artarama, holidays style

Yesterday afternoon a thin blanket of snow/ice covered our roads and ended all hopes of venturing out for a productive day today. Between today's balmy high of 21 and last night's episode of sliding backwards down the driveway coming home from work, I decided to stay put. My hubby however, fearless in his Outback, is out playing poker with the boys. Thank you snow; I've been hoping for a chance to cozy up & catch up on my blog.

Christmas was a hurried, wonderful blur of family, food, and homemade goodies.

Julia, my niece, came to the annual Gingerbread Competition at my parents', and we had a wonderful time with her. Our pontoon boat design was inspired by our 4th of July trip to Norris a few years back, but I don't recall the boat ever being as decadent (or tasty) as ours.


As I blogged in an earlier post, I tried to make most of our gifts this year. I forgot to take photos of several of the projects I worked on, so I'll have to include those photos at a later date. For our friends who've gotten a head start on babymaking, I had a blast glazing plates at a Paint Your Pottery shop, surrounded by curious 6 and 7 year old girls there to put their handprints on mugs. Here are the ceramic plates:

The Big-Ass Book of Crafts book also had some wonderful recipes for making bath scrubs and exfoliators. I purchased some containers at World Market and designed/printed the labels on big sheets of sticker-paper from a local office-supply store. A word of caution, though--the Bath Crystal Body Scrub does call for a 1/2 bar of soap shavings in the ingredients. That may not sound like a big deal, but 20 minutes of vigorous grating will reveal your arm muscle strength! I put these scrubs to the test when I had to remove the paint and goo from my hands, and they worked beautifully (and smelled good, too).


Perhaps the funniest part of the holidays this year was that my husband and I both unknowingly made wedding-themed wall art for each other this year. He collaborated with a graphic designer at his work to create a collage of our wedding photos stretched onto canvas. I was overwhelmed. The photo I took for you doesn't do it justice, but you get the idea.

While he was being sneaky at work, I was busy transporting 3 canvases back and forth from my house to my sister's place to my parents' and ultimately back home. The scene is from our wedding ceremony at the L&N Station & World's Fair Park. I loved getting to pair up with them (both are superior painters) and learn techniques as we painted. It's now at home on our den wall....
I find it incredibly sweet that we were so in-sync with each other and had such similar ideas for our gifts. Oddly enough, my sister and I also made plates for each other. I'll wait to upload the plate exchange until next time. Also to come, a new project that I may try to develop into a side business... Stay tuned.

Ashley.


"It's not how much we give but how much love we put into giving." -Mother Teresa