Pins and Needles

I got all inspired about a month ago over a good green tea latte. I found myself sitting on the scratchy carpet at the Bridge Street Barnes and Noble in the crafty section pouring over and through all the sewing books I could yank from the shelves. After 3 1/2 hours or so I had enough ideas to charge my engines and launched straight into deciding that I was going to hand make all of my Christmas presents this year (with a few exceptions of already purchased gifts) - be it sewn or otherwise crafted... painted... snipped...snapped... printed, etc.

I have quite a few folks already crossed off my list - which is pretty wild for October. Feels as thought I'm a bit ahead of the game. But I'm glad I started early... (I kinda have a tendency to go overboard when I enjoy/like how the project turns out -and I did, so i am)...eventually doubling the size of the original list...hehehee. The kitchen table seems to now have the permanent fixture of a giant green cutting mat, sewing machine, pin cushions, iron and at any given time fabric themes appear and disappear over the course of several days - from cowboys, to owls, to pirates, to silken pinks and purples,to trains, to wild animals, butterflies, tie-dye, strawberries, teal & chocolate, dinosaurs and even bats. Every theme an idea crafted for a single person - completely different - completely original - completely theirs. And each gift as special and as differnet and original as the person who receives it.

The Ghost of Christmas Past #6 (But wait - there's more!)

Ah yes - I know what you're thinking. Its February, right? But I've got a lot more fun pics from Christmas to post!

Christmas day wouldn't be complete without a visit with Nana (my Dad's Mom).

And then we ate lunch at the only place that was open on Christmas day - Peking Palace - and some silliness ensued when the fried noodles came out.

What's Christmas without being able to juggle oranges picked right off the tree in your own back yard - right?





Ah yes - and goofy parent pictures. Very important indeed. These photos make me laugh and feel every mile between Huntsville and Lakeland. They are the most wonderful parents ever.


Paul and I got to go to several Christmas parties. It was cool to catch up with friends after a year....

I got to see Elizabeth and her (as of New Year) sweet fiance Stephen (sp? Steven?). Hadn't seen her in years! That was way cool. And Kristen came too - hadn't seen her in years too. Again - very cool. She's liking it out in California.

We visited and ate and visited some more, Joys brother, and her mom and pop stopped in, some folks left, then we moved on to play Apples to Apples and finally spit up into teams to play Cranium.

Lea and Kristen were the Twilight fans...

Joy, Jennie and I were Team "Rope Jet" That would be a joke from a couple years ago....

Then we have the brother and sister combo - Chris and Kelli

And yes that does say "Team Sexy Mahatma Ghandi" - that would be from the Apples to Apples game when someone had a synonym of sexy - and the Ghandi card was slapped down.

Deep in discussion over one of the answers....

So Paul and I had our first taste of American Idol Karaoke Revolution on the Wii at Nick and Rebecca's house. The whole thing was pretty hysterical. I busted out a pretty good version of "Imagine" which happens to be one of my favs. But then bombed out on a Coldplay song. I now know never to ask Adam or Nick to sing. Ever. EVER. All the gals held their own pretty well. And then Paul - ha! - well he totally cleaned up on "Pinball Wizard" by The Who and won the game!


Rebecca has of a recording of this on her new camera. I was testing out the movie mode for her. Believe me - its a beaut!

For New Years we did dinner at Jennie's and then went to Adam and Roxy's to watch the count down. We played with fire for a while and toasted marshmallows.


I tried my hand at poker (with everyone's help)- on Adam's snazzy table with the nice speed cloth and cushy seats - and Nick's brand new poker chips. Ended up coming in third.


HAPPY NEW YEAR!


Still not done. There's more to come!!

The Ghost of Christmas Past #2 (Ode to Chopsticks)

So my Mom can actually play the piano by ear - she can just feel the notes out. Its really amazing. I, on the other hand, took lessons when I was young - but only retained very limited skills - and don't really remember how to read music anymore. We tried our hands at a chopstick duet one evening and fits of silliness ensued.

Round 1:

The Ghost of Christmas Past #1

Oh wow do I have a lot to tell about Paul and I's trip to FL for Christmas. In the two weeks we were there we did a lot, drove a lot, saw a lot, laughed a lot, ate too much, hung out with friends and family and as usual it was all over way too quickly.

We went to a little dinner theatre that my cousins - Virginia and Dennis - put on for their church congregation.


I swear these were THE coolest Christmas trees ever. I have to make one of these tree costumes for Halloween!!


Some of my family on my Mom's side.


Paul and My Dad and I headed to Webster - the Monday flea market town. I love looking, haggling, and finding treasures. Flea markets are always so full of life and color and interesting people. Much better than a mall. You'll see the latest rage next to fantastic pieces of history. Webster is the only place I know of where you can you go to see ancient dinosaur fossils and "Jingle Jugs" (yes - this is a relative of "billy bass" - the singing fish - the items in question jiggled while music played - I couldn't believe my eyes! - I had Paul cover me while I took the photo but I think my hysterical laughter kinda gave me away) all in one place.





These bottles were just gorgeous - had to snap a pic.

The Ghost of Christmas Past - New Years (Part 4)

Yeah, I know, January is almost over... but I still had a few more photos of my parents visit.

I'd like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year! The candles above are an old family tradition - my Mom's Mom and her Mom before her would always burn a pair of bayberry candles - lighting them in old year and letting them burn to the socket in the new. Its said to bring good luck. They have to be real bayberry candles - not just scented. Real ones are hard to track down but there's a candle maker in St. Augustine, FL that makes them, so we're constantly buying them there. The photo is about 2 am, January 1st.

Our Happy New Year cake we enjoyed at Conant's.

Paul and my Mom and I eating black beans and hog jowls on New Years day - another (southern) tradition for good luck - to be eaten the first day of the year.

This would be Jolly Green's Bug Getter - a geocache gigantic flyswatter that now inhabits the woods at the Wade Mtn. preserve.


The next three photos were taken on the last day that my parents were in town. We all went to Unclaimed Baggage and stopped at this neat abandoned homestead and barn off AL35 for some photos.
They are redoing the tracks - the rusty rails off to the sides are the new ones which will replace the nice shiny old ones.

My Dad and the cool barn.

My Dad and what remains of the house - just a couple fireplaces...

Paul and I at Nothing But Noodles.

The Ghost of Christmas Past (Part 3)

Paul and I had the opportunity to print some birthday invites for a friend of Paul's from work over Christmas break.

My Dad had these hats stitched up for us - Paul's says: Printer's Devil and mine says: Triple S Letterpress. You can see the green ink color on the ink disc on Preston behind me.

A bit of goofing off while the press was being cleaned for the second color.

One of my "new" cabinets was a bit unsteady on its feet. My Dad did an awesome job cleaning and restoring and reinforcing the cabinet. Paul even built a few new cases (type drawers) for a few of the empty slots.

40 finished invites: 5 hits of the opaque green, with blow drying in between each hit (the paper was super absobent) and then 1 of black. 1 hit on the matching envelope. Total time: 13 hours.

The Ghost of Christmas Past (Part 2)

This is an ornament Christin gave me ages ago in highschool.

And a little batty ornament.

Here are some more highlights of our wondrously nutty Christmas:

My Dad and I going incognito at Lowe's. (We did actually buy one of these buckets to put the live Christmas tree in.)

This is a doll that my Mom's Mom (Mimi) made for me long long ago. I can remember snuggling up to it on many a night. Mimi got sick and never was able to finish it. Poor kid had been partially bald for at least 15 year! She finally got the rest of her pretty blond yarn hair this Christmas!

Paul was a bit jealous so she said she would share - although she didn't really think blond was his color.

Ta Da! Isn't she cute?

Paul in his totally sweet Utilikilt. This was one of my big presents I got him. He didn't really say "I want a man-skirt for Christmas" he didn't even say that they were cool...but I thought they were pretty cool - Not to mention he's got some hunky-good looking legs and he can totally pull off a kilt with me hanging on his arm. (Just don't tell his Mom and Dad!) Go watch some of the Utilikilt Mockumercials - they are darn funny!

Here's my dad staring down Christmas super...

And here's his "Happy Plate."

And then there's the dog... in a pair of my clean underwear. Paul did it. They went directly into the dirty pile after this photo was taken.

My Dad at the Birmingham Museum of Art. We went to go see the Pompeii exhibit there. It was really spectacular. They had so much phenomenal jewelry and several walls of frescos. And then the plaster casts... very very eerie. But awesome! If you haven't seen it - I highly recommend going there. Its truly a once in a lifetime exhibit!

Here we begin the Alabama fried foods section:

This is the famous Mickey Mouse okra from Gibson's Bar-B-Que.

And then we have the Christmas ornament onion ring from Soul Burger.

Here you can see my Mom and Dad discussing the highlights of the Christmas ornament onion ring.

Look for both of these fantastic food icons on ebay very soon.

(Letterpress and New Years highlights coming soon to a post near you!)