Losing our Heads...

This came on the front of an envelope from United Airlines, advertising their Mileage Plus credit card. I didn't trim the heads from these people. That's the way they were drawn. I'm not sure what the point is. If I sign up for this credit card will I have so much fun on the trip I go on with my frequent flier miles that I'll lose my head? These people seem not only to have lost their heads, but their entire upper bodies!

Lest you think this is some strange ad campaign, let me show you a stamp company that has designed its entire line around this phenomenon of headlessness.

My Favorite Things has at least 8 sets that feature headless people, mostly women, doing a variety of things. If you like these sets, let me know why. I just don't get it.

	Product Name+	Price	Buy Now
	Baby it's Cold Outside	$9.00
	Back to School	$9.00
	By the Seashore	$9.00
	Hit the Beach	$9.00
	Hot Stuff	$9.00
	How Sweet It Is	$9.00
	Shower Time	$9.00
	Think Pink	$9.00

Update

Some of you have inquired how I'm doing with my quest to keep things from spiraling out of control and making me crazy during this season that's supposed to be a remembrance of personal peace that Jesus' birth brought. Well, the progressive dinner is behind us, and the service project we were supposed to participate in this coming Saturday has been postponed, and the event we thought was on the calendar for the 15th is also no longer filling that evening! That just leaves Michael's piano recital this Saturday afternoon, and my part--the purchasing of khaki pants and dress shoes--is checked off. Yes, I think that means we'll be putting up a tree.

Overall, I'm feeling better, and I'm thankful for all of you who have offered your encouraging words of support and perspective. I read something last night from a collection of Christmas reflections that stopped me "dead in my tracks":

The author writes, "I looked at the nativity scene and realized that a baby born in a stable 2000 years ago was a person who still walks with us today, making his presence known, working to bring us through the difficulties of life, if only we let Him." Christ has been making his presence known to me and working quietly to bring me to a different place, and He's willing to do that more, if I'll let Him.

I worked non-coverage at Starbucks yesterday, and that meant that I had cleaning tasks to perform for 4 hours! Yes, there's an exclamation point behind that sentence because my mom nurtured a love of cleanliness and order in my formative years, and I actually enjoy doing that kind of thing. I cleaned out the milk refrigerators, scrubbed drains, and cleaned underneath shelving. Lest you think I'm insane, I assure you I take more pleasure doing this kind of thing at some place other than my own abode! Great sense of accomplishment, though, even knowing that it'll be dirty by the time I go in today.

Bob had rehearsal last night, so I fixed Michael and I an early dinner and spent the evening in the craft room. It took much longer than I anticipated to finish these off with an initial for each person, but the result is well worth the effort!

This first set is western-themed, using SU!'s Outlaw paper. LOVE that stuff!! Such a departure for me, but really fun. I have pictures of the insides of each of these, but didn't want to overwhelm you with photos. Let me know if you'd like to see them and I'll post them.

The next group was made using SU!'s Cutie Pie dp, and that's fun to work with too!

I really enjoy the soothing color combination of baby blue and celery green, and the whimsy that the dotted pattern brought to these.

The letters were made using SU!'s lower simon chipboard collection. If the world was perfect, I'd have multiple sets of these and could've used the actual letters for each one, but with 4 "k"s to make, that wasn't going to happen! So I cut each letter out once from designer paper that coordinated with the cover, then I traced the letter again on thin cardboard and cut it out. The ribbon was from my stash, but it's all SU! product, again a testament to how the company makes me look professional by taking all the guesswork out of pairing colors!

I had a friend send me a card, letting me know that she was linking arms with me and we were walking together, and that's how I feel about you! Thanks for walking with me.

Becoming a Better Sharer

My family will be the first to tell you that I'm not a very good sharer. Since they are the ones who know me best, trust them. One person I've met this past year who IS a good sharer is Amy Westerman. She has a blog called Heartfelt Greetings, and one day I saw this post and loved the holly image! Amy and I are both in the position where we need to watch our stamping spending, so I wrote her to ask if she might be willing to swap something--several images of that holly for 1 lb. of Starbucks coffee. She agreed, and this came in my mail several days ago:

She sent me the card AND the images! I have to be at work at 11:30 this morning, so I knew I had a little more time than usual to play, so I got busy after I got back from taking Michael to school.

Amy's a master at pairing and incorporating designer paper into her card layouts, so I knew my card needed to have some of that. Amy had included several pieces of dp that had been stamped with just the vase image, so I started there.

I love how cool things can happen if you just let your sense of design take you where it wants to go. I started by coloring in the dots on some red and vanilla dp, and using Old Olive as a base. After I played with some strips of dp for awhile and getting those the way I wanted them (Amy had posted a layout from PageMaps yesterday, and that was floating around in my head), I started working on the main image.

I colored it, put the pieced vase on it, and popped it up on dimensionals. Then I decided it needed a little shimmer (notice that Amy's has golden shimmer goin' on, thanks to a gold pen), so I added gold eyelets. Then I thought I'd thread some gold thread through those eyelets. No, what about that lovely Old Olive narrow organdy ribbon? OK. As I did the first threading, the ribbon folded itself in half, and so then I had to do it through all 4 like that!

I tacked the ribbon down on the back to hold it where I wanted it, and this is what that looked like! I used sticky strip instead of mono adhesive, partly because I'm out of mono, and partly because past experience has taught me that ribbon doesn't stick as well to that!

It was coming together, but it needed more bling, so I added SU!'s gold elastic cord around the neck of the vase and inbetween the dp strips, securing each of the latter with a glue dot for easy tying.

Here's my finished product, and I couldn't be happier! Stamping nourished my spirit this morning, and I needed that therapeutic touch today. Thanks, Amy, for being so generous! You blessed my life today.

I'm going to make an effort to share something today, if at all possible, and I challenge you to do the same!

Why I'm Exhausted by the Holiday Season--Part 1

Just wanted to give you an update on the weekend. Not that you probably care very much how I spent my time, unless there was some cardmaking involved (and there was, so hang on or skip to the pictures), but I offer this treatise on why the holidays exhaust me.

I started yesterday at 5am, because I worked the opening shift at Starbucks, and I have to be there at 6 to get all the pastries on their trays. (The shift supervisor makes the coffee, in case you're wondering.) I worked 6 hours and drove home.

Once I arrived home, I joined work that had begun in earnest the night before and had continued in my absence to get our house cleaned and decorated (inside AND out--i.e. lights on the bushes and eaves) for the 12 progressive dinner guests who were progressing to our place at 7 for the main course. Why I glibly volunteered to host this I'm not sure, but obviously I did so because I thought I could handle it. How hard could it be? It wasn't hard, but I didn't factor in all the non-food prep related work involved in agreeing to host! In the middle of the prep, which tremendous stupendous most fabulous husband did a TON of (including washing the floors in strategic spots)before I got home from working, things seemed in hand, so I snuck off to the craft room to embark on a small project: making these mini notebooks as a sort of favor for the ladies who were participating in the evening.

Beautiful, aren't they? I certainly thought so as they came together over the course of 2 hours. More on those later.

I left these on my desk about 5 to make the main side dish for our main course, which was beef tenderloin. Bob was in charge of the meat, and it was FABULOUS!! I am not a big fan of beef, but this was so tender and moist, it was amazing. The side dish went together smoothly, I trimmed the asparagus while Bob sauted the mushrooms, I warmed the gravy, and we pulled the meat from the oven in the nick of time (another story).

The basement looked like this after I'd lit the candles, so I went to shower with 15 min. to go before the guests were due to arrive from the first house.

Everything went off without a hitch--even the asparagus was perfectly cooked!--and everyone complimented us on our home and our efforts on the meal. Everyone brought their dishes upstairs, I loaded them in the dishwasher, and happily trotted next door for dessert.

It wasn't until around midnight, when I was finishing up washing the last of the pots and pans, that I realized that the notebooks I'd made were still sitting on my craft table.

I was so bummed! I'd spent two hours working on them, creating cool details like the controlled glitter and embossed snowflakes.

This is why the holidays exhaust me. We go to all the effort to get the decorations in place, to present a perfectly picked up home, to make cookies for the neighbors, to serve at a shelter, to send Christmas cards, to buy and wrap gifts, etc. ad infinitum. WHY? So that we can prove how insane we are, how proud we are of our ability to work ourselves silly?

I went to all that effort because I wanted to bless these ladies with a little handcrafted nicety from me, and because I exhausted and distracted, they got lost in the shuffle. I want to find a way to do less this Christmas, because LESS IS MORE. I didn't do that yesterday, and something I really wanted to make happen didn't. I don't want that to happen the rest of this month, so I'm going to make a concerted effort to focus on what's really important and let some other things go.

Now I have to decide if I should try to deliver the notebooks or not. Would I just explain in a note what they were originally intended for? I'm overthinking this, probably, which is why I am off to nap now. If you've read all the way to this point, I want to hear from you. What should I do to do LESS this Christmas? What are YOU going to do so that the frenzy doesn't consume your special season?