Christmas Decorations for the Party

We had a very successful party again this year. Everyone made beautiful wreaths and no one got burned from my high-powered Dewalt glue guns except me.

Everyone helps with the party, even Lynn from Montana and my sister, Jo Ann, from Utah. Here are their contributions this year. Both Jo Ann and Lynn knew that the theme this year was a red and white Scandinavian Christmas theme. It was a delightful surprise to get these in the mail the week before the party.

Lynn sent me this beautiful set of felt birds which I strung on fishing line to go over the FOOD table - the most important table of the party. I never manage to take a picture of the food on display because I am usually pretty stressed right before the party.

Jo Ann cross stitched these ornaments for me. The reindeer and the snowflake ornaments were hanging on my mirror in the living room. The tree ornament was on the tree.

I will post some photos from the party and then I think I will write a post about hosting a wreath making party. That will follow in a the next week or two.

Wreath Making Party Information

Ok, finally I'm getting around telling people a little bit about the party as it's not your typical party. I think I've hosted the wreath making party 3 times in the past.

Basically, the supplies for the wreaths are all here. I've got greenery, wreath forms, various ornaments, many colors of ribbon and 5000 felt balls from Nepal for the wreaths. You don't have to bring anything for the wreath UNLESS you have a very specific theme or idea in mind, then you would need to bring the decorations for your specific theme you want to add to the wreath.

I also will have a pretty complete spread of food - sandwiches, dips and chips, chocolate chip cookies and one other dessert (haven't decided what yet), pasta salad, fruit salad, soft drinks including some beer and wine. If you have a special dish you would like to share, please bring that, but you don't have to bring any food. I think there will be plenty as I tend to overdo things.

The real challenge for the party is parking. My neighbor is the Duncan Chapel fire chief and he has to go out on every call his station gets. We have to leave his driveway readily accessible to allow him to get in and out easily. We may have you park at my brother's new house around the corner and have him drive you here or perhaps park and Publix at the intersection of Poinsett Highway and Old Buncombe Rd and pick you up. I'll post more details later.

It's a fun, creative party. I think you will have fun. I hope to see you here.

Wreath Making Invitations

I finally decided on what to do for the invitations for the wreath making party.

Here are the major components - a little package of candy, the written invitation and little stockings to hold the candy. Finally - one week before the party, I am mailing them out. I have been telling everyone about the party though. I don't think it will come as a surprise to anyone.

Ok, So the House is done, Now What?

Yes, we basically finished John's house. I need to spend more hours underneath the house taping the air barrier better. We need to paint the outside, but the house is livable and John is very happy and comfortable. It is living up to expectations so far. His power bill the last month the we worked on it where we had constant air conditioning and power tools running was $58, I think. One morning as he left, the temp was 68F inside the house and going into the 80's outside that day, he meant to turn the air conditioning, but forgot. When he got home the temperature inside was 70. He would have set the AC on 72. Nice. The house holds the temperature very well. 

It is extremely sturdy and quiet. John keeps hearing noises that have been bothering him a little bit, but he thinks it's the refrigerator as nothing else makes any noise in the house. 

The housewarming party was a great success. I didn't take any photos as I was talking to everyone. 

Anyway, what is next? My house and Kathy's house. I have had a Christmas wreath-making party 3 times in the past, but skipped last year since John was living in my basement and we were busy working on his house.  I think the wreath-making party is a really fun way to start the season. I'd like to get some stuff ready at my house so it looks really festive for the party. But there are some obstacles and challenges in my home. Or in other words, some real problem areas. 

For starters, I didn't have a light that worked in the kitchen for years. There was an ugly boob light that just wouldn't work. I thought the problem was the 2-way switch, but apparently it was the light itself. Rich (my brother-in-law) switched out the light for this one. It really works, but as you can see it exposes another problem - old cracked plaster on the ceiling that desperately needs to be patched and painted. 

Kitchen light challenge

Next, when I worked on my house and had it covered with a layer of polyiso foam and re-sided, I that the brick stairway redone to match the house. Only problem - they did a terrible job. They used slate that is too thin for steps and not adhered well. Danger. Danger. I don't really know how to fix this problem by the time of the party. We've got to something though.

Front steps challenge

This is the back wall of my basement. I think I have solved the water problems in the basement by grading that area and a french drain in the backyard, but until John moved out I was unable to see how moldy it is. We'll scrub the walls, then repaint.

Basement wall challenge

My basement stairs are covered with this horrible green vinyl stuff. I was driving me crazy so I started peeling it off. I will probably only be able to do the landing and not the whole stairway as that would probably be too time consuming, but I think I can make the landing look much better. (Almost all of my photos are iPhone photos, but this is a particularly poor photo. Still you get the idea.)

Basement stair landing challenge

When John lived in my basement he refused to leave that bathroom door open despite the serious mold and humidity problems. The ceiling was solid mold. What you see below is the bathroom fan and ceiling AFTER scrubbing the ceiling. Needs lots more work. That bathroom will be gutted and redone sometime in the future (the future to me is 3-5 years, I kind of work on the slow renovation schedule).

Basement bath fan challenge

And this is the shower ceiling after I spend days cleaning the shower itself. I think what happened here is that someone added a bathroom light under an aluminum false ceiling. It has seriously corroded over time. I'm going to sand it and repaint it, but not take it down yet. I've got to do something with the upstairs bathroom pretty soon so I need this shower, but I would like it to be much more pleasant before I use it.

Basement shower challenge

The other  serious problem areas are replacing the upstairs bathroom tub and tile around it and then uncluttering my porch and back bedroom. I find uncluttering harder to do that scrubbing walls or sanding floors. 

Thank you for taking time to look at this little blog. I hope you are doing well. 

Decorations for the Party - Medallions, Lots of Medallions

More photos of some decorations we made this year.

My sister helped me make them and Lynn hung them from the curtain rod and the greenery. They spiral around and really intrigue the cats. Sonny loves to climb the curtains and try to attack the medallions. All were made with the help of the scoring board and the edge punches from Martha Stewart. Very fun.

Jo Ann and Rich made me a rustic gingerbread cabin for my party. I had to spray the crackers with bitter apple so the cats wouldn't lick the salt off the crackers. The problem with that? When I was finishing up some  details on the house, adding more snow and such, I kept licking my fingers and tasting the bitter apple, yuck.

One of these days I will learn to use my camera better so you can see things better.

More from the Wreath party

Here are some more photos from the wreath-making party.

Beth did a spectacular wreath matching the bow and the holly along with the metal star in the center.

Lauren always comes to the party and works very hard on her wreaths. It is beautiful as always. She is very talented and creative.

Kelli and her mother show their wreaths. They both made large square wreaths which I love. They made it home safely after having a flat in my driveway. 

Alison and Pressley at the photo booth. Pressley always makes a wreath for one of her teachers.  I think she gets brownie points that way. I did not how seriously funny she is until this year. The Target dog is just hitching a ride on the wreath, not a part of the wreath. 

Those are most of my photos. Alison has a lot of photos from the second night of the party. I will try to get more photos soon. Take care everybody.

Continuing the Woodland Theme - Fox Gift Card, Christmas Banners

I am sending someone a gift card that I decorated with a cool fox puppet designed by Randi of Swoon! She has a ton of cool downloads, some directly on her website and some on an educational website called Playful Learning.

The fox puppet is available at this page on Playful Learning.

I attached the fox to the paper with the brads and I really like how the fox holds the gift. I used Martha Stewart scrapbook paper as the background. I am hoping it will fit in the 11.5" x 14" photo mailer with just a tiny trim.

I made a Merry Christmas banner in shades of greens and browns. It looked very pretty with the greenery above.

This is the center of the "MERRY CHRISTMAS" banner. We didn't exactly center the deer on the medallion, but it still looks good. My sister and I found the deer online, printed it on cardstock and glittered the antlers.

Here's some of the letters of the "MERRY CHRISTMAS" part. The letters were downloaded from Martha Stewart's website clip art - Festive Garland. We colored the letters with a magic marker and glittered the edges with gold then glued it to a scalloped circle then glued to the medallion. The medallions were made using the scoring board which is seriously fun to use.

I hope you are enjoying your holidays.

It's about time

The wreath-making parties are over. And here are some of the results. People did a beautiful job this year as they do every year. Since I am having trouble writing posts for my blog (largely because of fatigue), I'm going to show a few at a time.

These two photos might be called the grandchild edition - Karen with her grandchild, Jordan and BJ, the youngest of Ada's grandchildren.

Karen and Jordan

BJ charming my friend Lynn. You can see where someone kissed him on the cheek.

I'm off tomorrow so I hope to post more then.

Wreath Making Party FAQ 2012

Here are the most common questions about the party.

1. What is a wreath-making party?

Obviously we are going to make wreaths for Christmas. I decided to do this because I noticed one year that the holly trees around my house were heavily laden with berries. I thought it would be fun to make wreaths with them. The party was successful. For some reason I wasn't able to host a party the next year, but we did have one last year. That's why it's the "almost" annual wreath-making party.

I've gotten better at figuring out the materials needed for making wreaths. The most helpful item is a "Soft Touch" wreath form where you lay down the greenery for the wreath and close the clamps that are attached to the form. Very easy. You don't have to wrap wire round and round anymore. I buy them wholesale from a wreath company in Maine, Kelco industries. Yes, the forms are probably made in China.

I have all the materials needed. If you want to make a special wreath like "Baby's First Christmas Wreath" then you would need to bring the decorations to do that. I've got ribbon, bows, pine cones of all sizes, glass balls that I buy on sale (and Wendy donated some as well. Thank you, Wendy.), etc. etc.

John cuts some Frazier fir trees for me that really helps with the greenery. Thank you, John .

Mendy taught me the basics of making fancy bows. Hers are still the best, but mine are at least adequate now. Thank you, Mendy.

2. What if I am working the day of the party? What day do I come to the party?

Sometimes people don't notice it, but I host the party on 2 different days - Sunday December 2nd AND Monday December 3rd. I do that because we work in the ER and it is impossible to pick a day where everyone can attend.

Come on whichever day works out the best for you. I just hope are are able to come on one of the days because  we do have fun.

3. What do I need to bring?

You can bring an unwrapped toy that we will donate to either our Head Start class that we are adopting or to Toys for Tots or Country Santa.

You don't have to bring any supplies or food. I will have everything you need to make a wreath and lots of good food. I am not good at picking out wines so if you would like some wine to fuel your creativity, you could bring a bottle, but you don't have to. I'm kind of beer kind of girl. I drink one every other month or so. I'll have some Coronas with limes.

My brother-in-law, Rich, and my sister will be here next week. Rich is a genius with food. He will help make up some of the food we will serve. Also, Lynn, my friend from Montana will be here the week of the party. She will help with food as well. She's also a great cook. For Kristin I always make my pasta salad.

4. Where are the directions to the party?

I will put up some copies of the maps at work. You can always call me for directions if needed.

5. What about parking?

Yes, parking may be a problem. My neighbor is the Duncan Chapel fire chief. He has to go out on every call that his fire station makes. We cannot block his driveway. I will put up some traffic cones to make sure no one parks in such a way to make it difficult for him to exit.

My younger brother lives just around the corner. We may do parking overflow there and shuttle people to my house.

Try to carpool if you can.

6. May I bring my children to the party?

In the 2 years I have had the party, kids have done really well. Some of the most beautiful wreaths have been made by kids.

The scary age group to me are the 2 year olds. I worry about them ingesting some Christmas bauble, fossilized cat food, or worse, fossilized cat poo. If you as a parent can handle it, you know I love kids. I just think it might be hard to watch the child and exercise your creative craftiness. Childproofing is not my skill really. I am pretty good at catproofing though.

7. What if I have cat allergies? 

I vacuum like an OCD clean freak before the party, but it doesn't really matter. Cat dander is everywhere. Use your flonase, benadryl, zyrtec, or whatever allergy medicine you prefer, religiously before the party.

8. What if I have other questions?

Call me, I can post more information if someone has a question that others might wonder about.

Why my Bernina has a dull needle

Note: This topic is not green-related. It is GREENERY-related though.

I'm working on invitations to my wreath-making party which will be held on December 2nd and 3rd. Two nights so the people the people at work can attend either night.

Last year the invitations pretty much took a month to make. I just could not do that this year as I am way behind in my Net Zero Energy Class, working on my home, fixing some stuff at Kathy's house, and planning for John's new house. I tried several ideas for invitations and just didn't like any of them until I came up with this. I did the same thing last year when we gave gift cards to the teachers at the Head Start school that the ER has adopted.

Invitation wallets. I've sewed about 65 of them in my favorite Christmas scrapbook papers.

So the Bernina is being used again to sew PAPER, not beautiful fabrics as she deserves, but PAPER. i have had fun doing it though, partly because I'm so happy I have a relatively easy design for the party invitations. You may recall that the idea for these cards came from a craft blog called Just Something I Made. Cathe, the author of this blog has great ideas and she loves paper just like I do.

Sunny went to the vet to get spayed. She did not do well afterwards; she developed a fever up to 105.4 and felt awful. She had to be on antibiotics and no one knew why she got sick so fast. I was seriously worried about her. I thought it might take awhile for her to get back to her normal self.

Nope.

She's back to her wild child self, running up and doing blitz attacks on the cats that outweigh her by a factor of 3, dumping out the food bowls and scattering the food all over the kitchen, sneaking through any open door to get into anything possible. She's back alright. I just adore this kitty.

Wreath Parties #3 and 4.

Well, the final wreath party is done. I had planned having 2 parties on consecutive nights to make it "easier" on me and so everyone where I work would be able to attend. We work 24/7 so whoever works Mondays is almost always off on Tuesdays. It wasn't really easier on me because I worked a 12 hour day shift the day before the parties and the day after. That's was a scheduling faux pax that I will not repeat. 


Anyway, several people weren't able to come so I had "make-up" wreath parties - one with my friend Mendy and one with Ada and Dawn and their kids. Here are some photos from the last 2 parties.  You've already seen Mendy's wreaths. 

Mendy's front door wreath

Mendy's back door wreath

Mendy's mom wreath

For my friend, Karen who could not make it to the party. 

Ada's grandkids - Skye, Asaiah and BJ on the floor in the porch

Ja'Kobe with his wreath, I never spell his name right. He has a lot of personality as do all the grandkids. 

Asaiah with her wreath and her cousin, BJ. I also make an appearance in the mirror. Somehow I am very good at taking shots of myself in the mirror. 

Tiffany looking beautifully color-coordinated with her wreath. 

Dawn's kids are very quiet and were diligently working on their wreaths so I did not get a photo of their creations. They also made a little basket with a "Charlie Brown" tree in it. Very cute.

Finally, The Wreaths! Part 1

Ok, this is not the big reveal because I don't have photos of many of the wreaths, but this gives you an idea of what is made at a wreath-making party.


It's not really designed to be a party for kids, but the kids who did attend were great at the party and came up with great designs. And if they didn't make a wreath, they were very entertaining anyway.

This is Elysia posing with her wreath. She was a very enthusiastic participant.

Group photo of the first night party.

Luke did not want to leave the party. 

Casey and Cooper evaluating her wreath. Luke, Audrey Ann and Emma Kate posing for the camera.

Sara's turn to show off her artistry.

Sara's wreath at home. You can tell she is proud of it as she should be.

Zachary's wreath.  

Ryne's wreath. I hope I spelled his name right.

Cindy is a big Clemson fan and always has this tiger on her door. She designed her wreath to go around the tiger. I think it is beautiful.

Mendy makes most of the bows for me. She wasn't able to attend the official party so we got together on a Saturday to make some wreaths. Mendy made 3 of them that day.

I made a wreath which I mailed to my sister for her birthday.

I also spray-painted some magnolia leaves gold and bronze hoping that they will last more than one Christmas. We'll see. 

My brother was the official wreath photographer. I have not yet received his photos yet. That will be part 2. 

Thank you everybody for making the party a success.