The Angel Caper

I never come to the Christmas season without remembering the year we made angels which was many years ago.

As my teaching partner and I sat down to plan out our Christmas project for our two classrooms of third graders, one of us had seen this beautiful angel and we decided to tackle it!! It seemed doable, and fairly inexpensive since it was mostly made of things around the house.

We began collecting for our magnificent project!!

old sheets, doilies, odds and ends of trims, old panty hose

We supplied the cardboard needed, as well as the styrofoam heads and the spray paint. We also bought a large spool of white crinkle type paper ribbon.

Finally the day arrived to begin the project. Friday afternoons had been set aside for working on this project. Our mother helpers came to help. (We couldn't have done it without them!)

We began with our forms, which were made from cardboard half circles rolled into a round pyramid looking thing. That was the easy part. (as I look at the pictures, I forgot to add that the arms were taped to the cardboard form before the actual work began.)

Next.......each kid got a nice square of donated sheet...and then the fun began!!

We dipped the sheet pieces in buckets of Elmer's glue and water and squeezed it out, and began draping it over the cardboard form.

The mess was beyond description--oh! I forgot to say that we did it in the cafeteria and we had Joyce, our cook, breathing down our necks not to leave a mess!

Suddenly it was time for buses, so each kid took their wet, draped angel and we found places all over our rooms to sit them to dry. After the kids were on their buses, my teaching partner and I went back to the cafeteria and scrubbed tables, benches and floors, until it was spotless. We were quite afraid of our cook, whose bark was really worse than her bite, but we had a healthy respect for her.

Besides we were well brought up girls whose Mothers had taught us to clean up our messes!

We worked on these angels for several Fridays....

And one day it was time to spray paint them gold! We did that after the kids went home as that was more than third graders could have or would have, handled well!

The next Friday, we added the bows and a little Christmas bling, and they were complete....and truly works of art. No two were the same.

We looked at each other the day they took them home, all wrapped and ready to present to their families and said, "NEVER AGAIN!!!"


Then we began to run into future parents in the hallways, and they always stopped us and told us they could hardly wait until their child was in third grade as they loved the angels we had made!! Then we had to break it to them gently, that it was a one time project!!

Several years later I had a Holiday Craft Sale in my home and one of the things that I made was fourteen of those angels!! That was absolutely the last time I ever did angels! My two that I had made with the students hung around for many Christmas' until I gave them to my daughter, Tammy, when she got her first apartment about five year ago. I was happy to part with them and she loves them!!

Here they are as part of the mantle collection at my old house many years ago.

In counting backwards, I figure that we made these about twenty eight years ago! (No wonder I forgot they had arms!!)

I'm baaaaaaack.........with cards!!....

When I make a card, I always make six of them--one to keep, and the rest to send or make up into gift packages. I give a lot of my cards for hostess gifts, simple birthday gifts, and "just because". I have some plastic boxes which I buy here in town. They hold about 5 cards, and with a ribbon and a cute tag on it, it is a nice gift and most of my friends say they love getting them. I think they do.

Its been several weeks since I've done cards because of the cruise, Christmas, getting and sorting all of the cruise pictures, and getting them into albums. Now I'm ready to start doing cards again. I'm anxious to get back into it!!

This is the last card that I made...in November!!



This has been in my project drawer for

three months! I have to finish these before I will let myself go on to another card!

The rest of the cards I will just post with no verbage!! I would like to place them two to a line, but my machine will not let me do that. Good thing I am not paying for this space!


This card is made with folded papers--not stamps except for the greeting.

I was surprised to see the tripod legs showing up. They must have come into view when I was straightening the photos on iphoto. One of these days, I will get it all figured out!!

This bottom card is my all time favorite card I have ever made. I have made it half-sheet size for a 60th wedding anniversary. I do the greeting on the computer. The line down the middle of the card is actually an off white transparent ribbon behind the deep pink.

"For He has satisfied the thirsty soul,
And the hungry soul He has filled with what is good."
Psalm 107:9

Come.... make some cards with me!!

I love having people stop by and make cards. I am happy to share my supplies. Perhaps before we begin, I should give you a tour of my stamping, scrapping, office room where it all takes place!! Are you ready to see a "controlled messy place"?

Also you need to know this is the kind of blog I put on here when I don't have any blogs of substance ready to publish. (Working on some, though!)

To the left as you step into the room is a closet full of shelves which are loaded!! On the far left is the last shelf (wire) I sandwiched in to hold machines, small stuff in the drawers, ribbons, etc.

These shelves hold stamp sets, idea books, drawers for my 12 x 12 papers, boxes of sample cards, filed by set names and on and on and on.

The next one is the far end of the closet. These shelves were here when I bought this house and they have been wonderful for plastic storage units, which house my larger tools, equipment,
and games, because we use the craft table for some great times of games when the kids visit.

Here is the heart of creating--my work table which sits in the middle of the room. It always has the ink pad stand on it, as well as the pen set, and the daylite lamp. Please note my wonderful new paper cutter--never needs new blades, so I think it has paid for itself already!

Are you still with me? As you look to the right, there is my other work area--the computer and printer. You'll notice more stamp pads and two stamp sets which I haven't cut out yet!! My chair is on a 5 x 5 heavy plastic piece, which makes it easy to go from one work counter to another.

The other end of my office wall. My boom box is there for "easy" listening. I often listen to books on tape while I'm working. On my desk top are three card making containers, one for overflow of cards, one for envelopes, and one scrap box divided into colors.

And then two containers with my color coordinated paper (Stampin' Up) which match the stamp pads on my work table.

And last, under each end of the work table are my drawer sets which hold my punches, and all the little things I use often!

You need to know this all fits into a 10 x 11 room!

The tour is over, but you are welcome anytime you can drop by--I even fix lunch sometimes for my visitors!

My next blog will be some of my cards, and maybe a couple of pages from one or two of my albums. Don't hold your breath, as I have to either photo them or scan them in and that will take time, but eventually, I'm hoping to transfer all of my card samples onto iphoto instead of having boxes of them filling up space.

Thanks for stopping by. Do leave a comment--you can tell me how messy my room is, or ask me what is an old lady doing with a blog?, or any of the other things you think. I know people are stopping by as I have a counter, but few "talk" to me.

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do,
do it all for the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31

A New Project....

After seven plus years on a shelf in my office, today I decided to take on a project that my sister and I have talked about a dozen or more times. I'm going to do a cookbook from all of my Mom's recipe books!!
As you can see they have been well-used, have old scotch tape on them which has marred the pages, and what you cannot see is the love with which she prepared these recipes for the hundreds of people who dined at her table over the years.

There are two more books, which look the same. I found a recipe from the Baptist Ladies Society in Baker, Oregon in 1936. One of her books begins in 1950, another in 1972. She always wrote the source of her recipes and most were from other wonderful cooks in her family and circle of friends.

I will use her handwritten pages for backgrounds and type the recipes to make them more readable. I will be doing it on Blurb website.

It will be big project, but now that I've decided to do it, I'm excited to get started!

Here she is presiding over a Christmas Eve buffet at age 93 in her home.
"The most important things in your home are the people." (unknown)

We learned that lesson early on from a "master" who lived the "open heart, open home" principles all her life.

This cookbook will be a tribute to her--our Mom, our friend, our sweetie, our childrens' grandmother, and our grandchildrens' "GG" (great-grandmother). What a heritage she left us!!

A three day week-end means a visit from Molly.

Its been a "crafty" week-end so far. Molly and I went to a store for a book making project. If I can get the pictures on I will share with you what Molly's looks like. This afternoon we came home to Gram's craft room and made quite an exciting card with lots of folding. We might even share that with you.....if I can get it downloaded.



Well, I did it. Here is the "dahlia fold" card that we worked on this afternoon. It is made from 8 circles from double sided paper, and each circle is folded multiple times. The card isn't totally in the picture...but I got it on the blog!! I am so thankful to figure that out!!

Hang on---I think there are a few more to come!!  Here are Molly and this morning's book.

Molly has opened to the first page....

and continues to open.....
and continues to open (on the front side of the book)
She's opened some of the "nooks and crannys" that are part of the book.  I t will hold 20 to 25 pictures depending how one chooses to scrapbook it.

Pardon the background, but the work table is just in front of the closet full of my stamping sets, hence the busyness behind her!!

She choose some pictures from my Walgreen's  site where I have stored a lot of pictures in "albums".  We ordered them by computer about 2 hours ago and have already had an email from Walgreens that the pictures are ready to pick up!!  What a day and age we live in--choose 30 pictures, hit a button, they go by wire and come out pictures at the other end, and are printed within an hour!!  Too much for this old brain to comprehend.

So we are off to the drugstore to pick up our pictures for the next project which will be filling the book she made this morning and is showing all of you in the above pictures!!

I love my computer!!  Oh! by the way... my new one came on Thursday and I hooked it all up myself!!  (I've come a long way since I bought my first computer in 1990 and had one of my third grade student come over to help me  get started!)

Molly has one more project she wants to start and that is an album for brother Elliot. 

She's an ambitious little girlie!!  I love having her because we like a lot of the same things. 

Thanks for bearing with me as I practice these new skills of putting pictures on the machine!

I love, love, love having grandchildren!  I so often think of the verse "an  old man's  (or woman's)  delight is in his/her  children's children"

Until later.........