Tennis Vacation

I left Wednesday morning for the high desert of Indian Wells CA to be a spectator at the BNP Paribas Open. I am leaving on Sunday. I wish I could stay for longer or come back but work must be done....so sad. So here are links to pictures of what I have been up to so far:

Wednesday March 10th

Thursday March 11th

Friday March 12th

Update on hair products.

To see what I'm using and what I was using and why I changed check out my blog from Feb 7th. Giving up on no 'poo.

This stuff is working pretty well for me, my hair is a bit more frizzy than what it was like with just baking soda wash and apple cider vinegar rinse but I think hair will react to real soap in any form like that. It however isn't as crazy as it was when using conventional shampoos and even all other "eco" shampoos I have tried. My routine is shampoo, conditioner, combing using a wide tooth comb, a bit of air drying, apply hair oil, more air drying and then brushing with a new boar bristle brush I picked up. I usually do this once or twice a week depending on what's going on and how my hair is feeling. Between washings sometimes I add some more hair oil after a brushing because it gets a bit frizzy. I obviously don't have any issues with oily hair EVER. I could probably put an ounce of oil on my hair and it wouldn't be noticeable, besides a bit of a shine.

My scalp is a bit better, has it's days of good but also has it's days of bad. Just the way my scalp is I guess. It is now mostly caused by forces outside my control, stress, hormones, and stupid water quality, seriously the hardness of my water is ridiculous and makes bathing in general such a chore, but I am dealing and things are working out.

Why no pictures....

Well it's been a while since I blogged and even longer since I posted what I wanted to be a weekly photo post. Not much has been going on that was photo worthy. I've been mostly dealing with trying to be healthier and all that good stuff.

Mostly I have been really trying to get some good sleep, it was hard to come by for a few weeks, I was pretty miserable from total lack of sleep for almost a whole week at one point. It's partially because I just couldn't sleep and also because my husbands snoring was getting really bad. He added a pillow and that seems to be helping. I stopped drinking caffeine and it was a lot simpler than I thought it was going to be, I usually start my morning with a delicious mug of hot coffee. I downloaded a water sounds for sleep album and listen to that every night and I have been trying to keep the bedroom cooler, which isn't hard since it's on the corner and it is still getting cold at night. I checked out 5 books on sleep from the library, they haven't really helped but I haven't just sat down and read them yet, I've just been browsing them, not very smart on my part. I have been sleeping better but still need to work on it, mostly need to force myself to bed earlier than 1 am and make myself get out of bed before 10 am. I think I might be use to getting my best sleep in the morning basically making the rest of my day hard because I can't get feeling good and functional until 2 pm which is just way too late.

I have also been eating healthier, which hasn't been difficult at all, I've just had to put my foot down and say no to going out to eat. Getting the husband to go along with that has been more difficult but we don't eat the same things anyways. I went vegetarian in November and vegan in January and Rich didn't so he has been cooking for himself and me for myself. Recently I have just had to make the time to actually cook for myself every night and force myself to eat leftovers, don't know why but I have never been a left over eater.

One thing that has happened since this change in diet is my skin, my skin is the skin I have always wanted and dreamed of and knew I should have. Not just my face, but that's the most obvious, I've always had small breakouts around my chin and I haven't had one real pimple/zit/nastiness on my face since January. Even the rest of my skin is less dry and itchy and smoother, softer, and it's just lovely. I'm pretty sure this is due to giving up dairy, I also have not been bloated since giving up dairy. I am pretty sure I have a lactose sensitivity. My brother and my mothers side of the family are lactose intolerant probably mostly due to the fact that we/they are Japanese and Asians have a very high occurrence of lactose intolerance. Not being bloated is a GREAT feeling, a really great feeling. I can always fit into any of my pants at any time no matter what, do you know how awesome that is.

So that's what I have been up to for the past three weeks and beyond. Not a lot of fun but a lot of good. Fun is in my future though, next week I am going to Indian Wells for the BNP Paribas Open. WOOHOO!!! I am so excited. Look back a year in my blog and you will understand why I am so excited, teehee.

There are a few pictures of my cat's from the past three weeks. First Harley Quinn is not a fan of beer. I got a package delivered one day and every time Otsego heard the UPS truck in the afternoon she went to the door and waited for him to come up the stairs and leave a box on the patio. Most notably Otsego and Harley Quinn have been sleeping on the same piece of cat furniture, taking turns with the spots, that is notable because they don't particularly like each other. They tolerate each other but don't like being close and this is pretty close for them. (FYI if you click on the picture it should get bigger, I've been struggling with pictures and formatting and all that crap. Another reason I haven't been blogging as much, pictures and me just aren't getting along right now.)

Tomato or cactus fruit?

These pictures are from November, I never got around to doing anything with them. The cactus growing to the right of the garage door at work seemed to be fruiting (is that even a term). When I first saw it though I thought someone had shoved a tomato on the cactus.

That isn't as bizarre as it may seem. We have 2 tortoises that roam the front and back yards at work and we just lay out greens and other things for them to eat. The dogs LOVE to eat the greens. I've never met dogs that love greens, fruit, and vegetables as much as them, and all three of them eat the stuff.

What I thought happened was the tortoises ignored the tomato and to keep the dogs from eating the tomato and to be able give the tomato back to the tortoise at a later point it was placed on the cactus. As the day went a long I decided to take a closer look and get a picture of the tomato on a cactus and when I got closer I realized that it was actually a cactus fruit.

But still looking at it as close as I could get with out getting poked I was not convinced it was actually a part of the cactus and not something stuck on it. This cactus has been here for years and I've never seen anything like this on it. It's just so interesting to me.

Old jacket new necklace

I saw a great leather chain necklace tutorial on craftzine.com's blog.Which is originally fromcucumbersome.com which is a great blog that I am glad I found. Here is a cucumbersome's tutorial.

I then remembered the jacket I got probably 10+ years ago that while it is a nice leather jacket the color is way too much for a whole jacket, I think I wore it a grand total of 3 times. Seriously, what was I thinking, sometimes I really do need someone with me when I buy things.

So I took apart the jacket and using the large back panel I followed the steps in the tutorial and made myself a necklace of my own. I used a much smaller scale of the template because I wanted smaller pieces and I made mine much shorter than the original.

Added bonus for me is it matches my mermaid tattoo on my left upper arm. A total coincidence, I got the jacket WAY before I got the tattoo and I didn't choose the specific color for the tattoo. The original art is blue and the tattoo artist decided on the exact color to use on my tattoo based on my skin tone and all that good stuff. He is a good artist, a very good artist. It is actually the only tattoo I have out of 6 that has color because I am a bit concerned about clothes not matching my tattoo. My mom has a color tattoo on her arm and certain colors clash pretty badly with hers. I didn't even notice it matched until I finished the necklace and looked in the mirror.

I have 8 leather pieces left already cut out and a lot more jacket to work with, although they are all small strips/pieces, will probably make a bracelet the same way and see what else I can find to with left over leather pieces.

Picture Collage 3rd-9th

• Maya, dog at work, playing fetch. I think she's getting a bit round.
• Otsego, the fatty, got on the plastic tube and cloth cat "tree" that is Harley Quinn's fave spot and I was afraid she was too heavy for it.
• Harley Quinn, the little one, going through my purse, she's stolen things our of there before, her favorite is cash, cash must be secured at all times.
• Rich got a new pair of shoes and was switching out the laces and Otsego wanted to eat them, you remember the shoe lace eating incident of last week, did NOT want a repeat of that.
• It rained and I wanted some veggie burgers so Rich went and bbq'd me some burgers in the rain. Super steamy bbq was quite cool looking.
• Harley Quinn kept my lap warm over the weekend.
• Harley Quinn kept an eye on my computer while I was cooking, she is one of the most adorable things ever.
• Went to a friends place to watch SB44. Their dog Radley would watch the commercials and attack but only when there were small animals on. It was the most entertaining thing. The commercials with the fake chickens she wouldn't go after until the end when there were some real chickens, but she did go after the fake beaver. Let's just say they are not going to be upgrading to a new plasma or lcd tv.
• Started raining again on Tuesday and Rich went to car ahead of me at the grocery store and I had the keys. Turned out to be a pretty neat picture I snapped with my phone real quick as I was walking towards him.

Giving up on no 'poo

For info on what I had been doing and the ups and downs I have had check out my past blog posts.

My scalp has been horrible lately, not the worse ever but pretty flaky. My main issue with all this is soap scum due to the hard water we have. The soap scum build up on my scalp with my natural tendency to get dandruff was just too much for me.

Thursday night I decided to suck it up and find myself a natural shampoo, conditioner, and whatever else I came across. I looked around online at reviews and suggestions and didn't find much new info. When I went grocery shopping that night, at my local health food store, I spent quite a few minutes in the hair care section. At first I couldn't find a shampoo that I really wanted, I would not buy one with SLS's even natural coconut derived ones, they are just as destructive on my hair and I have talked about my personal issues with coconut products in previous posts, the poor Orangutans :(.

I do find Jason Scalp Balancing Natural Jojoba Conditioner (it is the 3rd from the bottom) and decide I might try using this for some scalp relief. I have used Jason products before and while I wasn't totally in love with them I didn't hate them, I quite liked them actually. They don't have any faults there are just so many ingredients in all this stuff I just feel like there must be a simpler way to clean your hair, but apparently what I had been doing was not the way.

After a few more minutes I find Weleda Rosemary Hair Oil with all pretty simple ingredients. I figure this can become my replacement for coconut oil which I had stopped using and never found a suitable replacement. I had been using straight olive oil and while it worked it was lacking a bit.

By this time I think my husband had done a whole lap of the store and was coming back for me to see what I found. As I am about to say ok I guess I will not be able to find a shampoo here, I look over and I see Alaffia Neem & Shea Butter Scalp Recovery Shampoo. I had bought some of their shea butter a few months ago and liked the product and the company. They are fair trade and their products come from Togo, West Africa and they give back to the community and seem to help out in many ways. This specific shampoo sounds exactly like what I needed and it has pretty simple ingredients.

Ingredients: Herbal Infusion of Neem Leaf (Azadiracta Indica), Liquid African Black Soap (Distilled Water, Saponified Shea Butter [Butyrospermum Parkii] and Virgin Palm Kernel Oil [elaeis Guineensis]), Decyl Polyglucose (from corn), Vegetable Glycerin, Panthenol (Pro-Vitamin B5), Essential Oils of Rosemary, Lavender and Tea Tree

While this does include palm kernel oil it contains next to nothing else I could find any fault with even upon looking closer at home and it became very apparent that I was going to have to give in a little and I really like the way Alaffia presents themselves and the ways they give back.

I showered that night and washed my hair, used the shampoo first, used a bit of the rosemary hair oil trying to concentrate it on my scalp, shampooed again, conditioned and was done. (From now on I will use the rosemary hair oil as a leave in like I had previously done with coconut oil, not sure why I decided to use it in the shower.) My scalp is reacting nicely and my hair isn't all that crazy but I can tell it is a bit frizzed compared to how it use to be but I believe that using any sort of soap will be likely to do that to my hair. My scalp just could not deal with the hard water and baking soda washes any more. I will post an update in a few weeks after I have had time to decide and find out how my hair and scalp react to this on a longer basis. It was cold and rainy today and I wore a beanie to work and kept my hair in a braid and under my jacket as well all day so I can't really tell how it will react on a day I let it "hang" out and do its own thing.

There is one thing I will not be able to deal with, beyond frizzy hair that I cannot even brush, I like being able to brush my hair and previous to going no 'poo I could not and would not brush my hair EVER, it would only get combed wet and fingered through because it would practically stand on end. It was horrible and miserable. It was also pretty unmanageable and honestly what is the point of having hair if you can't do anything with it and you hate it.

So hopefully this stuff works and I can report happiness. I plan on only washing my hair once maybe twice a week, pretty much what I have ALWAYS done and if I need to get it wet between then I will use just the conditioner. A few things I can tell you, the Alaffia shampoo definitely won't be liked by all because of its smell. It isn't bad but it isn't all sweet and perfumed like so many traditional products. The Jason jojoba does smell pretty good and this is the first time I have had good smelling hair in just about a year. I also would not suggest the Weleda Rosemary Hair Oil as I will use it to anyone with any sort of fine hair. I have incredibly thick coarse hair over all and individually. I am pretty sure this oil will weigh down and slick a lot of other types of hair.

*All opinions are my own and not influenced by anything but my experience with a product and how I feel about them. I was not compensated by anyone or even given any products to try for this review.

Make-up review

I am still using the make-up I posted about at the end of 2008, but I have added something to those products.

I bought Organic Wears Tinted Moisturizer. I now use this as a base and I love it as much as the other products of theirs. It combined with the face powder gives great light coverage. My freckles are all still visible but the redness I get on my forehead and my chin are gone. The moisturizer blends really well.

I wore it to work a few days, something I would never do except I wanted to see how it holds up. I work in a very well heated building and a very very well heated and high humidity room and of course the outdoors that I venture into and out of multiple times in a day. I sit directly in front of a fan space heater at some points in my day. When I got home from work it looked exactly like it had when I left for work. One of the days I worked I did some work that resulted in minor bits of water splashing on my face and I noticed no effects from that when I got home. It is winter so I am not getting super sweaty but again I wouldn't be wearing make-up to work normally or during any time I plan on getting all massively sweaty. I would only use it for times when I am going out or what not.

*All opinions are my own and not influenced by anything but my experience with a product and how I feel about them.

A look in...

One of my kitchen cabinets.

I've haven't been using much plastic in recent years and more so to what some may call and an "extreme" degree within the last year. Mostly thanks to Beth at Fake Plastic Fish. If you want to know why I am doing this go there, she's extremely passionate and explains it many times in many ways and is very detailed, informative, and knowledgeable. I have almost exclusively switched to glass and ceramic for food storage.

Here is a look in my storage container cabinet. There isn't much in there at the moment because a lot of it is being used. I bought two sets of Pyrex glass bowls/dishes with plastic lids and most of the other stuff has been gifted or given to us. My husbands grandma gave us a bunch of ceramic casserole dishes a few years back when she had to clean out her house due to a little oven fire. She also gave us a set of mixing bowls, those lovely blue glass ones in the picture. A few sets of soup and salad bowls and a set of small appetizer plates that now function as our cat food dishes. I don't know where I would be without those. I have a set of thinner glass bowls with lids that I was given and a few things are actually from our wedding registry. Maybe we should get married again so we can get some more things.

But my problem is I still have all the plastic Tupperware, Ziploc and Gladware stuff. I did separate out all items that aren't a 1, 2, or 5 plastic but that didn't amount to much. The few things I did find were mostly 6's and have been re-purposed to hold non food items. Throwing away all those things isn't really something I wanted to do. A few things have found uses elsewhere holding things that are waiting to be used or turned into something. But there is still a lot of random containers that occupy a second shelf in my cabinet.

Then there is a whole other shelf of things that rarely get used or just don't have a use, mostly plastic but also some other stuff. There is a wok in there that is just not compatible with our electric stove, a strainer bowl set that is just too big to use, it doesn't fit in our sink so I can't clean it. There is a cupcake and a cake holder that I do use occasionally but not often. There are some lids that don't have containers to fit on and some containers without lids. There is a cup in there that I can re-use for discount refills at the Wild Animal Park or The San Diego Zoo but I go there so infrequently I'm not sure it's worth actually buying them in the first place. There are a few containers I have used to hold my kitchen compost material so I don't have to take it out right away and well I then forget to take it out and now the stuff just smells of compost. This is also the home to a few things that I can't find a use for and don't have numbers on them.

At some point I am just going to have to throw this stuff out or perhaps I can find someone to take the majority of plastic stuff but that all takes effort and planning and if I just leave it in the cabinets I can "forget" about it and I don't have to deal with it.

Jan 27th to Feb 2nd

In a picture collage:

The moon on Thursday when I got home from work as seen from my parking spot.

On Tuesday I was flicking my fat cat with her favorite toy, a shoelace tied on a plastic stick, because she was lying in her bed chewing her fur, prozac hasn't stopped it completely. Well I left the toy where it fell the last time I flicked it towards her. The stick was on the ground and the string was along the edge of her bed. We always leave her toys around and she has had this one for years. I finally grabbed it early Wednesday, around 1 am, I was watching tennis that was taking place in Australia, quite a time difference there. I grab the toy and it's half the size it use to be. She ATE half of the shoelace!! She never showed any signs of having eaten it, just look at that cute shoelace eating face. Then finally Monday morning she puked it up, she held onto that thing for quite a while. (I put that picture super tiny so you don't really have to see it.)

Saturday Rich and Harley Quinn were watching me make dinner and he decided he wanted to try and eat her. He stopped before he got a mouthful of Harley fur.

On Sunday I was in the animal room cleaning things up and Mookie the little box turtle came out to say hi. He's so cute. (not actually sure if he is a he yet. We named him after Mookie Wilson)

Not much going on this week, besides me checking litter boxes and watching cats to make sure they weren't going to need a trip to the vet for shoelace blockage.

Jan 21st to Jan 26th in pictures

I have a hard time remembering what happens day to day, you know all the normal stuff that isn't all that important but still I don't remember what happened last week. I also like to take snapshots of things I see and then I do nothing with them and forget when I took them and for what reason so I am going to try and do weekly updates of what I do in pictures. Let's see how long this lasts. It would be cool to follow my whole 2010 this way. I shall try.

Thursday 21st was still stormy. This is out my deck patio. Palm trees really show the wind and there are plenty of palm trees in San Diego.

Thursday night we got hail. I know it's minor and not that much but I live in San Diego we NEVER get hail, this is a monumental amount of hail so I don't wanna hear, aw that's nothing, IT IS FOR HERE, SO SUCK IT, hehe. I don't really have that attitude. But really this is monumental for here.

Friday was rain (drizzle to almost all other areas) on and off. The sky kept changing, look to the left it would be dark, look to the right there was blue sky. There were probably some nice rainbows but I didn't see them.

The above picture is to my left and below is to the right. That's not a rainbow at the top of the picture it's the change in color/tint of my car window.

A "mushroom" cloud of rain in the distance.

Friday: Part of palm tree that was blown down and collected some water.

Then Friday got all sorts of "bad", this is the bucket of nasty water I dropped my cell phone in. Luckily I got it out real fast dried it off and it fully recovered but it was acting up for 2 days after this and the battery is still acting up a bit. Need to remember to not tweet while working especially when over buckets of water.

Sunday my cats displayed their displeasure for each other in an interesting way. By sleeping "together" but with a bag between them. Harley Quinn loves sleeping under paper bags, she was there first then Otsego came and joined her. I guess they can be close to each other they just don't want to see each other. They are hilarious sometimes.

Monday I was greeted at work by Atticus Rex, I spent a few minutes giving him some attention, I love this dog.

Here is the view from the other side. He is a huge dog, look at the size of his paw, it's as big as my shoulder.

I really love this picture, mostly the trees and sky in the background.

Friday was a lovely day, sunny and warm and because of that Tank the resident Sulcata tortoise was up and roaming the yard. As evening came I noticed my boss and his wife wandering the front yard. Turns out they couldn't find Tank, he sleeps in the warm garage and usually chooses a corner to jam himself into. Well he wasn't in any corner or anywhere else in the garage and they feared he had some how found a way out or made his way out the gate when someone came or went. They were out there for a good hour I think, I got to the point in my day where I had to do some work in the garage. I go out there and my bosses wife starts asking me when I got there so they could try and figure out a time line for Tank escaping. As she is talking to me I look down and there he is, he shoved himself not in a corner of the room but on the bottom shelf of a rack. It was corner enough for him I guess since he was up against some boxes.

He wasn't as visible as the above picture looks. Below is the picture from where I was standing when I looked down and saw him. Pretty good camouflage up against boxes and the particle board shelf on the left side of the picture.

And this is right on a corner so even from the other direction he isn't very visible. You can barely see his shell sticking out on the lower right side of the picture. I'm sure he feels pretty secure here though.

Tuesday: Here is a picture of a pretty typical morning for me, on the couch watching what I DVR'd the night before, taking a look around the net, enjoying some coffee and a bowl of oatmeal. Recently, because of the cold weather my fat cat has been shoving herself onto my lap. So I sit with my legs falling asleep with the fatty on one leg and the lap top on the other. The mornings are cold so I let her stay for a bit and warm me up. She doesn't fit very well on my leg but she insists.

More about my cat. By fat I mean she's down to 22 pounds from close to 30. She is also the one who is on Prozac for what is diagnosed as psychogenic alopecia. She's a very anxious cat for some unknown reason and to cope she would chew the fur off her underside, started at the belly and she got as close to her neck as she could. We had it under control for a few years with flower essences but then I went on a long weekend vacation in March and she could not deal. My husband was home the whole time but guess she just needs me. Anyways the Prozac has been working great and I don't have to worry about her getting hairball blockages. She's had issues with them twice in the past, both passed on their own but one required a few nights stay at the vet. She is also a picky eater who won't eat anything but her food so getting her to eat hairball gel is IMPOSSIBLE and she really doesn't need the extra stress of another overnight vet visit due to a huge hairball.

What I didn't get to this weekend

Warning this will be a pretty negative post. I have thought that maybe I should try and not be negative but I just can't so...

This weekend I didn't:

• clean the water turtles pool
• feed the snakes
• clean up the box turtles water dish and food dishes
• clean my geckos food dishes and feed it
• clean the fish tank
• vacuum
• brush the little one (my youngest medium haired cat that gets massive hairballs)
• put away clothes (dirty and clean ones)
• watch the netflix discs I have and have had for about a month
• watch the many things I need to delete off the dvr

I did get the shower curtain cleaned and hung to dry. We only use one of our bathroom showers now so I rotate the shower curtains every few months to get them good and clean. I'd like to say I got the shower/tub clean but I honestly think that thing is beyond cleanable. It is plastic and the bottom is grey and I can't get it clean with anything I try. I have even reverted to bleach with no success. The caulk around the edges has mold all under it, pretty sure they caulked over the mold that was there from the previous residents (you should have seen the state of the toilet, talk about nasty). I am pretty good at inhibiting new mold growth but have lapses that are impossible to repair, also tried bleach here with no success. The walls are pretty easy to clean, they don't seem to be as porous as the bottom. I didn't even get to catch up much needed sleep or read the library book I have had for over a month. Basically I did a whole lot of nothing but stress and have quite a little episode of inability to cope with that stress.

Oh woe is me(being sarcastic), I really need to learn to deal with everyday stress better so I don't have wasteful weekends and feel like absolute crap as a result. I really don't have a lot to complain about I know that but I just can't seem to convince myself not to feel the way I do.

My week so far in pictures (and a video)

Monday I got my spot on the couch stolen by Harley Quinn

But she is so adorable I couldn't move her

When you don't make the bed in the morning it make it difficult for Otsego to find a comfy spot on the bed.

Tuesday was quite stormy, we had a Tornado warning in several spots in San Diego County. Here is a video I took out my bedroom window about an hour before the tornado warning.

This picture was just about an hour after I took the video.

Wednesday I got to work and pretty quickly cut my finer on this lovely rusty hinge while closing up the cage next to it.

Rich's dinner

I just have to share this. The evening got away from us and by the time we got home from the store it was 8pm and a bit too late to cook up the veggie stir-fry we were going to make. So I had some left over Red Lentil and Barley Stew and some baked tofu. Rich decided to go with every kids dream dinner, ice cream, pound cake, and chocolate syrup. Here are some picture of him making his dinner.

I don't know why but I could not get the last image to load rotated correctly, but still you get the idea. Also I finished off the rest of the pound cake for dessert to help me deal with Tommy Robredo losing first round at the Australian Open, it didn't help.

My new bag, I made it myself!

I have had my Mom's sewing machine since the summer and I have dabbled here and there with very minor things and was kinda getting the hang of basic sewing. I thought I was at the point to actually attempt to make myself a new bag.

I have wanted a nice simple shoulder bag to carry my things in that fit in with my daily life a bit more than my leather Coach purse. Not that I don't love my Coach purse but it just really doesn't fit my daily life any more, I felt a bit hypocritical buying all natural, organic, healthy foods and things with my coach purse, it just didn't fit. I had been using a little cloth handbag I found in my Mom's closet, it was a bit small for all my stuff, it didn't have a shoulder strap, and it had sequins on it that always scratched and scraped my leg/arm/side when I was carrying it. I thought about buying something from Etsy but couldn't find something I loved available in a pattern I loved. So I looked around on the internet and found a tutorial for a bag I liked and the tutorial seemed simple and easy. It's from Tiny Happy and the tutorial can be found here.

For Christmas a friend got me a gift card to Jo-Ann's, I went and picked up some fabric (I really love the fabric I picked for the inside lining), a button, and some tailors chalk. That night I sat down and made my bag. Here is the finished product I made on my 1st attempt all by myself and I LOVE IT!

I have since added a lot of craft and sewing blogs to my reader so time and money permitting I should be able to make a lot more cool things utilizing my new love for making things, teehee.

My mostly handmade Christmas

Note: If you happen to be reading this Mom, stop until we have exchanged gifts, you'll spoil the surprise!

My Christmas was mostly homemade, on my part at least. My brother, M-I-L and her twin sister came over Christmas morning for pancakes. I decided I wanted to display my holiday cards, didn't get many, mostly because I stopped sending them out to everyone because I just couldn't justify the paper use. I had some rope which I believe is jute, I cut a piece to a good size tied a knot on each end put a thumbtack inside the knot and hung or clipped cards onto the rope. Instant holiday card display.

I made some gift tags to go along with the pretty boxes I made from tea boxes. There was a box that had an add/coupon on the inside and one that I ripped too much for it to be considered pretty. I took parts of those boxes and glued the pieces to another piece of cardboard and made pretty matching tags.

I used the boxes for cookie, mmmmmmm cookies. I made Sandtarts for everyone, my favorite holiday cookie. A bit of foil and a stack of Sandtarts who wouldn't want those.

I made boxes for my Mom to take on her flight to Seattle tied with some hemp twine and my gift tags.

I put the boxes in a paper bag and found some Christmas stamps in my desk drawer and had some fun.
I used this same principle to wrap a calender and cd for Rich's Aunt. Cut up a paper bag for wrapping paper and used my Christmas stamps to decorate.

For my M-I-L and my husbands Grandma we got them a framed picture of the two of us and I added a card I decorated with stamps all tied together with hemp twine and a gift tag.
My mom got a framed picture too, an eye pillow I made, and a bookmark I made (more about those in a bit), wrapped in a t-shirt we bought her.
I bought my husband a new pair of headphones he desperately needed and quickly sewed a bag to put them in and added some tissue paper we had lying around.
Here are my cloth bookmarks I made. I used an old pair of jeans, cut off one of the legs, cut that into strips, sewed along the edges so they wouldn't completely fray and added a cute charm on the top. Quite easy and very useful and everyone seemed to really like them.

I also made a few lavender eye pillows from scraps I had lying around, I took my Mom's sewing machine earlier this year and never did anything with it and recently started teaching myself to sew, the bookmarks were one of my first attempts at doing something. I then found a box of scraps, a lot I recognized from Halloween costumes or pillows we had on the couch as kids. With some of the scraps I made lavender eye pillows. They are filled with flax seeds and dried lavender flowers, they smell delicious and are oh so relaxing.

For the people that I gave a bookmark and a eye pillow to I wrapped them together with hemp twine. They go together so well, don't you think.

One of Rich's other Aunt's got a framed photo (that I think has probably had mustaches and other things added to it already by Rich's uncle, hehe) and an eye pillow and I wrapped those two things together.

Everything is so simple yet still festive and pretty.