all buffy all the time

Yes, Christmas is over, but it took me this long to take photos of my Buffy swap ornaments.

There were 7 of us in the swap group, and I received 6 ornaments. Why is there always a delinquent? Hehe, whatever. It was still fun. Behold my lovely shrinky dinks, Xander nutcracker, Buffy's punching bag, grrr argh, and - my favorite - Buffy paper doll!

 

Here's the Spike ornament book I made for the swap.

about Kenny Loggins, Jesus and bad theater...

Seriously, just click here. Really. Truly.

playdough

While I was making the ugly cookies from yesterday, I also made playdough for the kids for Christmas. It turned out really nice - perfect playdough consistency. What more could a person want?

This one's cherry-scented with red food coloring. I have about 8 boxes of food coloring in my cupboard, and only 2 still had red. Now I have no red, which will be annoying next time I need it and think to myself, oh, there's plenty of food coloring in there, no need to buy any.

This one's chocolate-scented with red and green coloring, which will - hopefully - make brown when mixed. I decided to leave the playdough only partially mixed so the kids can do the mixing and watch the solid color appear. That's always fun. And educational. And is in no way related to the fact that I am too lazy to mix it myself.

Lousy photo, but you get the idea. How cute are these little containers? Also, my eh, 5 times the recipe ought to be about right calculation somehow managed to make exactly enough playdough to fill the exact number of containers that I needed. Not sure how that happened.

buffyfest ornaments

Why yes, I am a nerd! Here are the ornaments I made for the Buffyfest ornament swap. They're little books written by Andrew that tell the story of Spike.

Of course I will post photos of the ornaments I receive later. So far I've gotten some shrinky dinks ornaments that are so adorable!

This is my third swap with this group, and my first two were made of polymer clay. I'm not sure I can top these, though. And I'm not sure I should...

tree!

I got my tree late this year - two days after Thanksgiving instead of the day after... We always get the tree from the rotary club guys in Etown, because they're nice - the trees and the guys.

I went with simple aqua blue ornaments to go with my new(ish)ly painted kitchen. No, I didn't make them. They're KMart ornaments. But this can go under "I made this," right? Because I hung the ornaments. Right?

The cats really like the tree. And they want to eat my KMart ornaments.

what do you mean it's not time for christmas?

Collage cards made of cut-up used cards from previous years.

I find these very fun and therapeutic to make.

in a pizza treasury

Pizza penguin is in an etsy treasury. Treasuries on etsy can be "curated" by anyone with an etsy account, and basically they show a group of items that the maker enjoys. Often they have a theme (like pizza) or a color scheme. They're fun. I stopped making them when the system changed - there used to be a limited number - now there are gazillions of them. Still, they're fun to peruse. 

cards, lots

I made this.

I went simple with the cards this year, relatively speaking. I made a bunch in non-traditional colors and some cool black and whites. I'm itching to make more, but I have other things to do...

I'm in the process of uploading them to thepaperwhisperer on etsy.

life is just a bowl of, you know

I made this.

Cherries again this year, lots of them, about 300. They are supertasty and will be even better in another few weeks. I think the dollar store tins are adorable and really great deal. I used all Wilbur chocolate this year, milk and dark. I've got a bunch more things to make before Christmas, but some are perishable and need to wait until closer to the time. Some edible stuff, some not. I'm looking forward to making time to make things!

See the whole set of photos at flickr.

oh hey, it's thursday again

This week's EART blog ring topic is "wordless works in progress." So here it is - I'm working on holidays cards for 2010 so as not to be so far behind next year, and snark Valentines for thepaperwhisperer.

See what other EART bloggers have in the works. Continue with pnkgeeni.

xmas foods

My neighbor and I made peanut clusters and caramel apples while we were snowed in on Saturday. Had a great time!

Here are the apples wrapped. I didn't have any popsicle sticks, so we used plastic spoons with the spoon part broken off.

Then we did our wrapping. Behold the mess!

Then came Sunday and shoveling...

secret santa gift from hairbowswonderworld

Here's my secret santa gift from EART friend hairbowswonderworld. She cleverly made it so it could be a hairbow, brooch or ornament. Good thinking!

This is my favorite cool thing from her shop right now. Love the colors!

Rudolpho the Red-Beaked Penguin

There's still time to shop for Christmas!

For the girly girl

For the Glee fan

For the Firefly fan

For the crafter

For the humbug :)

Online Trunk Show Tonight

The EART etsy team of artists is having a virtual trunk show tonight, Monday 11/30/09, in the etsy virtual labs, in the SKY room - 7:00 PM Eastern time. About a dozen sellers will be showing their items for holiday gifting - cards, jewelry, knitting, polymer clay, all sorts of stuff! Everyone is invited.

the christians and the pagans

I've been listening to the Dar Williams song, The Christians and the Pagans, and thinking about the holiday season and how it's really OK that not everyone celebrates Christmas. Given the choice, I probably wouldn't. But we all do stuff to keep the family peace, don't we? And of course there's not much work for a choral musician who doesn't do Christmas! Anyway, as generally non-religious as I am, I am somewhat fascinated by the history of holidays and the transplantation of Christian holidays on top of pagan ones.

These are goddess pendants. Could be put on necklaces, hung as ornaments or just kept as little talismans, perhaps a reminder of everything women do to keep the world turning, especially during holidays seasons!

More goddesses here.

speaking of whatever...

I've re-opened my card shop on etsy, thepaperwhisperer. I'm starting with holiday humor - simple designs, large attitude.

I'm not a huge fan of Christmas, or holidays in general. Some years I get into it a bit, some years not. This year I'm making lots of cards. The nice collage ones recycled from old cards are at my main shop, and these are getting their own home.

Perfect greetings to keep in touch at the holidays even if you're not a fan. Or just to make someone laugh.

Bah Humbug.

EART blog ring: holiday specials!

The Thursday EART question of the week is: Do you have any good sales/deals coming up for holiday shoppers?




My recycled holiday cards are a great deal at only $2 each because they're made of old greeting cards and leftover card stock from a wedding. Good deal!

Another good deal to consider is shipping. In my etsy shop, you pay shipping on the first item only, and after that there's no extra charge no matter how many items you buy. Shipping can really drive up costs, so... good deal!

Continue through the blog ring to find sales and holiday specials from other Electic Artisans Team members. Next up - PnkGeeni.

Happy Holiday Shopping!

Already?

Yep, already. It's time for holiday cards. This year, I'm making recycled collage cards out of used cards from holidays past.



Mostly the cards are turning out colorful and cute, but occasionally they lean toward elegant - depends whether I'm at the country craft snowmen or the nature scene section of the old cards pile.



The cards are being uploaded to my etsy shop over the next several days.

Thursday EART blog ring: Holiday Planning

The question for this week's EART blog ring is How far in advance do you start planning for holidays?



Well, my answer is NEVER FAR ENOUGH!



Seriously, I always wish I'd started sooner. Usually I only make stuff for two holidays - Halloween and Christmas. Ideally, I'd like to be planning and creating about 8 months in advance. I'll let you know when that starts happening...

Usually, I'm cramming at the last minute. But this year I'm doing a bit better. I had Halloween stuff made and in my etsy shop by the middle of September, and now, beginning of November, I have most of my Christmas cards and gifty items ready to post. When my Halloween destash sale is over this Friday I will start listing for the holidays. We'll see what happens.
To see more responses to this Thursday's question, continue reading at PNKGeeni's blog.