1.  If Santa was a cookie, I do believe he would look just like this…

Red Velvet Black and White cookies recipe found here from Joy the Baker.  Her pics do these so much more justice.
Andi, Bobbi and I made these last weekend and we all agreed the chocolate side was the best so I iced the leftovers with only chocolate and crushed up candy canes and sprinkled them on top.  They were perfect for Dan’s Christmas work party.  Santa approved.

2.  In continuing with the red theme….here’s a little riddle for you:

Question:  What is red and green and yellow all over?

Hint – -

Give up?

Answer:  The pretty poinsettia in our living room after Quattro freaked out and peed on it.  BAD DOG!

How about some more red?

3. Red ribbon makes any tree more merry!

4.  I got so into the paper mache projects my fourth graders made just before break that I made a bunch of my own.  Here is one creation I made especially for my mama – she has a serious thing for candy canes.

and while this isn’t red, I can’t resist sharing my own little blue birdie

5.  Also seen at school giving me great joy throughout this month was the Charlie Brown tree my parents sent me.  No Christmas is complete with out a little red ball keeping you company.  Oh, Linus…you have my heart.

6.  And since I last blogged, we made the trek across Colorado and Kansas to Missouri in the wee hours of the night.  This red ball of fire greeted me during my four hour stretch of driving.

7.  I always smile when I see these snoopy red dog bowls kept at my parents house for our visits. 

8.  Hand picked holly can’t be beat.

9.  My ninth grade Art 1 at its finest – Santa in the Summer found here in monochromatic Red.

10.  And today I spent the better part of my time with my sweet Ma-Ma doing our twice annual shopping trip.  And no trip would be complete without Auntie Anne’s pretzels for lunch with some soda pop goodness.  Doesn’t she look terrific in red?

Today turned so gray I’m hoping it leads us to some white (with some red noses) if you know what I mean.  And I’m off to cheer on the crimson and blue Jayhawks.  Go KU!

oh boy oh boy oh boy.  I’m here and I’ve made it to the end of the semester.  Wait…let’s try that again.  I made it to the end of the semester !!! Ok, that’s better.

August really was a long, long time ago.

Now, I just have to make it through our teacher holiday breakfast and a finish up a few new year school details.  Then, I can get back to my 3 million page to-do list that involves packing our lives plus two dogs into a not-so-large car and heading east across two states.  Once we turn onto the true Ellison Dr. I can actually exhale.  Until then…I’m still holding my breathe and crossing my fingers that all of these random pins I’m juggling will come full circle instead of crash onto the ground.  Buzzzz……buzz, buzzzz!

Inspired by this fun chain print download print-and-make.

source

I have some leftover clear bulbs from a previously abandoned project in the past and I am thinking about trying a few of these inspired globes.  Maybe a few bittersweet blossoms or a peacock feather?

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I always knew felt was cool but, wow-there is so much you can do with it including making re-usable bows.  I probably won’t get around to it this year but I’m storing this in the memory bank.

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And how could I leave out some excellent font inspiration?  3-D fonts?  Yes, please!  There has to be a way to create a cool project for my students using these.  Maybe I’ll have them spell out positive sentiments such as PEACE or INSPIRE.  Oh, who am I kidding?  They will just want to spell WOW and then try to pass it off as a gift to their MOM.

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Today was great.  Grades are done and exported and let’s just say our Specials team has set the teaching speedometer to coast.  As in, we are banding together and pooling our resources to make this week work for each of us. Lots of singing Christmas songs, dodgeball, and holiday program video watching.  Who am I kidding?  I started coasting immediately after Thanksgiving and I officially ran out of gas last Thursday.  Oh well…we can do this.

I have so many other fun things to share/ ideas swimming in my head but the days just aren’t long enough right now.  This is such a busy week!  Kansas City in four days.  To do list four pages long.  Time for bed.

Many, many secret projects going on around here.

I spent some time with these this weekend

all I can say is, who knew sheep were so cool?

And Dan and I both spent some quality late night/wee morning hours with this stuff.

The Northcraft workshop is in full swing and I sure am a happy little elf. 

I just wrote my mom an email with gift ideas for my 16 year-old cousin and I thought I would share them with you all.   I have seen most of these in person and I believe they are worth their affordable prices.  Happy shopping.

–Key Kaps

–origami bookmarks

–chalkboard sticker

–Anything by Arian Armstrong on Etsy.  I just love her prints!  Any of the following are great ones.

• love never fails

• here I am to worship

• new mercies

• my story, my song

You can see all of them in her shop by clicking here

– gas gauge bank

– bird’s nest paper magnetic paper clip holder (I think this would be more for me than for her!)

Phew….long but good day at school since today was the holiday program.  Three shows done, done, done – and so am I!  I’ll share pics from the whole production sometime soon because it was super cute.  Until then,well, hello FrIdAY!

I heart, heart, heart…

Hint O’Mint Newman O’s (Even if a certain someone is a cookie monster around here.)

My new tallll stripe socks to wear with warm boots – Costco, baby.  (And my little dog, too!)

our twinkling lights on this brrrrrrr cold night.  (Five degrees, seriously?)

pretty packages tied up with string. (I got my sweet birdie!!)

and some not so pretty packages tied up with, er, uh, tape?  (did you catch that?  it says “open until Christmas” I better get started…)

And last but not least, figuring out the Image Stabilization was turned off after they reset my camera (problem solved, only two months later!)

By day, I danced with Dinger and finished painting our holiday program backdrop.

By night, I found the flow of my yarn while the heavens sprinkled us with glitter.  How nice.

The snow has fallen all day long.  What perfect icing to this lovely weekend!

**images from a tiny project

*Friday night was less than I imagined but the $1 eggnog chai latte from Pekoe nearly made up for it.

*Saturday was a flurry of activity from the Holiday Handmade craft show, Adams County craft show, shoppingshoppingshopping, buying, trying to find, driving, church, home, and chili making!  It was a busy, jolly, good day.  I actually got a lot of things checked off the list.

*Sunday has been a winter wonderland.  We were all set to head for the hills to the Birds of Prey World Cup ski races today but our cozy warm bed sounded better.  Seriously, we skipped the races to be lazy and tackle a few fun projects at home today.  I stayed in my jammies all day long while the snow fell down and I tried my hand at cinnamon rolls from scratch.  They tasted pretty good but I think my recipe needed something and the altitude made them more like cinnamon rocks so I eventually shared them with the trashcan.  We also enjoyed lots of yummy chili with cornbread and busied ourselves with lots of little projects.  I would love to show some of them off but I’ve got top secret things going on here at the Northcraft workshop.  I’ll try to share what I can throughout the next two weeks.

I feel like I am juggling so many fun projects right now and it makes me feel full.  I am staying ahead of the game still but I don’t think I have one single project completed.  You know, things like ink jets running out of color ink, needle felting needles snapping, tips to my ultra fine pens breaking, those kinds of things.  I promised myself to not bite off more than I can chew before we go home to KC for Christmas.  I started early this year so I think I’m on track except that Dan has officially revolted against my Christmix 09 tunes (such a grinch!).  I had to pull out my earphones during my last bit of project making this evening.  His loss.

And by the way, last chance to get your copy of my Christmix 09.

Here is the playlist…such good ones this year.

1 2000 Miles – KT Tunstall
2 Wishing for This – Leigh Nash
3 Winter Wonderland – Goldfrapp
4 Winter Snow -  Audrey Assad and Chris Tomlin
5 What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?  – Mindy Smith
6 Underneath the Mistletoe – Blondfire
7 River – Travis
8 Raise the Tree – Trent Dabbs
9 Peace Is Here – Jars of Clay
10 No Christmas for Me -  Zee Avi
11 My Dear Acquaintance (A Happy New Year) – Regina Spektor
12 Maybe Next Year (X-Mas Song) – Meiko
13 Little Drummer Boy – Erin McCarley
14 Let It Snow – Ben Rector
15 Joy to the World – Sufjan Stevens
16 Jingle Bells – Lisa Loeb
17 I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day – Jars of Clay
18 The Heartache Can Wait – Brandi Carlile
19 Evergreen – Switchfoot
20 Christmastime Is Here – Jars of Clay

Kates, I will put your copy in the mail Monday PM!

And how about a few more weekend inspirations…

Stay warm, friends!

So many gift giving ideas floating around in the world wide web right now.

Here are a few that have caught my eye.  Click on the image to go straight to the source.

"be still" necklace by Lisa Leonard

1.  I always admire Lisa Leonard’s jewelry creations but this one caught my eye a while back.  A little bluebird perhaps and maybe a little dandelion.  Such a sweet union!  And, to top things off, Lisa just announced today that she has partnered with Redbook and a portion of the proceeds of this darling necklace will go to diabetes research.   I love it.

handmade paper bird ornament from The Petite Press

2.  In keeping with the bird theme, I discovered this handmade paper bird ornament/Christmas card.  It has the greatest details in the beaded eye and soft letterpress wing design.  I bought one for us a 2009 ornament and I fell in love with several little paper goodies found at The Petite Press including her newest matchbook letterpress calendar creations.  If you leave a comment on her blog, you will be entered to win one of these.

matchbook letterpress calendar from The Petite Press

I guess I’m into letterpress right now because in my quest to find the ideal 2010 calendar, I found this amazing creation.

Apple a Day poster by VikDesign

4.  Did you catch that?  It’s an apple a day letterpress poster created for you to put your fruit stickers on. OHMYGOSH, OHMYGOSH, OHMYGOSH.  This is so silly and so cool and so perfect.  I want it verrrrry bad because I do not have a strange obsession with fruit stickers (see this post).  Nope, not at all.

Okay, enough about paper…let’s take a look at something for the camera.

seat belt camera strap from Photojo

5.  I already have a perfectly capable camera strap but this seat belt strap from Photojo is just so fun.  They have all sorts of colors and I can’t decide which one I like best -  the typical, actual strap colors or the outrageously fun teal one.

Lot’s more ideas out there but I better take care and head to bed.  I love wearing jeans to work – Here’s to FRIDAY!

]]> http://ellisondrive.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/good-gifts/feed/ 0 ellisondrive redbook 314HandmadePaperBirdHanging 107MatchCalendarBlueOpen apple a day fruti stickers seat belt camera strap http://ellisondrive.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/danger-dan/ http://ellisondrive.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/danger-dan/#comments Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:40:33 +0000 Jen http://ellisondrive.wordpress.com/?p=2977 ]]>

My husband is a funny guy.  He is clever and smart and, not to mention, extremely ambitious.  Let’s just say he has enough ambition for the both of us.

Over our Thanksgiving holiday, we tackled several projects together.

Project A:  Make burritos for ski lunches.

We always like to pack a good meal in our packs when we go skiing.  Instead of paying $2.50 for the frozen organic burritos at the store, we decided to make our own to freeze.  While chopping the onions, Dan noticed his eyes were watering.  Moments later he returned with his solution.

Ski goggles and his helmet.  I’ve got to give him props – the onion was ridiculously strong.

Project B:  Custom ski jacket.

Dan decided he wanted to make his next ski coat someday and I asked him if he had ever even used a sewing machine.  Big fat nope!  Over break, I sat down with him and showed him how to thread the machine and bobbin and how to make a straight stitch and pin two fabrics together to sew.  He’s definitely a natural although he’s still practicing the back stitch technique.  I’d say he is well on his way to a custom ski coat.  Oh, the ambition.

Project C:  Keep track of all the great ski memories this year. (A.K.A:  Blower Pow days!)

I love to blog.  I enjoy keeping track of my images and the little bits that I write take me back to the time and place.  I encouraged Dan to start a blog so that he could record and keep track of his most favorite time of the year…ski season.  Even the best days get forgotten when we don’t take time to remember them.

So I present to you Dan’s ski blog – Danger Rocks ::  Life from the Trees.

See, I told you he was clever and ambitious (See the post on Season Ski Goals).  Now he has a place to go all ski tech savvy on you and you all get to see a glimpse into his thorough, one-track-engineer-mind.  This should be fun!  So, head on over there and give that guy some blog love.  Go on now…

And don’t forget to visit the HFHSVV Five Dollar Difference site and drop off your 5!  Scroll down for more info or click HERE.