Tag Archives: Christmas

Gift Idea #2 – Family History Conference

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If someone in you family would love to expand their knowledge on how to do family history why not give register them for a conference or a class on family history. If you are the one, then why not give it to yourself for Christmas! There is a great one here in Utah in March called RootsTech. I went last year and loved it because it has so many different kinds of classes from the technology side to traditional research. They have added a new “Getting Started” that is only $19 for a one-day pass. Full 3-day Passes are now $149 with the early bird discount. If Salt Lake is too far away for the budget, then do some research and find a local class or conference you can give. What better way to help tell your families tales than to learn how to find more family members to tell stories about. Maybe I’ll see you at RootsTech.

 

Gift Idea #1 – Have an Ancestor to Dinner

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This idea is inspired by the tradition of having a special birthday plate that is only used on birthdays by the person whose birthday it is. In my version wrap a special plate, either one you already have or one that you make or buy just for this purpose. Then you have a family dinner and set an extra place at the table with this plate. During the meal you talk about the ancestor or family member that is the special guest for dinner. Someone could be ready with stories about you special guest or family members could share memories about that person, depending on the situation. You could even invite someone to come in costume as the ancestor and play the role for the night.

These special dinners could be held monthly or on or near the birthday of the ancestor or whatever works for your family. You could place card by the special plate with the guest of honors name and a photo would be a nice touch. If you know a favorite food of the guest, it would be fun to serve that as part of the meal. This is just a starting point. The same idea would work for living members of your family and use it as a way to honor the talents and accomplishments of the guest of honor.

If you Google custom plates there are tons of options of plates you can buy with a family name or other images. There are many ways to decorate a glass or ceramic plate yourself. Below are a few links to give you some ideas and get you started on this project.

Glass Plate Craft

How to Use Porcelain Paint Pens

Decoupage Dinner Plate

Family Name Platter

Etched Glass Dinner Plate

Personalized Melamine Plate

50 gift ideas challenge

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I’ve decided to challenge myself to come up with 50 gift ideas that will help you to tell your family tales by Christmas. I’ve done some brainstorming and I think I can do it but it isn’t going to be easy. 50 is just such a nice number, especially in this my 50th year. So stay tuned over the next five weeks and see if any of my ideas give you some inspiration for gifts for your family and friends. I’ll post my first idea soon!

Frosty Update – the minature stuff

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mini Frosty the Snowmen

The last few days I’ve been working on the houses and the figures for the two little scenes that I’ve planned on each side of the large Frosty. The one on the left is about Frosty being built and the one on the right shows Frosty and the kids that built him marching over the hills of snow. I’m so glad that I’m getting to make these two little scenes. I think it will be nice to have something more to look at one people get close to the window.

My original plan just had kids but I’ve added a dog to the scene and a little dog house. He was challenging to make because he is only about an inch tall. A Google search lead me to a couple of great videos on how to make a dog out of fondant. It was very helpful.

I ran into some trouble in making Frosty’s black hat. I bought a box of the natural colored fondant but the black was missing from the box. It looked like someone and purchased the box, removed the black, then resealed the box and returned it to the store. I don’t have any black food coloring and didn’t really want to buy any. Plus getting a really dark color can be hard. But I decided to take the dark brown fondant and add some of the food coloring I had. By mixing in orange, green and purple I got a satisfactory black. Yeah!

I decided to use some licorice snaps from my candy stash on one of my houses but then didn’t have enough. I spent a couple of hours of three days looking for snaps but everyone seemed to be out of them. Finally I went to the Candy Barrel in the South Towne Mall. When I asked about snaps I found out that they had been recalled because of high lead content. So I gave up trying to find any and figured out a way to work with what I had.

My 2013 Calender

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I’ve decided to do a Calender for 2013. While I haven’t done a Calender every year I’ve done one for family and friends more years than I haven’t. This years Calender started out as a wish to do something beautiful with the phrase “keep the faith”. I like the idea of a Calender because it is useful and if someone really likes the image for a particular month they can keep it after the Calender is finished.

Once I’d decided that the project was going to be a Calender I had to come up with short phrases for each month. After some brainstorming I asked Bill to help me pick which ones we would use. Then it was time to get to work. I originally started laying out “keep the faith” in InDesign using Before the Rain by font designer Mans Greback but as I thought of all the months I needed to layout and I didn’t want to use the same font on all of them but I wanted them to be beautiful I decided that I would change things up and do each phrase by hand. I hope I won’t regret this but so far I’m having fun working with pencil and paper instead of my computer for a change of pace. I keep telling myself that I’m looking for an organic look not something precise and perfect so it lends itself to being hand drawn. But I’m lacking in confidence that I can pull this off.

I have sketched out each of the 13 phrases that I’ll be using on my calendar and I’ve continued to use Mans Greback’s fonts as inspiration to help me have a good variety of styles from image to image. I’d love some feedback on what I have so far. So fire away.

 

Blurb Savings

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I got a new blurb discount today. This is as good as it gets, 25% off with no minimum! It is a great time to take care of any books you want to put together for Christmas gifts. One idea if you don’t have another project in the works is to do planners. Blurb has customizable planners. I did one for a friend last year and it turned out really nice. I am going to look at my projects and see how I can take advantage of this discount. It would be perfect for the new addition of the Waffle Book. The offer is good until November 20th. Use the code IMAGINATION at check out.*

*Offer valid through November 20, 2012 (11:59 p.m. local time). Valid for printed books only. A 25% discount is applied to your product total. Maximum discount is USD $150, GBP £95, EUR €115, CAD $150, or AUD $150 off product total. This offer is good for one-time use, and cannot be combined with volume discounts, other promotional codes, gift cards, or used for adjustments on previous orders.

 

Frosty Update – final base shaping

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I finally got the base of the shadow box that is being built to hold my candy sculpture. Even though I had done some shaping of the base there was lots more to do to make the whole thing work. It was nice outside on Saturday while I was working on it on our driveway. It looked like we had a snowstorm with all the little white bits of Styrofoam that collected around me.

It was exciting to put most of the pieces together and get a feel for how it was all coming together. I had some concerns that maybe Frosty wouldn’t fit in the window. But though it looks to be a bit tight in a couple of places I think we are going to be fine. I’m happy with how things are coming together and I feel like there is real hope I can get this done with out pulling some all nighters. Just 3 1/2 weeks to the unveiling!

Frosty Progress Report

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Frosty’s hat

It has been awhile since I posted about my candy sculpture project for Christmas. While I’m behind my original schedule I think it will be ok. The biggest obstacle as the moment is getting the box structure and backdrop for the window. I need it to properly size the base and to do the sky that goes in one panel of the backdrop. It is too bad that I’ve missed the nice weather this week to get the base and the sky done. I’m using silicone caulk at I prefer to do it in the garage so the fumes don’t stink up the house. I’ll soon be stopped from progressing if I don’t have the box.

almost finished broom with pins to hold the licorice in place

The status on all the parts and pieces:

  • Frosty (finished)
  • Hat (finished)
  • Bow tie (finished)
  • Broom (almost finished)
  • Trees (started)
  • Small figures (ready to start)
  • Village (need to design)
  • Base (ready for final sizing – waiting for box)
  • Sky (need black caulk and backdrop)
  • Large snowflakes (need to design) (this is my last priority)

I’m hoping that putting the Jelly Belly’s on the base and the backdrop will go pretty quickly. They don’t need precise placement and if needed I can recruit some helpers. I would like to wait to design the village until I get the box and exact sizing for the base. It feels good to have Frosty done. He is the most important part of the window. The rest is support for him. I now know I will find a way to get this done even if I don’t get all the parts I’d like to get done.

 

Frosty Progress Report

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Frosty in process

Somehow I haven’t gotten the time in on Frosty over the last couple of weeks that I wanted and needed to. This last week was a bit better but I’m behind. I focused this week on getting the front of his body covered with candy so at least it looks like I’ve made some good progress. My schedule this coming week doesn’t look too bad so I will focus hard on Frosty and get lots of work done. In a perfect world, I would be finishing Frosty up this coming week so I could start on the background the following week.

I have decided to wait on his hat the broom. They are good projects to work on inside as the weather get colder and the garage gets uncomfortable. I prefer working on Frosty in the garage because I’m using silicon caulk and it has a strong odor and needs good ventilation.

I may have to ditch my plans for putting a small village on the left side with small figures of children building Frosty and on the right side Frosty and some kids marching off into the hills. I hope that I can get them done. But if I have to leave them out no one will know that they are missing. I just like it when there are extra details to see when you get up close to the window.

50 for 50 #38 – Osaka Japanese Resturant

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Karen and Osaka in front of the Osaka Restaurant

Today to celebrate my 50th year we drove to Provo and ate at Osaka on Center Street. We use to live less than a mile away but what this place reminds me of most is when I did Christmas windows out of candy for Provo City Arts Council. I did my window in Osaka all but the very first year that I did a window. Mary was always so nice to work with and she always wanted to keep my window up until after Valentines day. By then they were pretty faded and certainly ready to take down. She actually still has the focal point from one of the windows in her lobby. The year our theme was Christmas Around the World I made a life-size Japanese woman in a Kimono covered with sliced jelly belly candy. She has gotten a bit dusty over the years but for the most part she is still in pretty good shape.

Each year we did a window, Mary would give us a gift certificate to her restaurant. And I still had some money left on the last one she gave me. Also one of my fellow puppy raisers has a dog about the same age as Yakira whose name is Osaka. When Karen got Osaka off the truck and thought it would be fun to take our pups to Osaka and have lunch. Well it has almost been a year and we finally got it done. I forgot to take my camera today but I took a couple of shots of Karen and Osaka in front of Osaka with her camera. I’m sure she will share the photo with me then I can post it here. Zodiac was a good boy and resisted playing with Osaka under the table until it was about time to leave.

Yakira ended up having to stay home. She has been given no car travel until Monday as part of dealing with her anxiety during the trip to Denver last week. I’ll have to find a photo of the candy windows I did at Osaka and post them here also. Today is another one of those lovely fall days with blue skies and nice temperatures.