Recycled Snowman Advent Calendar

Recycled Snowman Advent Calendar

For the past couple of years we've been created different advent calendars so Bean can count down the days 'til Christmas.  We've had the Christmas book countdown and last year we did the Christmas sock countdown.

This year's advent calendar was inspired by this post from MPMideas.com.  I asked the gals at work to help me save 24 toilet and paper towel rolls for this project.

I took pictures of Bean and I painting and decorating these little fellas but they seem to be lost off my phone.

We painted (most) of our rolls and I used the bastard glue gun that steals people's fingerprints to attach the earmuffs, eyes and scarves.  We reused the numbers from last year's sock calendar.

(Dear Santa, I would like a new glue gun for Christmas please.  My fingers can't take much more.)

I say we painted most of them because I somehow miscounted the little boogers and once the paint and sinister glue gun were put away, I realized there were only 23.  I quickly picked up Little No. 7 here, the snowman cousin from the tropics, and slapped him together.  After two hours of painting and crafting with a 5 year-old and several third degree burns, you really don't give a crap any more, you know?

Little No. 7 - ain't he cute!

The hardest part about this is keeping them all standing upright.

Bean loves them.  I like the fact that most of the materials were recycled from other things or projects and once she gets the surprise inside each day, the poor little dude goes right into the trash.  By Christmas Eve, the mantel will be Christmas decoration free!  Nothing to pack up. 

The Spirit of Christmas

www.overthebigmoon.com

It's Christmas time once again.

I would love to believe that everyone in this world is filled with the Spirit of Christmas right now but I keep being shown that we are filled with something else entirely. 

It's sad to realize it but we seem to be filled with the spirit of greed and brotherly contention.  This was proven this Black Friday weekend.  This year we did not venture out on Friday into the stores.  We have in the past and for the most part, I have, thankfully, never encountered any type of mayhem like you always see now on the news.  No stampedes and no fights. 

We did go out on Saturday though thinking all of the craziness would be gone.  It was but what was left were short tempers, no patience for anyone, and fellow shoppers that think it's their job to school others.  In our local Target, the store I have a love-hate relationship with already, the store was crowded.  No one practiced patience with fellow shoppers and their buggies.  Sorry - carts for those non-Southern readers!  You have double the number of people in any given store that are normally there, which will also mean double the number of buggies you have to maneuver around.  People think they have the right to fly through the over-crowed aisles like it's the Daytona 500. Then they want to act surprised to come around a corner and find another cart right there in their way.  Grumbling ensues.

I had a lady in Target grumble out loud at me, trying to admonish me in front of other shoppers when I had my buggy in almost the middle of one of the main aisles and her group decided after they had passed the open area that they could turn down beside me that they, in fact, did want to turn in the aisle I was sitting on waiting for them to come by.  What she did not know and evidently didn't give a rat's ass about was the reason I was sitting right in the middle of this aisle.  Right before this, I had to practice defense driving techniques by having to jerk my buggy that was carrying my child over to the left side of this aisle so that we wouldn't be hit by another shopper that was in a very big hurry to get to the little boys' department for some reason.  Underwear sale probably.  She almost side-swipped us in her haste.

So as this grumbling woman who had already decided to go by me but then at the last minute changed her mind walks by me, she had the nerve to say out loud "stupid people standing in the middle of an aisle, don't have no learning".  Yes, she said that to me.  She had no idea why I was in the middle of this aisle she wanted on but thought I was an idiot and felt the need to point it out to everyone within earshot but not quite brave enough to say it directly to my face.

She might not have been brave but I was.  I decided since I evidently am a buggy driving idiot that the nuthouse allowed out long enough to do some Christmas shopping but normally keeps me in to treat my idiotic ways like not having the sense to come in from out of the rain and shoving my finger into light sockets and such, I would act like said idiot and do a song and dance for her.  I mean, I've already pissed this fellow shopper off with my mere existence on her planet, I might as well try to entertain her in some fashion.  I start singing and dancing while pushing my buggy on forward - managing to actually do three things at once.

"I'm so sorry I'm alive."

"I"m so sorry my momma didn't raise me right."

"I'm so sorry I've ruined your shopping.  Thank God you were here today to tell me so."

"Won't somebody please take me outside and beat me?"

I'm not sure if you'll hear that little ditty on any Christmas music radio channels this year but that woman and a few others sure heard it.  And I heard what she said at the end of my performance, too.

"I'll be damned..."

Oh no, please don't.  It's Christmas!

So...who wants to go shopping with me next weekend?  I'm currently working on my Walmart version cause it's a totally different crowd over there.  

Pinterest Problems

Totally owned by RavingsbyRae.com - not me!

Last week, I pulled up my beloved Pinterest boards to try and find (quickly) a recipe I needed for our Thanksgiving meal. Forty-five minutes later, I still had not found said recipe.

The light bulb went off.  I need to fix my Pinterest boards.  I have one board that contains ALL of my pinned recipes.  Searching for the needle in the haystack wasn't helped by the search function either.  I got a lot of other recipes but not the one I wanted.

So now on top of all the other things on my To-Do list, I am trying to reorganize my pins.  Pinterest doesn't make it super easy to do this either.  One by one these pins have to be rearranged.  Joy!

If you are a follower of my Pinterest boards and you only follow a certain few boards there, you might want to check to see if you are following all of my new boards.  The main ones I am going to be focusing on are my Crafting Inspiration board and our Yummies board.  The Yummies board will be broken down into categories like appetizers, soups, sides, etc.


 

Other interests

I have a confession to make.  I have been cheating on y'all.

Yes, that's right. 

Instead of spending my time here posting, I have been spending more and more time at Tumblr on my various blogs there. 

I do apologize and hope you can forgive me.

It really hasn't been intentional.  I go through periods where I want to write and then I don't.

I'm in an non-writing mood now and that is why I love Tumblr so much.  I can find a picture that conveys my mood and reblog it there so easily.  And if you've ever tried out Tumblr you know that once you start browsing, you get sucked in. 

I just re-did almost all of my blogs there and that took much more of my time than I intended, too.

I have my Tumblr called The Motherland where I share cool pictures of England, London, and all things British like this picture.

Like I said, I have several Tumblrs and when I first joined Tumblr, I created my main blog, The Motherland, and then set up several secondary ones for different interests.  What I didn't realize at the time was you cannot follow someone else under a secondary blog name.  What does that mean? 

Well, I have a Tumblr that is devoted to the color pink.  If I found another pink Tumblr, I couldn't follow it under the name bashfulblush.  It would only show my main blog, The Motherland, as the follower.  That caused me to miss out on a lot of re-follows.  So last week, I went in and set up all new main blogs for each interest.  It is a pain to have to log in under a different email each time I want to post to a different blog but at least now I can grow my followers.

The new addresses for my other Tumblrs are bashfulblush2 where you can view pictures of pink and girly things all day like this

Gandalf never looked better.

If that's too girly for you, how about some eye candy for the ladies?  Check out MyOtherHusbandsv2.0 where you can spend all day drooling over images like this

 

or this

or this

 

See what happened there?  I got sucked in again.  You have to be careful with this one, ladies.  You sit down in front of your computer with a cup of coffee thinking to yourself "oh I'll just spend five minutes looking to see what's new on there".  Four hours later, you have drool running down your face, you have to pee like a racehorse and your kids are standing outside school waiting for you to pick them up.  Hey, it happens.  I won't judge.

Then there is Remembering Diana 2.  I post any beautiful or rare photo of Princess Diana that I come across.  I am still an admirer after all these years.

 

There is also Royal Windsors II where I post or reblog pictures of the British Royal Family.  (Okay, I think it is safe to say I'm a nerd.  I got it.  Let's move on.)

On Royal Windsors II, I have also started blogging my own snarky picture markups of the royals like this

And finally, I have The Fae Mermaid which is a catch-all of posts or pictures that I like or make me laugh and they don't fit into one of the other blogs.

Some of you were followers of my old secondary blogs and will see that the names are very similar.  I didn't try to change them too much but they are completely different web addresses so please re-follow me at the new ones.

There you have it.  That's where I've been spending my time.  I do hope to be back here shortly because I have a couple of projects we've been working on that I want to share here like our Christmas card picture and our advent calendar so stayed tuned for those.

Being Crafty Can be Painful

Last weekend I spent the better part of an afternoon working on this little beauty.

 

I have plans to make this part of a photo prop for our Christmas cards this year.

What I didn't plan on was this.

Evidently an afternoon spent spray painting will reward you not only with a craft project but also a case of tendonitis. Of course the full time job didn't help the wrist at all but you have to pay the bills, right?  

On top of the crafty coupe shown, I also have an advent calendar, a dress up board, a medal board, and some hand colored cards I have either all started or have plans for.  This hand is not helping me get any of them done.  Anyone wanna come help?

 

 

What a dumbbell!

Halloweenie is over now so I had the grand i-dear to come in here today and remove the Halloween background and all and redo it for fall.

Guess what I forgot to do first?

Ummmhmmmm.

I didn't back it up or save any of my gadgets.  They are all gone now.

Ummmmhmmmmmmm.

So...I know what I'll be cussing over this weekend.

Look Ma!

I'm sure you all can guess I had nothing to do with this.  These are the things that happen when Bean hangs out with Hubz.

Ugh.