoupaged mini-clipboards for several of her friends and mine as well. I found some matching magnets and notepads at Michael's and rolled up the scrapbook paper to fit inside the pen.
I love ribbon keyfobs, I'm on my second right now. The ones on the right I made with D-rings and webbing I could find around here. My friend, RaAnn, hooked me up with wider webbing and cool hardware for the larger ones. My teacher friend, Rita, helped the kids monogram them at school. These are going to mom, Paige and bingo gifts at the family get togethers. Remember the letter punches I bought at Harbor Freight back in the summer? Here is my end result. I made these for several mommy friends, and myself. Punching those letters (while outside in the garage this summer) really helped work off some stress!

I enjoyed putting my time and love into these gifts. I hope they are enjoyed by family and friends.

PB Inspired Photo Ornament

Who doesn't love all things Pottery Barn? I love to look through their catalogs and get inspired. I searched my local Dollar Tree for a miniature photo frame to turn into a PB photo frame and came home with this. It needed a little red paint.
I got out some scrapbook paper and printed "2009" in Algerian Font. Cut to size with my trusty Creative Memories trimmer and used an exacto knife to cut out the photo hole. I asked my wonderful husband to insert an eye hook in the top and I found a great ribbon to hand it with.
Voila! What do you think?
I have to leave you with a photo of Olivia (dead center) at her school's Christmas program. We are so blessed to live in a country where our kids can sing about Christmas!

I'm linking this to DIY Day at A Soft Place to Land and Get Your Craft On at Today's Creative Blog!

Jeff surprised us last night with a trip to Patti's 1880s to see Santa AND to have a wonderful meal. It is a tradition for us to go see Santa there, but we've never tackled eating with the kids. So, the kids got their very first grown up meal out!They did pretty good!

Then we got to go visit with "the big guy" himself. Daniel didn't want to visit with him at first, then warmed up okay. This truly is Santa as he knew what the kids wanted, knew they had kitties and dogs, and even their teacher and babysitter's names!
Olivia practiced more of her photography skills - pretty good! We enjoyed looking at all of the fabulous lights and decorations. Thanks, Jeff!