Meaningful Christmas Gifts

My tree is still up. The flu has sidelined me on the couch while my family is skiing for the day. I'm thankful that my husband decided to take on the task of bringing the girls and packing up all the ski stuff. I'm reflecting on this past Christmas and some of the handmade gifts that were given to our family. My mom gave my brothers and myself, a recipe album. It's filled with the recipes that I remember my grandma making throughout the years. Her tried and true recipes written in her handwriting. I plan on baking my way page by page and posting the results here on this little blog. My grandma "MaGert" as we called her, would cook for friends and neighbors when someone was sick or when there was a death in th family. She was a remarkable woman. We also received an amazing cartoon matted in a frame of our family with our extended family. The original picture was taken on our yearly vacation at the beach. Each person is carefully drawn and the whole cartoon is in color. It is one of our favorite things and will be treasured forever. I purchased many handmade gifts on etsy this year. If I had planned a bit better, I would have purchased more. There is always next year....I'm thinking of doing a post of all the beautiful handcrafted goodies with links to the shops. If only I can figure it out how to do that!

Facebook, Blogs, and Martha Stewart

This past year my business grew more than I could have imagined. I am ever so grateful. By December I could feel myself becoming overwhelmed and still wanting to do fun crafty things with my daughters. So I decided that I needed to examine parts of my everyday life that were being wasted. I first started with our DVR. I had 65 Martha Stewart shows waiting to be watched. Yes, I did and it drove my husband crazy! I asked him to delete them all. He thought I was joking. I love Martha, but i knew that I didn't want to take the time to catch up on all those episodes. Next, was my google reader. I had 350 posts to read. I took 10 minutes and went over the blog list twice. Now I'm all caught up and I am left with just my absolute favorites. Now comes the touchy subject of Facebook. I know many people love it to communicate with family and friends. I enjoyed it too. I would check it each morning as I was making my coffee. Then whenever I had a chance throughout the day. It was getting to be too much. I started to think about if i really cared about much of what was being posted. I deleted all my friends. Gasp! My close friends know my email and guess what? That is enough. I kept my Facebook business page for shop updates. I feel like I have done a bit of mental spring cleaning. It's been a couple days and it feels great:)

Last Week

I set a goal of being ready for Christmas by December 1st. I did really well, but in the end didn't fully reach that goal. Here's what I did get done:

-Christmas cards made and sent out the day BEFORE Thanksgiving

-Tree up and decorated

-Almost all the presents purchased for my girls

-75% of other presents purchased

-Advent calendar ready

Next year I want to start earlier. My shop got really busy this past week. I want to be more prepared for the increase in sales. I ran out of tissue and am almost out of chalk. These are supplies I need for each order. I had some fun things happen too! My blog got a makeover from Life Made Lovely Designs. The wonderful Danielle set it all up and was soo easy to work with! I also received new business cards to include with each package that I send on it's way. Hope you all are having a wonderful Monday. As always, leave a comment and I'll pop over to visit your blog!

Wreath Making

Elara had a sleepover for her 11th birthday. I knew I wanted the girls to make something to take home for Christmas. One advantage of being born near Christmas. I purchased the wreaths at Joann's, along with some yarn and felt. The rest of the supplies we already had:) I helped them with the hot gluing. I'm sure they could have handled it on their own but i didn't want to take any chances. I'm pleased with how they turned out. They crafted away for over an hour. Made this mama super happy!