I've Been Playing Again! This Time With Labeley.com

If you're a reader of my Linda's Blog and have been following me and all my blogs (yes, I do have a few! LOL LOL) you are well aware that I love to play and experiment. Especially when it comes to interactive websites.

Well, a couple of weeks ago I received an email from Ana Brady at Labeley.com (http://www.labeley.com) asking me if I'd like to try their "free online custom label creator developed by the team behind the well-known free online tool for designing and customizing labels, Labeley."

Hmmm... Free online tool for designing..... What's not to love about that?

So, given my love of playing I thought I'd try it out. Plus, she volunteered to write a "How to Create Holiday Decorations For Free With Labeley" article for me. Another plus....

While I had planned to do other things today I decided to read her how-to article and try out Labeley.

Here's what her article said:

How to Create Holiday Decorations For Free With Labeley

You must’ve noticed over the past few weeks how the nature around us has been changing its colors. Leaves on trees turned pale yellow, coral, and even bright red. The whole nature is gradually taking on warm golden, amber and scarlet hues. These changes of colors indicate that the green summer is long gone and fall rolls around. The temperature is dropping, but the holiday excitement is rising. Halloween is just around the corner, while Thanksgiving and Christmas are on their way. It’s that time of the year when you seem to be spending most of your your spare time on decorating your home for the next holiday.

Thankfully, fall with its colors and hues is probably the most inspirational season for holiday decorations. And what better way to spread the holiday spirit than to bring the warm and vivid hues of fall into your home? Let the fall inspire you with ideas to decorate your home this holiday season! You can mix elements such as fall foliage, pumpkins, pinecones, acorns and candles to decorate your fireplace or entrance or any other part of the house. Or, for more Halloween-centric appeal you can add some scary spiders or bats on the curtains, furniture etc.

One tool that can definitely come in pretty handy in these holiday decorating endeavors is Labeley. It’s a free online label maker that allows you to create all kinds of holiday stickers for decorating your gifts, creating festive centerpieces, making fun-looking place cards, preparing fun games for the youngest, decorating the holiday meals and more.

How to use Labeley for creating holiday decorations?

Visit Labeley Holidays and start designing your labels. Labeley offers several label elements you can play with. Start by choosing a shape for your label. Once you’ve done that, you will be able customize the look of the background, add a border if you need one, add some fun and colorful text, and ultimately spruce up your design with graphics. You can choose among many different illustrations for Halloween (bats, cats, spiders, ghosts, owls and more), than Thanksgiving (turkeys, pies, gravy, acorns, leaves and more), Christmas (Santa Claus, Christmas tree, gingerbread man, Rudolph the reindeer and more). Labeley also offers an extra feature to upload any image from your computer and use it in the design as a background or center element. For example, you can upload photos of your family and make fun holiday ornaments.

You can play and create as many designs as you like, save and download them on your computer, print them out and use them for any holiday craft. Should you decide to keep your designs for next year’s holidays, you can sign up for a free Labeley account where you’ll have all your labels waiting for you to modify or reuse them again as they are.

Labeley sticker maker is really simple and easy-to-use, so chances are that you’ll have numerous holiday designs prepared in just a few minutes. Give Labeley a spin and jazz up your home with fun holiday crafts!

Seemed easy enough to use so I decided to give it a try.

I started by familiarizing myself with thew different features which was very easy to do and only took a couple of minutes. It definitely was very easy to use.

Since today is Halloween I decided to create a Halloween label using a combination of my own graphics and some of their graphics. I choose a shape, added a background, added a border, and then started adding and re-sizing the graphics until I had a Halloween label I liked. The alpaca, green and rust trees, house and brown tree with spider webs in the label shown above were my graphics. The rest were theirs. After I was pleased with the layout I added the "Happy Halloween" text and then saved the image to my computer.

I like to add stickers to the back of the holiday cards that I send out each year so I decided to create labels for that purpose using one of my own graphics.

For each I started with a shape, added a background color, added a border, uploaded and re-sized my own graphics and then added my "Happy Holidays" text. It literally took seconds to do this. It was that easy.

I also love using gift labels on all my Christmas presents and am always looking for cute designs. So, I thought I'd design a "To: and From:" gift label of my own, which is shown in the picture. Once again I started with a shape, added a background pattern, uploaded and re-sized my own graphics and then added my "To: and From:" text. I love how it turned out. Of course, my imagination got the better of me as all sorts "To: and From:" label designs started filling my head.

At this point I knew it was time to stop. I was having way too much fun with this. I decided I'd wait until tomorrow to decide how many of my stickers and gift labels I was going to order.

Boy That Turkey Sure Smells Good!

Hmmm.........

Boy that turkey dinner really does smell good.

And, look pumpkin pie - I just LOVE pumpkin pie.....

I wonder if they'll invite me in........

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Merry Christmas Everyone

Christmas - that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance - a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved. 

 - Augusta E. Rundel

~ ~ ~ ~

I heard the bells on Christmas 

Day Their old, familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet 

The words repeat 

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!  

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

~ ~ ~ ~

The merry family gatherings-

The old, the very young;

The strangely lovely way they

Harmonize in carols sung.

For Christmas is tradition time-

Traditions that recall

The precious memories down the years,

The sameness of them all. - 

Helen Lowrie Marshall

~ ~ ~ ~

The happiness and love on this one day

Bring thoughts which warm and cheer.

May we keep Christmas in our hearts

Through every day of all the year.

- Gertrude B. Holman in "The Little Things at Christmas"

~ ~ ~ ~

Christmas is forever, not for just one day,

for loving, sharing, giving, are not to put away

like bells and lights and tinsel, in some box upon a shelf.

The good you do for others is good you do yourself...

- Norman Wesley Brooks, "Let Every Day Be Christmas," 1976

~ ~ ~ ~

Somehow not only for Christmas

But all the long year through,

The joy that you give to others

Is the joy that comes back to you.

And the more you spend in blessing

The poor and lonely and sad,

The more of your heart's possessing

Returns to make you glad.

- John Greenleaf Whittier

~ ~ ~ ~

May you have the gladness of Christmas which is hope;

The spirit of Christmas which is peace;

The heart of Christmas which is love.

- Ada V. Hendricks

~ ~ ~ ~

Let us keep Christmas beautiful

Without a thought of greed,

That it might live forevermore

To fill our every need,

That it shall not be just a day,

But last a lifetime through,

The miracle of Christmastime

That brings God close to you.

- Garnett Ann Schultz

Christmas Gifts From A Long Time Ago From A Remarkable Woman

Every once in awhile in your life you meet a truly loving, generous, and beautiful soul. Someone who is extremely intelligent, artistically gifted, who always thinks of others before herself, who always treats you as if you were one of her children, and who always sees the good in others and the beauty in life. Some one who just wanted to be the best mother she ever could be.

I was so very fortunate in my life to meet such a beautiful woman. She was my former mother-in-law and she entered my life when I was 18 and I considered myself fortunate and blessed to have had her in my life.

If you're a reader of my Linda's Blog you know that my beautiful Mother passed away this year. What you don't know is that both my beloved Mother and my beautiful former mother-in-law, Mary, both passed away this year within days of each other.

Mary was baking cookies and suddenly passed out. Well, they rushed her to the hospital and discovered she had a brain tumor. My former father-in-law and sister-in-law came to my Mother's memorial service in January and told me they wanted to pay their respects, but couldn't stay long as they were going directly to the hospital from the service.

They also told me that during one of their visits in the past few days that Mary mentioned my birthday card and her need to mail it. What you don't know is that each and every year for 38 years I have received a birthday card from her. Every year I send a Christmas card and letter to my former in-laws and every year Mary sends me a birthday card and letter in January.

Unfortunately, the very next day - which happened to be my birthday - Mary passed away. When I heard the news I was just crushed. Two of the most beautiful and remarkable women I have ever known had passed away within days of each other. I cannot express how sad and devastated I was at the loss of two women I dearly and deeply loved.

What you also don't know is that Mary was like a 2nd mother to me. She was there for me at a time when I needed unconditional understanding and love. She welcomed me into her home and her heart and I never really left. Physically I did, but she entered my soul, taught me about genuine love and generosity and gave me unconditional support. I was truly blessed and was changed forever from having known her.

So, I thought it would be nice to honor such a remarkable woman this holiday season and show you some of the handmade objects she gave me which I still have displayed in my home all year and the handmade Christmas ornaments and decorations she gave me so many, many years ago.

The two gnomes that are pictured in the collage below were created during a time when she was taking ceramics classes. I just loved the happy, smiling gnomes and so she decided to make them for me. The blue gnome sits on one of the cabinets we have in our bathroom and I see him each and every morning reminding me to be of good cheer.

The yellow gnome sits just above my computer monitor. I've had him there for years and I love looking at him all the time. There's a sparkle and glint in his eyes - just like there always was in Mary's eyes. Beauty in his and her soul.

The three pictures in the collage below are three of the handmade ornaments that she gave me many, many years ago. For several years she had participated in and made handmade ornament and decorations for her annual Christmas church fair. I can remember her at her sewing machine for days on end just sewing one item right after the other. I was amazed at the amount of items she had created and which were sold for the benefit of her church.

The first picture is two Santa booties that I display each and every holiday season. I just love them. They are made of felt and are actually booties surrounding two small Gerber baby jars. The 2nd picture is a plaid bell and the 3rd picture is a felt cardinal glued atop a hair-clip. The cardinal resides atop my Christmas tree each and every year just below my old Santa tree topper.

I will miss getting a birthday card this year from Mary but know that she is forever within my heart. She came into my life and changed me forever.

For you Mary.....

From headstone in Ireland...

"DEATH LEAVES A HEARTACHE NO ONE CAN HEAL,

LOVE LEAVES LIVES A MEMORY NO ONE CAN STEAL"

-------

A little girl, asked where her home was, replied, "where mother is."
Keith L. Brooks

"

Christmas Decorations From The Craft Shows

I can spend hour after hour just walking around a craft show. I just love looking at all the marvelous handmade creations. I find I'm always amazed at the creativity of the artist or crafter and wonder just how they made this or that.

Many, many years ago I tried making some of the  items I'd seen that I liked at some of the craft shows I'd visited.  At the time I couldn't afford to decorate my home so I figured I'd make some things myself.  Well, I have to tell you that they never came out as well as the original or even came out at all. So, I decided years ago to stop re-creating some of the beautiful objects I'd see at craft shows and just buy the original. It's a win-win for everyone. I get a beautiful handmade object, signed by the artisan themselves, and they get a sale.

As I walk around the craft shows I also like talking to the different booth owners. Usually it's the artist or crafter themselves and I find they always have wonderful stories to tell or tips to offer. If the booth is really crowded I don't try to talk to the owner, but if it's not I try to compliment the artist or crafter on their work.

From time to time I find that some objects are just so beautiful and there is so much creativity involved in them that they just take your breath away. I always walk away amazed by this particular artist or crafter's talent.

So, I thought you might like to see some of the Christmas objects either my Mother and I, my sister and I, my sister-in-law and I, my brother and I, or my nieces and I have found from time to time at the craft shows.

I saw the painted wood wall clock pictured at the beginning of this post at a craft show in Sturbridge that my Mother and I went to one year and wanted to buy it. However, it looked really heavy and I knew my car was parked far away so my Mother and I decided that I shouldn't buy it. There was just no way we would be able to carry that to my car.  I quickly regretted not doing so and hoped that the crafter would be at that show again next year.

Well, the next year I decided to ask hubby to come along to see if the crafter was there. If they were then we could buy the clock when we were leaving the show and I could wait for him outside while he went to get the car. To my delight the crafter was there and we bought the wall clock. I was glad we hadn't bought the wall clock the first year as it really was quite heavy.

What I loved about this clock was that it had three little shelves that you could put handmade seasonal items on and change with the seasons - which every season I do. And, of course, at every craft show I look to see if there are any other miniature handmade seasonal items that I can add to my collection.

So, I thought I'd create a collage of some of the craft show items that are being displayed this holiday season. With several decades of attending craft shows I have bought quite a few items.  It would be impossible to display all of them so every season I have to decide which ones will be shown that season.  Here's the lucky objects we're showing this holiday season:

The first picture in the collage is a wooden hand carved doll that I bought at a craft show with my Mother. The artist was in the last booth in the hall and we almost didn't notice him. Well, I was glad we did as he made the most wonderful hand carved wooden dolls. You know how much I love dolls.  So, I decided to buy two pilgrims dressed in black outfits. Then I spotted the woodsman and thought he was adorable. Of course my Mother told me with the two dolls I had already bought that I had enough. Well, obviously I didn't listen to that advice as he sits atop one of our cabinets every Christmas season. And, one season my Mother told me she loved him. Secretly I think she was glad I had bought him.

At another craft show with hubby one year we bought the Victorian Santa picture that is the 2nd picture in the collage. I just loved the fact that he was Victorian and loved the blue colors. I knew it would be perfect for one of our walls. When it came time to take the Christmas decorations down that year I decided I liked the picture just where it was and have him hanging up all year.  He's still there.

The 3rd picture is a cute little reindeer flower stand that hubby and I found at a local school craft show. I like to add the silk floral poinsettia to the back of him for color.

In the second row are three pictures of painted miniature wood houses. The artist at this craft show that my husband and I attended was personalizing the buildings so we decided to make the toy store "Linda's" toy shoppe and the pizza shop "Jerry's Pizza." The church I just loved and thought my Mother would enjoy.

In the 3rd row the first picture is a painted seashell.  My Mother and I found this at another craft show one Fall and just loved this artist's work.  She used real seashells and added painted paper collages in the middle of the seashells for a 3 dimensional effect.  I hadn't seen anyone do that with seashells before and just loved it.

The last two pictures in the collage are some very simple, but elegant ornaments that my Mother and I found at a silversmith's booth one year. Both my Mother and I just loved the simplicity of the ornaments and thought they'd look lovely on my tree - and they do.

So, of course, this year when hubby and I attended a local craft show I just had to buy a new handmade ornament for our tree and choose the hand-painted wood ornament shown in the picture below.  I just love hand-painted decorations as I wish I could paint like that and create such beautiful pieces.

While the following two Christmas decorations weren't purchased at a craft show they were new additions to our caroler's scene this year.  We saw them at a local Hallmark Store and thought they'd be cute new additions.   The tree was put on one of the shelves of our carolers scene and the snowman was added to the fireplace mantle above the carolers scene display.  We thought they were great additions and hope you do too.

Next year we'll create another collage.  It will be fun to see which Christmas decorations from the craft shows that we decide to display. Stay tuned.

Gotta Love Ornaments - A SMALL Obsession!

One of the things I just love to create is ornaments. Now you might think that's because they are just so adorable.  Well, that would be one reason, but that is not the main reason. The main reason is because they are so SMALL and can be made in a relatively short period of time.

My liking of creating ornaments kind of goes hand in hand with liking to create dolls. They are both SMALL - that is unless you create some 3 or 4 footers like I've done.

In any event - back to the SMALL issue. You might be wondering exactly why that is that I like creating small. Well, when I was first learning how to sew I used to make my own clothes and gifts for others like quilts. Well, if you've ever made your own clothes or quilts you know that it takes a very long time. Too long for me. I just don't want to be spending day after day after day creating something as large as a quilt.

Now don't get me wrong - I LOVE quilts.  I just prefer sewing items that don't require a lot of time. I'd rather make lots of different SMALL items than one really big item - like a quilt. Besides every time I've tried creating a quilt the tension on my sewing machine goes berserk and I end up having to get my sewing machine cleaned and fixed. I've never had that happen with a doll or even an ornament.

The other reason I love ornaments is they can be hung just about anywhere. Whether it's a Christmas tree, a knob, the end of a curtain rod, on a peg, or even a hook they are just so versatile. You can create them for holidays, the different seasons, any special occasion, or any type of person or object that you can think of. With so much versatility it's no wonder they've been a favorite amongst artists and crafters.

I, of course, have many, many ornaments hanging all around my house all year long. They change with the seasons and the holidays. However, the Christmas season is really the time when my SMALL obsession is very evident. I have them hanging everywhere - especially our Christmas tree.

So, I thought you'd like to see some of the handmade ornaments that are hanging around our house and our Christmas tree. Most of the ornaments were handmade - either by me or given to me as gifts from relatives and friends.

It's a SMALL world after all.

Now there's a phrase after my own heart.....

A Menagerie Of Ceramic Santa's I Painted One Year

I suspect that I'm not the only crafter on the planet that goes through phases of crafting many of one type of item.  For me since I can never do anything in moderation I tend to do a lot of one thing.  I can never just dip my toe in the water to try something.  Oh, no not me!  I have to dive in head first.

Well, several years ago I was in a ceramic Santa phase and decided to paint a bunch of miniature Santa's that I had gotten from either Michael's or A.C.Moore during one of my many shopping trips there.

Instead of buying just one or two - well, I bought several.  I wanted to start a miniature Santa collection and figured I needed a few to start and then could add to it one at a time every year.  At least that's what I told hubby when he asked me why I had so many.

Of course, he didn't buy my explanation.  He never does - he knows me better than that! LOL LOL

I also pained a 12" ceramic Santa with a fancy sleigh, but you can only see the top of him in the picture below.  Maybe next time I'll manage to take a better picture.

Also, I decided to paint one of my miniature Santa's pink.  I thought he'd be cute that way.

Of course, over the years friends and family kept giving us miniature Santa's as gifts to add to our collection so it has grown quite a bit.

However, I haven't painted any ceramic figures in awhile.  Maybe I should paint a couple more.  You can never have to many in a collection.  Or can you?

Hey, There's Even More Decorations! What About The Farmer's Porch and Bathroom?

As mentioned in my front hall Christmas decorations post front doors aren't really used like they used to be.  It's mainly side-doors and garage doors.  Well, we use our side-door which is in our farmer's porch so, of course, we have to have Christmas decorations there as well.

Since we still have young grandchildren I paste sesame street stickers to the windowpanes of that door.  The one in the middle on the very bottom (at grandchild height) says "Merry Christmas, Now Go Away!"

When visitors come in our door they are greeted by three of my creations hanging on the wall.

There's my fabric wreath which I made in February of 2002 and which I wrote about in 2010 in a Linda's Blog post entitled "Cloth Wreaths and a Giant Stapler - Sort Of!" It's 12" around and I made three Christmas wreaths and one winter wreath that year.

There's my quilted fabric pictures based on a "Picture It With Fabric" design that I wrote about in a Linda's Blog post entitled "Quilted Pictures - A Wonderful Concept!

And, there's one of my artificial evergreen wreaths that's 20" round and that  I made in October of 2002.

There's also a decoration for the doorknob.  You can't forget that now can you?

And, of course, the half-bath off the farmer's porch gets in on the decorations, too.  Shown on the wall are three of the wooden shadow boxes that hubby and I made in August of 1999 and which we gave a Christmas presents that year.

On a wall in the half-bath is another one of the Christmas wreaths that I made in May of 2003.  It's 10" round.

And, of course, you can't forget about the sink.  Everyone needs a little festivity while washing their hands - don't they?

When visitors come to our house this holiday season they'll be greeted with "Merry Christmas, Now Go Away!"  I wonder if they really will! Ho! Ho! Ho!

Cookie Marathons and A Festive Kitchen

There's nothing quite like the smell of cookies baking, the scent of Christmas candles burning, and the festive atmosphere of a busy kitchen during the holiday season.

For many, many years my Mother and I would reserve 3-4 days in the weeks before Christmas for our annual cookie marathons. We would spend two days baking cookies and then one day packaging the cookies for our friends, loved ones, and several senior centers and nursing homes.

Every year we would select the cookies we would be baking from our list. For the most part we kept making ones that we knew were really good. Once in awhile we would add a new cookie, but it had to be exceptional to bump another cookie off the list. Sometimes we added fudge and chocolate candies that we'd made.  We knew that our cookies were good - how could they not be with many, many years of experience honing our cookies? As our list continued to grow we even had people asking to be put on our list.  So, of course, we added them and the list continued to grow and grow.

During this period we really took over the kitchen, the dining room, the family room and the sunroom. Let's face it during our cookie marathons we basically took over the house. There were tables everywhere for cooling the cookies or cookies on cookie sheets waiting to go into the oven or tables for the bags of finished cookies. Everywhere you looked there were cookies, but the smell was irresistible.

Of course, the rest of the house had already been decorated with Christmas decorations. We'd have the Christmas music playing in the background and the moods were bright and cheery. After three days of cooking we were always tired, but that never dampened our joy or the festive atmosphere.

It was usually during this time that hubby would try to get some of his Christmas shopping done and when he did he often would come home and surprise both my Mother and I with Christmas pins.  Christmas pins was a tradition started by my Dad a long time ago and continued by my sweet hubby. 

Sometimes my Mother would come with a surprise.  One year she came with a tiny little girl caroler.  What made this little caroler so special was that she was sitting with her hand in the cookie jar eating as many cookies as she could.  What a perfect gift for our carolers scene and cookie marathon.  She's the little girl sitting in front of the fireplace in the picture below.

So, with kitchens and cookies in mind I thought you'd like to see some of the decorations we would be looking at during our cookie marathon.

Standing at the stove while baking we had full view of our carolers scene......

There was a miniature tree on the counter that my sister had given me ......

And, a happy Santa wreath on the wall that Jerry and I had made years ago saying "Christmas Cheer Is Welcome Here"......

And a sleigh given to me by my darling husband filled with boxes......

A festive scene on the wall which was a gift from my sister-in-law.....

A festive tree that was a another present from hubby one year.......

Bright and cheery yuletide logs on the shelves.....

Elegantly wrapped boxes that I had made and trees that I also hade made above us.....

And, all along the top of the cabinets......

Even the kitchen canisters got in on the act to with bears and reindeer given to me by my sister, hubby and Kim ......

Don't forget the soap dispenser that hubby and I got at a craft show for washing all those dishes - and there were a lot for a 3-4 day cookie marathon.......

A miniature pine-cone tree that I made during my pinecone crafts adventures was always cheery to look at......

Don't forget the Santa & Mrs. Claus magnets on the refrigerator.....

The wooden church that hubby and I got at a craft show was there, too.......

And, during a cookie marathon the gingerbread dolls garland that Kim had given me kept a watch on us.........

And, while washing all those dishes we got to look at miniature Santa's carved on wooden spools that my mother and I had gotten at a craft show......

I will always keep warm memories of my Mother's and my cookie marathons.

It was a good thing we both were really organized and had similar kitchen styles for baking, washing, and cleaning up. While one was putting the cookies in the oven the other was taking cookies off the cookie sheets for cooling on the racks. While one was adding new cookie dough to the cookie sheets the other was washing some of the dishes. While one was mixing new dough the other was adding the cooled cookies to the plastic storage bags.

Two cooks in the kitchen spoils the brew was never a true adage during our cookie marathons.  It was more like a Mother and daughter so in-tuned with each other they would be reading each other's minds at exactly the right moment.  Knowing exactly what to do without speaking a word.

Oh, what fun we had.

What warm memories to last a lifetime.