Hi everyone! It's Wednesday and you know that means a photo posting from me for today. I meant to write yesterday but I had to go into Lansing and then I got wrapped up working on the items I'm going to show you here today. I've been working hard on these because they're going to be Christmas gifts. Now, the theme over at Sunday Shutterbugs is orange. I actually have some orange in these and I took them like 10 minutes ago! Woo! So, here we go!

The first little guy there is my snowman that I made for me. The second set is going to a friend of mine as a Christmas gift. It was really great being able to craft again and I had so much fun making these!

This snowflake too me hours! Cutting it out took ages and then stitching it took probably 2 hours. I couldn't believe it. This family of snowmen will be staying here at my house. The boys picked out which colors they wanted for their scarves and hats. I think they turned out super cute and I can't wait to hang them up.

These four handsome/beautiful snowmen will be going to my nieces and nephews. From the time my 13 year old nephew was a baby, I've given each of the kids a new ornament for Christmas. The little guy there in orange is for the baby who will be celebrating his second Christmas this year. Roger picked out the colors for him and I think he turned out soooooo cute.

I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving, if you're celebrating it and I'll try to post here throughout the weekend, but I am going to see family tomorrow and I do have company coming for the weekend, so no promises!

Since Corinna asked...I'm gonna tell!

SUPPLIES:

• Clear Glass Ornament
  
• Dye Re-inker (Stampin' Up! ink used for these - I do not know how other types of ink will work with this as I've only used SU Classic re-inkers)
  
• Paper Towel
  
• Fine Glitter (I use SU! Dazzling Diamonds Glitter for these or Martha Stewart super fine glitter -- the Dazzling Diamonds works better bc it's super sparkly but I couldn't find mine.)
  
• Small Powder Pal OR scrap paper shaped into a funnel
  
• Small container (I used dixie cups, but if I'd had any I would have used an empty plastic film container)

STEP 1:

Remove the top and hanger of the ornament (be careful as you're doing it as sometimes the glass is very thin and the hanger pops open as it's pulled out)

STEP 2:

Drip 18-20 drops of your ink into the ornament.




STEP 3:

Gently swirl the ink around until the ornament is fully covered. Once you get towards the top of the ornament, make sure that you cover the hole with paper towel, otherwise you'll have ink everywhere!

**DON'T shake the ornament w/ the ink - this creates a lot of bubbles and makes it look splotchy.**

Step 4:

Place ornament upside down over the small container to drain any excess ink.




Step 5:

Place the ornament onto paper towel and rotate it a bit to drain more of the ink (it tends to pool slightly at the opening and on the lip and if you don't drain the excess ink it will run and create streaks when you add the glitter).

Step 6:

Pour about 1 1/2 teaspoons of glitter into the ornament.

Step 7:

Place paper towel over opening and SHAKE the ornament until the glitter has fully covered the inside.

**If you can no longer hear any glitter hitting the inside and you don't think that it's covered enough, add more glitter and keep shaking.**

Step 8:

Turn your ornament over onto your Powder Pal (or scrap paper) and *gently* tap it to remove the excess glitter. When using darker ink colors the glitter will get dyed using it this way - you can save it to use w/ more ornaments of the same color - or you can store it in an empty film container/ziplock bag etc to use in other projects.

Note: these ornament use a LOT of glitter - I used an entire (small)container of Martha Stewart Crystal Fine glitter and had to break into a container of Martha Stewart Carrara marble glitter just to do 6 ornaments. So make sure you have plenty on hand for the amount of ornaments you're doing!




Step 9:

Gently put the topper and hanger back on to the ornament (I found the hanger sometimes scraped a little of the glitter off the inside but it's not noticeable). That's all there is to it. :)

Note: If you want to dye the ornaments without adding the glitter, just stop at Step 5. I will warn you though that without the glitter, these do take 2-3 days to dry fully.

Oh my gosh, I'm so behind on posting things here! I'll warn y'all now, this post is gonna be loooong and graphic intensive. Ok, now that you've been warned and probably some of you ran away in terror, let's get to the goodness.

Ok..so in order of...well...order that I find the pics, here we go!

Socks..now most of the time, I'm totally barefoot, but when I do wear socks, I want to wear fun socks! K-mart had Christmas socks on sale for $1/pr so you know I couldn't resist. In no particular order...fun socks!


That 2nd shot was taken at school, so to celebrate the end of the semester (yay!), I present..school pictures:


Okie, so if anyone reads Abby's blog (and honestly, you all should..it's fantastic!), you'll know that she challenged us all to go out and paint our nails. And to prove that I did it, I present..my nails!


And speaking of Abby, I have to show you what she sent me! I was so excited when this package arrived. I had no idea what to expect..buttons, ribbons, crafty stuffs, the scale she swore she'd send me for my birthday...but she surprised me! Look at the totally fantabulous goodies that she sent me! Did I mention that she totally made both of those? She is just beyond..well..let's just say I consider her one of my bestest friends ever.


Now, on to the crafting and I've done a bunch! I won't bore you with all of my "in progress" photos, but you can go check them out on my flickr account.



There you go! As always, if you want to see a larger version, just click on the picture..If you want instructions for any of these projects, just let me know and I'll do my best to post them before I go out of town on Friday.