Monthly Archives: December 2014

Happy New Year!!

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Wow! 2014 is almost over! This is our 12th blog post. It’s been fun!                                                     Today we thought we would share our Happy New Year! Banner, as well as our creative resolutions for 2015 (and beyond!).

HAPPY NEW YEAR! BANNER:      
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We made this banner using cardstock, stickers and curling ribbon. See previous blog posts for banner instructions. For this one, we threaded ribbon through the cards, rather than using clothespins. Fun and easy to make!

OUR CREATIVE RESOLUTIONS:                                                                                                              

Each New Year’s Eve, we like to come up with creativity-based resolutions for the upcoming year. Here are a few of our resolutions for 2015:

  • Paint and drawIMG_2960 (2)
  • Organize craft supplies
  • Keep better notes about craft ideas
  • Read more
  • Learn to sew better
  • Get a better camera
  • Finish ongoing projects
  • Listen to more music
  • Visit more art galleries and museums
  • See more movies, plays and concerts
  • Take classes
  • Look for inspiration in unusual places
  • Improve blog posts

 

DELICIOUS SANDWICH SUGGESTION:

A great way to enjoy leftover pot roast (Leftover pot roast? What is that?) is to put it on a grilled cheese sandwich. Take a slice of your warmed leftover pot roast (recipes for pot roast are easily found online), open up your grilled cheese sandwich, freshly made on large bread slices with your favorite cheese. Place the beef inside. Close the sandwich and put the whole thing back in the pan. Heat for 30 seconds or so on each side. Enjoy! We are having this New Years Day!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:  

“In the new year, may your right hand always be stretched out in friendship, but never in want.” From an Irish Toast – source: Quote Ocean

Finally, as we close out 2014, we wish you all

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and

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in the coming year! Happy 2015!

Roy & Kevin!

 

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Merry Christmas!!!

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We’ve really enjoyed creating these blog posts. Funny how writing a blog about creativity actually inspires the creative process and provides a great outlet for expression. It’s definitely been a positive experience.

Today, we are posting some photos from our previous Christmas blog entries. We’ve enjoyed sharing these with you this season. We also are including another one of the decorations we put up every year. And finally, we’re sharing a picture taken by Roy’s great niece Thalia of a festive craft project she did recently with her 4 and 1/2-year old son Taegan – very cute! Enjoy!

PICTURES FROM PREVIOUS POSTS

THE TREES: the angel tree, the tree with homemade wooden ornaments, the sports tree, the nutcracker tree, and our tomato cage tree craft project.

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THE TIPS                                                                                                                                                            Gift Bags and painted clothespins

 

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THE VIGNETTES:                                                                                                                                             Stuffed animals and hat shelf, animatronics, snowmen, desktop and bulletin board.

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A FEW MORE THINGS

PHOTO CARD WREATH

It’s great receiving annual photo Christmas cards from our family and friends. Each year, we clip them to this moose card wreath using the painted clothespins we featured earlier this month.

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REINDEER FOOTPRINT DECORATIONS

We love these decorations Roy’s great niece Thalia made with her son, Taegan.  Thalia saw them online (not sure which website) and created her own version. Her son enjoyed making them and putting paint on his feet. After she took this photo, she punched a hole at the top of each reindeer and hung the ornaments on her tree. They look great!  Kudos to Thalia and Taegan!  

Thanks so much for all the positive feedback we have received about our blog posts since we started it just before Halloween of this year.

We wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a creative New Year!

Roy & Kevin

 

 

A Little More Christmas…

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Christmas approaches! Here are a few things we hope you find of interest. Enjoy!

TREE OF THE WEEK                                                                                                                                         This blogs tree of the week (shown above) is very special. We inherited the tree from Kevin’s mom, Irene, who we passed in April. When we were helping to clean out her condo, prepping it for sale, we had put the tree in the pile of items to be discarded. She had owned it for a long time and she and others had found it to be quite difficult to assemble. We were taking it to the dumpster when we did an about face and brought it back to our car. We had decided to keep it. That was in June, and as the months went by, we thought about how we should decorate the tree – if we could manage to put it together. We decided an angel tree would be a fitting tribute to Irene, who had a special devotion to angels. When the time came to put up the tree, we happily found it relatively easy to assemble. We decorated it with angel ornaments collected through the years, some by Irene and others by us. A few hand-made angels we made years ago also made the cut. Irene’s manger is on the table to the left of the tree. Various angel decor, including a decoupaged plate we made for Irene, are displayed at the base of the tree. Keepsake angel Christmas cards attached to the curtain frame the tree. This tree brings back great memories and we are pleased to share it with you.

ADD SOME EXTRA STYLE TO YOUR GIFT BAG!

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Make a gift bag more special by replacing the original handle. Here’s how:

  • Choose a bag you like that is the right size for your gift.
  • Pick a bag that has handles that are tied on from the inside of the bag.
  • Remove the original cord by untying the knots.
  • Replace the cord with something more fancy or interesting, such as ribbon, rickrack or garland cut to the same size as the original cord.
  • Embellish with bows, gift tags, or whatever you like.

In our example (above right), we used a mesh gold ribbon. We added a matching bow for extra flair. An easy and inexpensive fix!

SHOW & TELL: OUR BULLETIN BOARD AND DESK SHELF

We don’t have a large tree this year (although we do have 9 smaller trees!!!), so we decided to decorate the bulletin board over our computer desk with some our of special ornaments. This works as long as the decorations have flat backs. We adorned the shelf with some of our character ornaments, along with a few other miscellaneous festive items. Books are staggered, suggesting a Christmas tree. Hectic, but fun!

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JOKE OF THE WEEK                                                                                                                                         Why was Santa’s little helper depressed?                                                                                             Because he had low elf esteem!                                                                                                               source: boyslife.com

HOLIDAYFACT                                                                                                                                             Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was actually conceived by Montgomery Ward department store as a sales gimmick to get kids to buy coloring books. The advertising folks almost didn’t give Rudolph a red nose because they were worried he would be perceived as a drunkard.                                      No drinking and flying Rudy!  source: ETonline

Thanks everyone – hope your holidays are Scrooge-free!

Roy and Kevin

Christmas Blog 2, The Celebration Continues!

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We have been decorating on and off all week. Today, we thought we would share a craft idea for our lighted indoor/outdoor trees made from tomato cages. We also present a couple of our holiday vignettes. And, of course, our Trees of the Week!

TREES IMG_2841 (2)OF THE WEEK                                                    IMG_2848 (2)                                    Here are a couple fun trees. On the left is the nutcracker tree which is filled with nutcracker ornaments, a couple of metal nutcrackers and of course, nuts! The tree on the right is our sports tree with various sports ornaments we have collected through the years.  GO Red Sox, Go Patriots, Go UCONN!

VIGNETTES

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IMG_2893 (2)Create a vignette by grouping like items together, or by creating little scenes with a variety of items that tell a story, or promote a theme. The photos on the left show our snowman vignette and our hat and stuffed animal vignette.

The animatronic vignette at the top of the page is one of our most special and definitely our most musical collection. We inherited many of these figures from Kevin’s mom, Irene, who passed away in April. She collected animatronics for every holiday and loved to play them for all her guests and the neighborhood children. They brought her a lot of joy. We gave her many of these and we are happy to share them with you.

TOMATO CAGE CHRISTMAS TREES

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DIRECTIONS FOR TOMATO CAGE CHRISTMAS TREES                                                                            

We grew tomatoes in buckets on our patio for the first time this summer. These christmas trees are made from the tomato cages we used. They add a fun sparkle on our patio, but would work either indoors or outdoors.

You will need: a cone-shaped tomato cage (ours measure about 3-feet tall), a set of 100-count indoor/outdoor holiday lights, twist ties, real or artificial greenery, tree decorations, indoor/outdoor extension cord length determined by your accessibilty to an outlet.

  • Clean tomato cage it if it has been used for gardening
  • Flip cage upside down and tie the tips of the cage with a twist tie (shown) to create the top of the tree.
  • Using the end opposite of the plug, start from the top and attach the lights to the cage.
  • Twist lights around the cage, trying to spread the lights evenly, and leave enough room at the end to reach the plug or the extension cord.
  • Fill the inside of the cage with greenery and adorn with ornaments, pinecones, tinsle or whatever you find festive!

GIFT TIP:                                                                                                                                                        Don’t forget the pets!  During the holidays, it’s nice to remember our 4-legged friends. Toys and treats can get the cats purring and the dog’s tails wagging. It also makes their owners happy!

JOKE OF THE WEEK:                                                                                                                                                Why does Santa have 3 gardens?                                                                                                   So he can Hoe Hoe Hoe!  source: xmasfun.com

CHRISTMAS FACT:                                                                                                                                      All the gifts mentioned in the song, “The 12 Days of Christmas”, would equal 364 presents! source: randomhistory.com

Thanks for following and sharing these blog posts. We appreciate your support.

Feliz Navidad!

Roy and Kevin

The Christmas season is here!!!

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Wow! The Christmas season is here! Seems like it was just summer and now Christmas is less then three weeks away. We’ve started decorating and working on our shopping lists. Here are some ideas we thought we would share with everyone.

 TREE OF THE WEEK:

We often have themes for the many trees which we decorate every year. This weeks tree (above) is an old prelit artificial tree my father, Bill Drew, had in his home for the last 10 years of his life. When he bought this tree and announced that this 3-foot tree was going to be the family Christmas tree, I wasn’t thrilled. Too small, not real, but it was my father’s home and he could do what he wanted. Time and circumstances have a way of changing things. Now that he’s gone, this tree is one of my favorite Christmas decorations. This year, the tree is trimmed with some of the wooden ornaments I made in my father’s workshop when I was in high school, many moons ago!

PAINTED CLOTHESPINS:

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We use clothespins for a lot of our holiday decorating. We painted a package of 60 using green and red acrylic paints. We use them to hang stockings, hats, lights, cards and other decorative items throughout our home.

 

GIFT TIPS!

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When choosing a gift, it is important to know something about your recipient. The more you know about them, the more you listen, the more equipped you will be to give them the perfect gift!

Here are some ideas on HOW TO KNOW YOUR GIFTEE:

  • Listen to them; if they say they like or want something, use that information when selecting a gift.
  • Know their favorite sports teams.
  • Find out what their hobbies are.
  • Use the internet to find out what they LIKE on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
  • What do they need? Is there something you can help them get?
  • Do they have new a computer, car or something else for which you can buy an accessory or fun item?
  • What are their dreams? Can you buy them something to help them achieve those goals?
  • What are their causes? Can you donate to that cause or buy something for them that helps them support it?
  • What is special to them? Perhaps a photo of a loved one, a special piece of jewelry, a special book.
  • Who are their favorite authors?
  • What music do they love? Who are their favorite bands?

JOKE OF THE WEEK:                                                                                                                                        What do you sing at a snowman’s birthday party? Freeze a jolly good fellow!                          (Source: Santa World )

HOLIDAY FACT:                                                                                                                                               Christmas wasn’t declared an official holiday in the U.S. until June 26, 1870.                            (Source: randomhistory.com)

Thanks for following, liking and sharing these blog entries!

Enjoy!

Roy & Kevin