My little Angel...

Well, if that isn't an oxymoron I don't know what is?   Hahaha!  I am talking about Hope.  I love her to death, but angel isn't exactly how I would describe her at least 80% of the time.  :)

However, the powers that be at The Nutcracker auditions saw differently and assigned her the part of an angel in the 2012 production of The Nutcracker.  She was pretty excited and screamed when she saw what part she got because that is the one she REALLY wanted.  I was a little relieved myself because even though she told me she was ok with whatever part she got, I knew she would be a little disappointed.

So for those family and friends interested in seeing her in the show, let me know and I will get details to you as soon as I have them.

Well, since I on the topic of Christmas...here is a layout I created from some of last year's Christmas activities.

Each year the city fire department drives around Santa to all the neighborhoods they support.  This year was the best year yet for weather.  It was so warm the kids were playing golf and hopscotch on the driveway.  CRAZY!!! for December.

I worked on this layout at a crop I went to a while back and when I pulled out the papers someone mentioned they were kind of bright.  These weren't typical colors I had used before in a Christmas layout, but something drew me to them in the store.  This was one of the My Mind's Eye lines from last year.

I got the idea for the wrapped candy from Pinterest (of course).  I was at a crop I didn't think I had anything I could use to make it since I had originally planned to use a snack baggie.  However, I did have the clear packaging the chipboard pieces came in, so I cut up pieces of it and used it instead.  It was a little stiffer than I had wanted, but with some glue dots the twisted areas finally stayed where I wanted them to.

I added gems and black twine to the chipboard ornaments you see below.

And as I always do...I made some cards with the scraps I had left over from the layout.  Here are two of them and I will share more in the next few days.

The sentiment I actually cut out of one of the pattern papers that had it repeated over and over.  And there is another one of those candies I made.  :)

The chipboard was actually 12" long and I was able to cut it down in length for two similar cards as the one shown below.

Well, hopefully the Christmas like weather doesn't show up too early, but I am hoping for it to be a little colder and whiter this year at Christmas.  We will have to wait and see what Mother Nature has in store for us this year.

Darla