Remember the plain black glitter ornaments that I took Frosted Lace Stickles and added the polka dots.

I finished it off with a little red netting.  This will help when you put it on a green tree to show up.

Take a look at what is in the back ground.

I got these black mat finish ornaments at HL for 1/2 price and that equals out to something like $2.00.  The only problem I had with them is the hanger was gold and not silver.

They are also a little plain.

First, silver alchohol inks mixers and the gold tone turns to silver.  The item they are sitting in is a piece of foam board that some brads came on and I saved it to use for just this type of thing.  Pretty handy! 

To add a little glitz to these plain ornaments I started by adding a silver boarder sticker and then I used my Zig pen glue and drew a line and added some very fine white glitter.

I added a couple of more rings that you can see in a later photo.

I did discover through the process of decorating the remaining ornaments that a double sided tape is better to use to glue on glitter or German Glass.  Because the ornaments are round the tape needs to be split and over lapped to go around the circumference smoothly.  If you are going around the ornament vertically, you will need to cut a little slit on the piece of tape that is sticking up and then press it down.  Once glittered you won’t see it.

Here are the final results (click on the picture to enlarge it).  The red and silver is German Glass and I used a silver rope and silver beads (the silver beads are strung together).  Love the look for my new tree and color scheme.  Luckily I had several widths of double sided tape to get the various looks.  Also, on the silver beads I used glossy accent to hold them in place and my heat gun to speed the drying.  Be careful though and hold the heat gun far away, the heat will bust the ornament if it is glass.

I also used “Dazzles” from PW to dress up some of the ornaments.  The tip here is to make sure the medallion is not too large.  Because the ornament is round I also had to snip some places on the medallion to help it lay down flat.

 Happy Thanksgiving everyone and as soon as I get my tree up and my mantel decorated I’ll share the folders.  PS, don’t forget that M’s is having a big sale starting at 5:00PM on Thursday.  Circut Carts on mega sale.

Let’s finish this project up.  I found a label that I like the design to use as part of the embellishments for the banner.  The important thing to remember is to measure your tallest letter of the word you are going to be putting on the pendant.  I didn’t want to use a medallion because I wanted something a little more traditional and I felt a medallion would feel more whimsical.

Since I was doing believe the “b” and ‘l” were the two letters I needed to be sure the label was big enough.  I could have cut out my letters by the same manner I cut the pendants; however, my daughter provided me with the red glitter letters and it saved me some time.

I’m using Silver German Glass to outline both the pendants and the labels.  This Silver German Glass will tarnish over the years and make this take on an antique and old world feel.

One of the easiest ways I’ve found of gluing German Glass onto an object is using coffee filters.  I pour the glass in the filter and then use my Zig glue pen and run a line of glue around the edge.  I dip the edge of the item into the German Glass and use the filter to manipulate the glass up over and onto the edge of the item.  The trick here is to glue a little and then dip, glue a little and then dip.

One of my pet peeves is running out of things while I’m trying to make a project.  Unfortunately, I ran out of adhesive black foam.  So in a pinch you can use whatever color you have and then use a Sharpie or marks-a-lot to color the dimensional.

This is messy, but luckily soap and water takes it off.  I did discover having the right color and not having to color white ones would have taken a lot less time.  Since I use adhesive foam it takes two squares or two circles to give it enough height off the pendant or label.   So, adhesive black foam went on my supply list.  Whew!

Here we are the pendant has been edged with the Silver German Glass, the label has been edged with Silver German Glass and then the label is lifted off the pendant and then the letter is lifted off the label.

Here is the finish product.  I pulled out all of my Santa’s and set everything up.  I need to get a better piece of material to run under the Santa’s but I hope this inspires you to try making a pendant for your home, office, school or church.

The buffet the Santa’s are sitting are is exactly like one my Mother had when I was a little girl.  I found it on an anniversary trip and Red made sure I bought it.  Love you sweetie!

I try to add one Santa to my collection each year.  I’m really picky about them so most people don’t give me a Santa for my collection.  They have to be very unique or a good story behind them.

Happy Thanksgiving!!  I’m sure I’m going to be slow in posting again this week but I don’t want to miss the opportunity to wish you and your family the best Thanksgiving you’ve ever had!

I’ve been busy making this Believe Banner for Christmas.  I have a collection of Santa Clauses that have become too large for my mantle.  So I decided I would move them to my buffet.

Because we have grand kids, the gathering for Christmas is usually at their house. I still enjoy decorating and dressing up the house for the holiday.

Be sure and click on the picture and get a closer look.  Hmmm, looks like I need to back the back of the pendants since they reflect in the mirror. 

The pendants are made out of chipboard (or in this case recycled cereal boxes).  I use tape to hold the chipboard on my Cricut mat to ensure that the chipboard doesn’t move around when the Cricut is cutting it.

I cut two pendants and glued them together.  Because cereal boxes are a thin chipboard, gluing two of them together makes the pendant sturdy enough for the embellishments that I’m going to put on this pendant.

If you want the pendant to be thicker just cut additional pendants and glue them together.

They fit and glue together nicely.  I used Glossy Accent to glue the chipboard together and it sticks really well.

I used my crop-a-dile to cut the holes and it had no trouble going through the two layers of chipboard.

 Since I’ve decided to decorate this year in black, white, silver and red, I pulled together some hounds tooth paper and cut it the exact same size as the pendants.  Tip:  If you use a pattern paper that has a very distinct design (like hounds tooth) and you want the pattern running the same way on the pendants you will need to buy double the amount.  You can only get two pendants out of a 12 x 12  pendant and one has to be cut inverted to the other to get two.  If the pattern is random then you don’t have to worry about which way the design is running.

I ran a bead of Glossy Accents around the perimeter of the pendant and then a few beads through the center.

Place the pattern paper on top and lined it up.  What is awesome about the Cricut is you are using the same pattern for the chipboard and cutting the pattern paper to go on top of the pendant.  They fit together exactly, no trimming.

I’ll post the rest of this banner tomorrow.  Let me know what you think of the project, I would love to hear from you.

This is my “Grand-Kitty”!  My youngest daughter travels a-lot and while she is gone we keep “Grand-Kitty”, except he was always at our house and now he stays here all the time.

Around 9:30pm every night (like clock work) he jumps up in this chair and goes to bed.  He usually has his face and body to the back of the chair with his paws over his eyes so the light doesn’t bother him.

Red went over to pat him and he stretched out like this  and stayed a good 3-4 minutes.  It is so funny to see animals be so relaxed and then stay in the position.

I couldn’t help myself, I this picture makes me laugh out loud every time I look at it.

Here they are, some pictures of what I’ve been working on since September.  This picture is the light fixture that was over Mom’s sink in her bathroom.  I don’t know what they were thinking when the painted the light fixture.

I had to figure out how to take it apart so I could get to the wiring.  This was scary because I was afraid of what I would find when I pulled it down.

I put in the new brace and got the wiring ready for the new light fixture.

I bought a couple of new light fixtures for my master bath at home and decided that I wanted to try and recycle one of my old ones that I was taking down.  I was doing a lot of praying, hoping that this hole was not too big for the recycled light fixture.

It was a perfect fit and now Mom has three lights over her mirror instead of one.  I took the ceiling fixture (this bathroom had one) down to see if I could figure out why it didn’t work.  Mom said it had never worked since she lived there (some 20 yrs).  It didn’t take me long to figure that out, it didn’t have a light bulb in it.  Once we cleaned it up, it looked brand new.

Sorry, I didn’t get any before pictures, but before I started this was two colors.  I primed the wall, then added a stucco texture, then painted it with the new primer/paint combination in a light tan and then glazed it.

I’ve primed, patch cracks, filled holes and caulked just about every inch of this bathroom.

It’s not perfect, I couldn’t afford to tear out the bath tub and the surround but with all the other painting and stuccoing it goes together better than it did.

So, here I am almost finish.  I’m still working on her linen closet doors and hang towel racks, mirrors and shelves.  I’ll take a couple of pictures when I’m completely done so you can see the finish project.  I did most of it myself, with some help from Joel on the water closet, floor and bathtub facets (and an occasional question).  Mom helped me paint trim and spray paint some of her accessories so we didn’t have to buy all new ones.  I learned a lot through this and I have installed two new lights in my master bathroom.

Now, I’m going to play in my woman cave for a while and leave rennovation for another day.

After 40 years of having red and green as the main colors for my decorations at Christmas I have decided to go with black, white , silver and red for the accent color.

It all started with some black and white Christmas paper I found at HL.  I decided I would take these black glittered Christmas ornaments and give them some polka dots.

I’m using Frosted Lace Stickles.

Keep in mind “less” is more when it comes to making a pattern or design on something.  I found something to put the ornament it so it wouldn’t roll around.  I then dotted the Stickles in a triangle pattern (think of it like two eyes and a nose).

I grabbed several different objects I had around the house to hold the ornaments.  I did the top side first.  I let it dry and then came back and added a second dot in the same place I added the first dot.  Let it dry, then turn them over and do the second half or bottom the same way as you did the top.

They turned out beautiful and think of how great they will look hanging with a red bow.  Actually, black will not stand out on a green tree, so these may be finding their way to a red bowl.

I’m working on a banner and as soon as I have that done I’ll post it and give all the scoop.

So here we are on the 17th tee at Cortez in Hot Springs.  Enlarge the picture by clicking on it and look at the scenery in the back ground.

This tee box sits up on a hill and you hit down hill to the green.  This is breath taking in real life.

Looks like I know what I’m doing (LOL).  Funny, they wanted to take a picture and Red said, “You always take a golf picture with a golf club in hand”.

Red is on the left, I’m in the middle and Phyllis is on the right.

Isn’t this the way a girl always wants a picture to come out.  Love being in the middle of the most.  Two great guys, and they love to teach us girls golf.

 Joel is the one on the right and Phyllis and him are quite a pair.

 Yep, the weather was perfect and the trees were beautiful.  It was a great little mini-vacation and my first time to ever play golf.

Enjoyed the views, the spas, shopping, golf but most of all the company.  Thanks Joel and Phyllis for being such great friends.  Hmm, maybe Fredricksburg, Texas will be the next place we go.

I’m currently working on 3 different Christmas projects that I’ll be sharing soon.  So, although I have been talking about golf lately, you will start seeing some creative things beginning to flow.

This is grass outside the restaurant at Cortez Golf Course.  The feather like blooms of the grass has a hint of pink.  Of course, us girls would love it.

All decked out and ready to go.  This was suppose to be a shot of Phyllis and me but Red got right in the middle, poor Joel was taking the picture.

I was in control of driving the golf cart.  I had no clue what the etiquette was on where to drive the cart at the holes, but Red had no trouble letting me know when I wasn’t doing it right (LOL).

No, these are not Easter eggs, they are the various colors of golf balls that Phyllis and I had for the day’s golfing outing.

Various shades of pink, love the purple and the green stood out.  The color of the ball is important, so you can find it on the fairway.  Notice I said fairway, not find it in the woods.  I’m practicing postive thinking and reinforcement.  We discovered quickly the green is difficult to see and there were a lot of leaves falling on the course and when the ball rolls in the middle of them or up under them it doesn’t matter what color the ball is, it’s hard to see or find.

Phyllis looks like a pro and she has a very beautiful smooth swing.  This is the 1st Tee and she hit it straight down the middle.

Look at those trees to the left, you can see some of the fall colors.

Hmm, yep, that’s me and pictures do not lie.  I need to keep my arm straight.  It’s better than it was but looks like I’ve got work to do.

Best thing was, this is the 1st Tee and I hit the ball (no swoosh and looking down and that hot pink ball looking back at me).  The second thing was, although my arm was bent, it went straight.  Whew!  I past the first nerve racking thing about golf.  Hitting the ball on the 1st Tee while everyone behind you is watching.

Tomorrow will be my last post of the golf outing.  Sorry, it can be a little boring if you are not into golf but since this was my first time to really play golf, I wanted to document it.  I decided to take up golf to be able to spend more time with Red.  I’m even getting a nice compliment from him now and then.  That makes me feel really good.

I’m almost through with Mom’s bathroom.  I’ll be posting some pictures.  I have changed out a light fixture, textured the walls and ceiling, prime/painted and glazed the walls.  Tomorrow I’m hanging her new mirror and towel racks.  So stay tune for that reveal.

After the spa, we were straving and if you have been around Phyllis and me, you know our thoughts run along Mexican Food all the time.

We actually walked the length of Main Street to a restaurant called Central Park Fusion.  We even had to stop and asked direction; however, they failed to tell us it was not open for lunch.

On the way back we came across “Rolando’s” nueavo Latino fare.  This is where the Faded Rose use to be.  We ordered guacamole, and yes those tortilla chips are pumpkin orange and their roasted corn and black bean salsa was wonderful.    We split a shrimp dish that had a beautiful sauce served with rice and black beans.

So, I needed to use the girl’s room and got to the back of the restaurant to fine they had named it after me!  I’m taking this as a sign that we were suppose to be there….right!

Actually, the owner’s names are Rolando and Sherri.  The guy’s room is Rolando and the of course the girl’s room should be Sherri’s.

We walked on down main street in and out of the little shops, avoiding the “Duck Boat” ride.  Our parking meter had 5 minutes left on it when we got back to it, so we jumped in and made a trip down to where else but Hobby Lobby!

Coming back to town Phyllis (out of the corner of her eye) spied a Scrapbook store.  So what else would two girl’s do but turn that car around and weave back through the traffic to see what they had to offer.   Hmmm, yep you’ll get to see more of that tomorrow.