You, too, can be a winner

I'm a winner. Maybe not in any of the giveaways I've participated in, but when it really counts, I'm a winner. At least, that's what I like to tell myself. And I'm not giving up on the giveaways.

Tomorrow starts the 12 Days of Junkie, where Laurie from Tip Junkie is hosting a giveaway for, you guessed it, the next 12 days. Each morning, two winners will be selected from the previous day's giveaway. And up for grabs are handmade goods from Tip Junkie's Mom-preneur Shop-a-thon. Check out the links below for more information on how to sign up.

Relax! More handmade gift ideas

Friday I passed the Rathaus and noticed they were preparing for the Christmas markets. I think they open on Saturday! Why would I go to the Christmas markets when I'm making all of my Christmas gifts, you may ask. The food, of course. Last year they had a stand with a huge chocolate fountain and you could get little waffle bowls filled with fruit and covered in chocolate. Yum!

Speaking of making gifts... I have three gifts finished and plan to finish three more this week. Three in one week! I'm very optimistic. But for now I have some more ideas to share. I would definitely make some of these products if they were more conclusive to mailing, but since they're not, I'll pass them along to you.

Today's theme: relaxation.

Angry Chicken is one of my favorite blogs. Amy's Bend-the-Rules Sewing was my first sewing book and some of the patterns are sure to be use once again during this year's gift-making extravaganza. If you like sewing or baking or making your own personal hygiene products, I'd recommend checking her blog out. For gifts, take a look at her posts on making sugar scrubs and bath melts. She provides links to recipes and tips based on her own experience. One of those posts links to Recipezaar's Bath/Beauty list, which has a lot of bath product recipes. I think I may make a sugar scrub for myself. :)

If you're not into the bath products, check out the rice heat therapy bag from Sew, Mama, Sew's Handmade Holidays 2007 list. Or if you're ambitious, take a look at the wellness bag which includes a heat therapy bag, a cold therapy pack, and a cold therapy eye pillow.

Here's an awful photo of a rice bag I made earlier this year. I made it long so it could be draped over the shoulder or around the neck and segmented it so the rice wouldn't bunch in the ends. It was a pain to sew, but it turned out quite well.

Photohunt: Together

Imagine me and you, I do.
I think about you day and night. It's only right,
To think about the girl you love and hold her tight
So happy together.

This is one of the first photos I took with my then-new camera. Brian and I were driving from Oklahoma to Texas and I was trying to figure out all of the features on the camera. I would change one of the settings, lean over and take a picture of me and Brian, then look at the photo to see what it looked like on that particular setting. I was playing with the exposure at this point, which is why this photo is over-exposed. In all of the previous photos, I was looking at the camera and Brian was looking straight ahead at the road. So imagine my surprise when I looked at this photo and was greeted by Brian's huge grin. It still makes me smile.


And speaking of things that make me smile, I couldn't resist posting a second photo this week. I'm pretty sure I've posted this one before, but it works so well for this theme.



Check out more photos at PhotoHunt.

Sicko

Brian has a disorder. I'm pretty sure it's genetic because I've heard that his mom is afflicted with it as well. I don't know the official term for it, but I think it may be called "room-rearrangitis". People who suffer from this disorder are compelled to rearrange the furniture in a room much more frequently than the normal person. We've lived in this apartment a little over one year and our living room has had three or four distinctly different furniture configurations. I thought the living/dining room was the only room that allowed for furniture manipulation because the master bedroom has built-in furniture on two of the three usable walls, the spare bedroom is my temporary sewing space so there's not much furniture in there, and the kitchen... well, who rearranges the kitchen.

But last week Brian's room-rearragitis flared up again and I learned that my assumption about the living/dining room was wrong. You see, last week, Brian moved our entire living room into the spare room. Now our living/dining room is just a dining room. Well, it's actually just a room with a big table in it because we never actually dine there. And the spare/sewing room is now a spare/sewing/living room. It may sound odd -- to have the living room in the spare room -- but I have to admit, I like it.

Are you up for a challenge?

I did it. I took the pledge. The pledge to buy handmade this holiday season. Actually, my plan is to give gifts made by my hands. But there may be a little buying involved as well. And I'm really excited. I've already completed a few gifts and have a few more in progress. Mostly sewing, but I have some other things in the hopper as well.

For me, giving handmade gifts isn't about saving money. In fact, it would probably be cheaper to buy gifts. It's about spending time and energy creating something. I've been thinking about this all year. Honestly, Ive been bookmarking tutorials and gift ideas since last Christmas. I've found a lot of great ideas that I won't be able to use because they're not very suitable for mailing or some other reason. So I'm going share some of those ideas during the month of November. Not every day. I don't want to scare off the male readership. But hopefully once a week.

First up, gift ideas for children.

Homemade playdough. I made playdough about two months ago and it has held up very well. Buy a few small plaster containers, print cute labels from the computer, and voila! A cute, inexpensive handmade gift.

Tutu. I used this tutorial from Plumtickled to make a tutu for a birthday gift. It was easy, but it took a bit longer than the half hour suggested in the tutorial.


And finally, a fishing game. I haven't found a reason to make this yet, but it's really cute. I'm sure I'll find an excuse to make it sooner or later.

I'd call it a success

Thanks for the tips for the Halloween party. It turns out, I didn't need as many games as I anticipated. The ghost bowling was a huge success. We learned at our front hallway doubles well as a bowling alley.





Since the kids didn't get to go trick-or-treating, we had a little indoor trick-or-treating fun after dinner. I told the kids I would be behind one of four doors and they waited in the living room while I went into one of the other rooms. Then they knocked on each door until they found the room I was in, then yelled "trick or treat" while I passed out the candy. It's not quite the same as the U.S. tradition, but everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Here are all of the kiddos in their costumes.


Sharkdog also dressed up, but he didn't make in the photo. Just like most little kids, he only kept his costume of for a few minutes. However, I was able to get some photos later on when I bribed him with a piece of bread. That dog will do anything for some bread!

Here he is getting into costume:

What? You'll give me some bread if I put on my mask?

And the transformation is complete:

The phantom of the opera is here!

Visit Tip Junkie for more Halloween show-and-tell.

Photohunt: Blue

I had a hard time picking between the photo below and this photo. But in the end, I had to go with the blue Danube.


Technorati Tag: PhotoHunt