Busy Weekend!

This was one heck of a busy weekend for us! Unfortunately, I haven't gotten my photos uploaded to show you all the festitivies, but here's a quick rundown!

Friday night was the annual Realtor's Christmas Party. The meal was wonderful, and it's always nice to hang out with co-workers and others in the industry in a non-work environment.

Saturday was an early day working on the fundraiser for the preschool/daycare of which Mr. Kay is a chairman. Then, I spent the rest of the morning and afternoon sewing poodle skirts for the church Christmas program. I had to make four of them, and I am so glad they are done!

We had a wedding to attend on Saturday night. Very nice ceremony and a fabulous reception. Oh my word! The food was amazing!!! Lil' Kay and his cousin had a great time out on the dance floor.

Sunday involved church, Christmas program practice, a quick trip to Walmart and more program practice in the evening!

In between the major stuff, I managed to finish putting the ornaments on the tree and put out my snowman and Christmas plush collection. My goal is to post pictures of that stuff later on this week. We'll see....

Where my talent ends

gingerbread tree, originally uploaded by BeckyKay Designs.

I'm a crafty person. I make stuff. I come from a long line of crafters - quilters, seamstresses, tinkerers. When I was little, my mom used to decorate cakes. People paid her to make birthday cakes and wedding cakes.

Let me just say that I did not inherit the cake decorating gene. I am no good with frosting. Sunday afternoon, my mom, grandma, sister, sister-in-law and I all gathered around Mom's dining room table to make gingerbread houses and gingerbread trees. Mom bought the kits, and we were all set.

This is the third or fourth year we've done this. I've tried to do the houses. They look more like gingerbread shacks. So, I thought, "How hard can a tree be?" Silly girl.

Yes, that picture you see up above is supposed to be a Christmas tree. It kind of looks like a Christmas tree that got stuck in a Kansas windstorm and then had buckets of frosting dumped on top.

Ah, well, Lil Kay is happy with it, although I had to convince him that making a tree was way more fun than making a house. My sister said, "I thought your tree looked pretty good. Until I saw Heidi's!" (my sister-in-law) Yeah, thanks, Sis!

Black Friday Sale

Let's face it, as soon as you are done gorging yourself on turkey and mashed potatoes tomorrow, you're going to start thinking about the big after-Thanksgiving sales, right? Well, rather than torturing yourself by heading out to the local mall and department stores at the crack of dawn, why not plop down in front of the computer in your pj's and find some great on-line deals! Go over the The Little Black Box for a list of online handmade sellers who are hosting some fabulous Black Friday sales. You'll get a start on your holiday shopping, support indie artists and buy handmade! Does it get better than that?

I have been busily preparing for my own Black Friday Sale this weekend. My shop is fully stocked and I'll be adding a few more things tonight and tomorrow. The deals will run from Friday, November 28 through Monday, December 1.

I'm sure you're wondering what the deals are, right? Here it is - FREE shipping on every order! I don't care where you're located, the shipping will be FREE! And, every order over $15 will receive a FREE Itsy Bitsy Bag (my choice of fabric)!

So, stop on by my shop this weekend and buy a bag or two or three!

A story by Lil Kay

There is a neatly colored picture of a shark and some trees to go with this story. Not for the faint of heart! ;)

There are no houses in this picture, because there were no houses at this time. But there was something that was real in the deep blue sea. The waters of the ocean began to blow. Suddenly the world saw something it had never seen before. Suddenly it popped out of the ocean. It was a dog shark. It swam the vast ocean looking for people to eat. Suddenly the water made a big wave and banged into houses. The cars were driving on water and needed big boats to be protected from the shark, but the shark kept following them. They used arrows to kill the shark. They had to keep trying to kill the shark over and over. The shark followed them for infinity days, for three hundred days. The animals let everything go and went off everywhere. People found big wood to build house and they found infinity hay.

Christmas Ornaments

Christmas tree ornaments are one of my most favorite things. I have a huge collection and a big nine foot Christmas tree to display them on! (You should have seen us trying to get that 9 foot tree home from Hobby Lobby in the back of my car several years ago!)

Anyway, due to my affinity for ornaments, I was thrilled to sign up for the ornament exchange hosted by Beki of PamperingBeki. I send out an ornament; I get an ornament. Lovely! I received my exchange ornament in the mail yesterday. Isn't it gorgeous? I love the fact that it is two-sided. Right now, I have it hanging on my cabinet door. I'm hoping we will get the tree put up later on this week. I have quite the collection of ornaments piling up on my kitchen counter!

I had big plans to make a lovely needle felted ornament modeled after those gorgeous blown glass ornaments you sometimes see. I started on that ornament about a month ago. Maybe longer.

Well, I was supposed to have mailed out my ornament no later than yesterday. That didn't happen. The time totally snuck up on me. So, I was absolutely determined that I would finish my ornament this weekend, so I can mail it on Monday. I even finished the needle felted ornament, but decided that while it was good enough for my tree, I wasn't happy enough with it to mail it off to someone I'd never met. Instead, I started going through my stacks of craft books and magazines. In the Winter 2008 edition of Better Homes & Gardens' Quilts and More, I found a pattern for a cute little stocking ornament. I whipped that baby up and am so excited about how it turned out. I might even make more. I was especially proud of myself for actually completing a project from one of the dozens of craft magazines I purchase every year. And yes, it is already packed up and ready to ship to its intended recipient tomorrow! I'm only a couple days late on this! (I'm usually much better than this when it comes to swap deadlines!)

Happy Mail Day!

As kids, every year my mom would buy each of us a new ornament to add to our Christmas tree. When we left home, each of us had a big collection to take with us to decorate our own trees. I'm continuing the tradition with Lil' Kay. I try very hard to find an ornament that reflects his current interests. The last few years have been all about dinosaurs and sea life. When I found this ornament from bunny X productions, I was soooo excited! The little legs dangle and move, and it's done in Christmas colors! Holly arrived yesterday, and Lil' Kay was thrilled. I had to "encourage" him to be careful, as I was afraid he would break the ornament in his enthusiasm. The detail is amazing! I cannot wait to put this on the tree!
This crochet hook case from Good Karma came in the mail yesterday, too! This is actually a birthday gift for my mom. Shhhhh! I'm counting on the fact that she probably doesn't even know what a blog is, let alone that I have one! :) Besides, I kind of gave it away the other day when we were shopping and she was looking at a crochet hook case. I said, "Don't buy that!" Yeah, I'm pretty subtle sometimes...

Anyway, I love the case. Makes me wish I crochet so I could have one, too. I'm a bit of a sucker for organizers and I love the different fabric textures on this one. Can't wait to give it to Mom!
And, because Bren is a good person and sweet friend, she also sent me a couple of handmade reuseable produce bags. Actually, she's trying to convert me from my wasteful un-environmentally conscious ways. Sending me cute stuff to use is certainly a good tactic! I actually can't wait until the next time I need to buy fruit or vegetables so I can use them! You can get your own set in her shop.

Wii

So, we finally broke down and bought a Wii on Monday. I found them in stock at our local GameStop. (That place is actually pretty cool!) Let me admit, that this is my first video game system since the original Nintendo! Not much of a gamer.

Last night, I finally got Mr. Kay to set up the system, but not before we had gone out and spent another wad of cash on extra controllers and a couple games. Once it was all set up, Mr. Kay and Lil' Kay set about beating the crap out of each other using our new (used) Godzilla game. It's pretty funny to watch your 34 year old husband jumping up and down, flapping his arms trying to make a virtual monster fly! And, there's nothing more precious than hearing your five year old scream, "Stop trying to kill me!"

(And, I still haven't gotten to play with it...)