Christmas Decorating

With the Christmas season in full swing I haven't had time to post much here. I thought I would share a couple of pictures of my decorations. They have been up since the day after Thanksgiving, but I just got around to taking pictures last weekend. It is really hard to get good pictures when it is dark when I leave in the morning and dark when I get home!

















I hope to have more pictures coming soon. Tomorrow we are getting new counter tops! They aren't anything spectacular, but to us they will be grand! The counters that we have now are original to the house (1989) and they are a very light off-white color. I have stainless steel mixing bowls and whenever I use them they mark up the counter, along with anything else that is stainless steel or metal (cake pans, any metal utensils, pans, etc.) Anyway, I'm going to take a before and after picture just so that I remember what the old one looks like. The new counters will also be light because I didn't want to make the room really dark, but they will have a texture and they also have a little bit of a pattern that makes it look like stone. Along with the counters also comes a new sink, faucet and disposal. Yippee! No more noisy disposal!

Please help out the little guy!

In February there is going to be a new law going into effect, the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act, which basically states that all children's products intended for children under the age of 12 (toys, clothes, shoes, etc.) sold in the United States need to have every component of the item tested for all kinds of chemicals. These tests will cost thousands of dollars for each item produced. This will probably eliminate handmade children's products as we know them.

While I can really understand that the reason behind this bill is to keep children safe, the products that we already know are safe are the the ones that will be wiped out instead of the harmful products that have been coming from overseas. Personally I have lots of family and friends who make products for children and this bill might really hurt what they do.

Please visit Cool Mom Picks for more information and for ways that you can contact government officials.

CPS 91

This week I decided to the sketch no. 91 from the CPS blog. I love this sketch! There are so many ways it can be interpreted. Here's what I came up with!

I really love how CPS gives new, fresh ideas when you hit a wall! If you are a card maker (or scrapbooker) go check it out!

More Cards!

I have been adding some new things to the shop lately. Last week I really tried to get one card style done per night and then I photographed them and listed them on Saturday and Sunday. I have been concentrating mostly on Christmas items and more cards with vintage images. Here are a couple that I finished. I still have a couple more that aren't quite done yet. Hopefully I will get them posted by the end of the week.

Featured on Soap Deli News!

I just wanted to mention that my store has been featured by Rebecca who has the blog Soap Deli News. She was so kind and offered to feature me on her beautiful blog! I really didn't know how to answer her questions and I think I ended up sounding like a big dork, oh well. :) Take a look at her whole blog, not just my feature. She has some cool stuff including some yummy looking recipes and a lot of other sellers from Etsy.

If you get a chance, take a look at her really cool etsy store, soapdeli. She has some fun, beautiful soaps. I wish I could smell them through my computer monitor!

Also, remember to enter my giveaway!!! I will be choosing the winner tonight and you still have a pretty good chance of winning because not too many people have entered.

Happy Sunday!

Internet Resources and BLOG GIVEAWAY!!!

Are there some websites that you utilize all the time for helpful information? I find myself going back to the same websites over and over when I need good deals, travel information, recipes, etc. Here are some that I visit frequently:

Allrecipes

Hotcouponworld

Tripadvisor

Pricegrabber

Fatwallet

Slickdeals

I think the common thread through all of these websites is that real people make real reviews and comments. I love Allrecipes because real people can post how they have made the recipes even better and on Fatwallet and Slickdeals people post good deals that they have found at stores or online. Sometimes the replies to those posts can get pretty tough if the deals aren't good enough or if a certain online code doesn't work, but that makes participants only post the really good finds.

I would love to find some more excellent resources and that is where you come in! Post a comment in the comments section of this post with your best online resources. I'm looking for anything; fashion, decor, saving money, travel, etc. these can be blogs, forums or any other type of website. Next Sunday I will randomly draw a name from the comments and you will win a set of these mini note cards and a card very similar to this one. (accidentally put my stamp on the back vertically instead of horizontally, so I'm not going to be selling it)

If you post a link on your blog to my giveaway, I will give you two entries to the drawing!

Please remember to give me some way to contact you in your post!!!!

Washington Visit

I thought I would share some pictures from my trip to Washington last week. This is my grandma as we were leaving. She has lost a lot of expression in her face, but she tried to smile here for me. I like this pictures. :)

My grandpa took us to an all-you-can eat lutefisk dinner on the way to the airport. For those of you who don't know what lutefisk is, I found the definition on Wikipedia:

"Lutefisk (lutfisk) (pronounced [lʉːtəfɪsk] in Southern Norway, [lʉːtfɪsk] in Central and Northern Norway, Sweden and the Swedish-speaking areas in Finland (lipeäkala in Finnish)) is a traditional dish of the Nordic countries made from stockfish (air-dried whitefish) or dried/salted whitefish (klippfisk) and soda lye (lut). Its name literally means "lye fish", because it is made with caustic soda or potash lye"

My grandparents love the stuff. I really can't stand it. Somehow I managed to marry into a family that also loves it. Jeremy's family makes me have some each Christmas Eve before I am able to open my presents. I take a small, small amount and eat it with a mouthful of mashed potatoes!

Lutefisk is always served with melted butter and some sort of tasteless white sauce.

Luckily there were also other options at the dinner. I ate potatoes, meatballs, vegetables and lefse. Which is a tortilla-like round made from potatoes that you butter and put sugar on.

Jeremy, dad and I were also able to visit the church were my dad was the pastor until I was about nine years old. The church is over 100 years old and has beautiful stained glass windows. The sun was almost down by the time we got there and it was tough to get good pictures. I had to turn the lights on for the pictures of the altar.

Quick Update

Since I haven't posted in a long, long time I thought I would quickly give an update. Last week we were at my Grandparent's house in Bellinham, WA. We got to spend about 4 days there with my parents. It was good to see them again, but my grandma really wasn't feeling well while I was there. She has Parkinson's Disease and is in a nursing home and while we were there she wasn't able to swallow her medications. It was sad to see her struggling so much. It was hard to leave. After we got home on Sunday my mom said that they have started giving her medications through an iv and this is the photo that I received from my parents last night:

Grandma was actually feeling well enough to go to the mall with my parents and grandpa! Mom called me today and said that they also went to Old Country Buffet and grandma ate a ton. Grandma was even able to talk to me for about 10 minutes today and she told me that she had seen a beautiful Christmas sweatshirt on QVC and she really wanted it because she is just sick of the ones that she has been wearing for years. :) It was good to talk to her and see that she is feeling better. I will post more pictures from our trip soon.

Last night Karin, Melissa and I took a trip to Hobby Lobby in Mankato. Here is a fun picture:

Melissa had knee surgery a couple of weeks ago and she was happy to get out of the house for a couple of hours. We got a lot of good stuff!

Free Coffee!

I signed up for Twitter about a week ago and have started to follow a lot of people. Tonight I started following Starbucks and I noticed that if you vote on Tuesday you can get a free regular coffee. You can find out more information on the Starbucks Blog.

If you want to follow me, my twitter account is: http://twitter.com/rebeccanelson

New Bag!!

I know I said I wasn't going to post again until I get home, but I just wanted to share about this really fun bag that I got from Lisa at Pink Lemonade Boutique. Check out her shop! She has tons of really cute stuff. She did mine as a custom order, so if you see anything in her sold items that you like, contact her and she will probably be able to work with you. She barely had enough of the black/yellow fabric for my bag, so she substituted the black handles. (which will be great in my case because my handles always seem to get dirty...does that mean I have really dirty hands...gross)

I know the photo is terrible. I took it from my phone and it was almost dark, but I wanted to share a picture. I haven't told her that I am going to be blogging about her and I don't have permission to use any of her photos yet, so I thought I'd take a quick shot of my bag and upload it fast. My photo really doesn't do the bag justice.

Lisa also has a blog and a flickr account. I actually found her through flickr! She has some photos of purses that she has made out of her husband's old suits! Super cool.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!! I'm off to see my family in Washington.

Lots of New Stuff

This Sunday I finally got around to taking pictures of most of the things that I have been making lately. I find it really difficult to find enough daylight hours to take pictures because by the time I get home from work the sun has already started to go down. I got a little bit of time on Sunday afternoon and I got in a lot of shots. I have been having fun posting lots on Etsy!

Jeremy and I are taking off to go to Bellingham, Washington until Sunday. My Grandparents live there and we get to have a quick visit with them. I hope everyone has a great rest of the week!