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Monday Boost - Happy New Year!

12/29/2014

This holiday season has provided me with such wonderful memories with family and friends! The biggest gift of all, however, has been time. Time to enjoy with the people I love and to make those memories we hold so dear. I didn't feel rushed and things just seemed to fall into place without much hassle or stress. This quote sums it up perfectly:
There is absolutely no reason for being rushed along with the rush,
everybody should be free to go slow.
- Robert Frost
I think my new kitten nephew had the right idea on Christmas Eve:

Isn't he adorable?? Only 9 weeks old and full of energy, until he got tuckered out... My brother gifted his fiance this sweetie for Christmas. What better gift than a little heartbeat to remind you to slow down and just enjoy life? This is my New Year wish to you all - Slow down, absorb life, don't just let it whiz past you in a blur.
I am looking forward to sharing new projects and inspiration with you in 2015!
Happy New Year Everyone!!
Cheers!
M J

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Monday Boost - Happy Holidays!

12/22/2014

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It has been a very busy week around here! Below is our Christmas card this year. It is great that there are all of those websites where people can upload their photos and create their very own cards, but I already have software in which to create my own card and a wonderful printer. The glitter background is actually a photo of my DIY glittered Converse! :-)
I think it looks just as nice as one of the mass marketed cards and I spent a whole lot less, even with photo paper and ink:

With the Christmas holiday coming this week, time has been spent preparing for the giving melee. While we have tried to dial back the spending this year, we still feel that we want to give more than we can afford. This time of year isn't about how much you spend, however, it is about the heartfelt meaning behind each gift. To some, just having another day to live their lives is gift enough. I have someone in my life like that right now and there is only time to enjoy them while they are still here...
Each day comes bearing its own gifts. Untie the ribbons.
-Ruth Ann Schabacker
From Hubby, Niecey, Raven and I, we wish you a wonderful holiday season,
no matter how you celebrate it!
Cheers!
M J

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Monday Boost

12/15/2014

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This weekend was the Christmas Parade in our little town. We got to hang out with our friends, laugh and say, "Merry Christmas!" to everyone that strolled through on the parade route. The Friesians were so beautiful:

Our Niece was even in the parade! She is a member of the local fire department which is always in attendance:

The Loco Lamas were hilarious, as usual. They always have the cutest Christmas outfits:

As the Lamas went by us, they all kept looking our way. Gee, I wonder why...

Maggie! Our friend's Burmese Mountain dog. I guess the Lamas just didn't know how much of a lover she is! They were a bit paranoid... ;-)
We had a great time and our town was out in force to support the yearly parade. It lasted 45 minutes and had many unique entries this year.
"We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light."
- Evelyn Mary Dunbar
I hope you had a wonderful weekend!
Cheers!
M J

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DIY Christmas Gift Tags

12/12/2014

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How do you label your Christmas gifts? Do you buy tags or do you print your own? Do you chop up last year's Christmas cards to use for gift tags? Well, I've done all of those things, but this year, I wanted to make our gift tags a bit more personal...

I used a picture I took from our boat of the lighthouse and used my method for turning a photo into art using this how-to. Then I pasted the picture into MS Word and played around with it until I had the right size to get 15 tags on one sheet of card stock. I added "Merry Christmas" using Word Art and then pasted a few snowflakes for good measure. After printing, all I had to do was use my paper cutter to slice them up and punch a hole in each. They go quite nicely with our wrapping paper:

My photo "art" turned out very pretty and I just love curling ribbon! it always reminds me of being a kid and learning how to use the scissors to curl the ribbon. Remember how proud you were when you finally mastered the technique?? AAahhh, the simple joys of childhood!
I hope you are enjoying the season and celebrating in your own special way!
Season's Greetings!
Cheers!
M J

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Monday Boost

12/8/2014

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So I have been sick since returning from the Conference. Joy. It started to rear it's ugly head Wednesday on the last day of the Conference. By Thursday morning, it was a full fledged burning chest cough. After a few days of antibiotics & cold meds, parking my butt on the couch and OD-ing on Netflix, I finally felt good enough to spend Sunday - in bed - sleeping... ;-)
At least I got the Christmas tree mantel finished!

Nevertheless, I dragged myself out of bed today to go to work! I could finally be seen in public. Seriously, folks, it was not pretty...
We are made to persist... That's how we find out who we are.
- Tobias Wolff
I hope you all had a great Monday! And if it wasn't great, I hope at least it wasn't as terrible as my recent 4 days of sickness!
Cheers!
(and good health)
M J

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DIY Tiny Christmas Ornaments/Christmas Tree Mantel

12/5/2014

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This year, I decided to change up my mostly red/white/gold/silver Christmas décor by adding a bit of turquoise. After adding some homemade turquoise pillow covers to the living room this summer, I have really been enjoying the combination of turquoise with my red coral pillows. We can only have small trees on our mantle due to a certain kitty cat that loves to chew on pine needles (real or fake) and then puke them up on our carpet. Yeah, you fellow cat owners will sympathize. Woolite carpet cleaning spray is the bomb, just saying…
So the search for small turquoise ornaments began. No dice. Everywhere I looked, nothing! As you may have noticed, I am a frugal decorator. I cannot stand to spend tons of money on something I know I can create on a dime. I did pick up an eight foot length of pretty beaded garland from Lowes that had the colors I liked. Using that as inspiration, my solution was to DIY some new ornaments. Enter the craft supplies! I raided my craft stash and just so happened to have the perfect color scrapbook papers and ribbons for my vision:

I created a cutting template in my Silhouette software to cut one inch circles with a perforation down the center of each for folding. All I had to do was click cut and voila! Lots of little circles easily folded in the center:

I grabbed a glass of wine, sat down at my desk, turned on some music and got my craft on! It is a tedious little craft, but I tend to enjoy letting go of serious thoughts and just enjoying the process. I used my low temp glue gun to assemble six folded circles with a folded piece of ribbon cut to five inches in the center for hanging:

Do you remember making these little guys with glue and construction paper as a kid? Do you remember that one kid in class that always ate said glue? Ha! I remember always grabbing crayons to decorate mine while most of the other kids just went with plain paper. I guess some things never change, because I couldn’t just leave the cut edges of these ornaments bare! I grabbed a few Martha Stewart glitter glue pens and went to town:

I think they add just the right little bit of color that I was looking for this year:

I think our little silver Rudolph is enjoying the new ornaments! ;-)
2014 has flown by! I still can’t believe Thanksgiving is gone already. Are you getting into the holiday spirit yet? Happy Friday Everyone!
Have a great weekend!
Cheers!
M J

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Monday Boost

12/1/2014

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I hope you all had a very enjoyable Thanksgiving Holiday! We enjoyed time with family and ate waaayyyy too much, of course! This week we are in DC to run our annual International Winter Conference. Sunday evening was so beautiful! We were even able to get some beautiful shots of the the White House and the Executive Office Building:

While we do have a great time working with our Executive Committee and meeting all of our attendees from around the world, organizing conferences can be quite hard work. I even managed to convince my Hubby to volunteer for our conference team this year! Hey, you never know when you may meet someone that can help further your career!
Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognize them.
- Ann Landers
We are ready for some hard work AND some good times!
I hope you all have a very productive week!
Cheers!
M J

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Monday Boost - Happy New Year!

Monday Boost - Happy Holidays!

Monday Boost

DIY Christmas Gift Tags

Monday Boost

DIY Tiny Christmas Ornaments/Christmas Tree Mantel

Monday Boost

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