Holiday Countdown '12

Since I haven't paid to post more pictures and haven't done anything more than download wordpress, I will link to the picture of our "countdown calendar" here.

It is really simple.  I googled "free mini envelope template" and chose one I wanted.  Then, I printed it out at 60% since even though they all said mini and I unchecked "fit to page", they still were giant.  Once printed and cut, I traced 24 on Christmas scrapbook paper.  Angelo actually cut most of them out and helped to fold them.  After the glue dried, I put in strips of paper (cut from one sheet printed from Word) with an activity that would work for that day.  Some are simple and could be done any day and some are days that I will need to be teaching or taking advantage of weekend hours to make gifts and DH will take Angelo out for a while. This was one of my rare moments of planning every day for a month.  The last time was this time last year... and I still switched some activities as needed.

So, the list includes:
See holiday trees at the Carnegie art museum
Put up our tree
Make gingerbread houses at the library
Make small crafty gifts
Make cards
See gingerbread houses on display at Market Square
Help make gifts for our baby and baby cousins
Ride Shenley Santa train
Make hot chocolate (from scratch) and read a Xmas book (we checked out a bunch from the library)
Decorate paper grocery bags for gift wrap
Package, address, stamp and mail gifts and cards (he's been getting a big kick out of writing things out for family, so it's not as boring as it may initially sound.)
See "Wreck it Ralf"
Put up lights
Make ornaments
Train ride at Station Square
Science kit (been saving one- he loves them!)
See "The Guardians"
Make cookies
Color and glitter Christmas coloring sheets (tons of free printables out there)
Make a mixed media winter/holiday themed painting
Eat a cookie and read a Xmas book (we'll read these as he's interested too, but the cookie will be a little extra something)
Go to open art studio at the library
See miniature railroad at the Carnegie Science Center
Open one present

Since we have a membership to the Carnegie museums and we have all the materials/ingredients for making things, really only the Shenley Santa train ride (not very expensive at all), the train at Station square (only $1) and the movies (ok, movies are expensive these days) cost anything.  But, we will all have fun and spend lots of family focused time together.

Since all this making and fun-having will take up a lot of time and since I'm likely transitioning my blog elsewhere, I'll be taking a bit of a break here.  Be sure to check back to see where the Vinegar and Glitter blog ends up! :)

Free Shipping in My Etsy Store Through Cyber Monday!!

OK, this is totally lame.  Apparently, I'm out of storage space on this blog and have to pay to put any more pictures up, so I don't have a picture to go with this really cool bit of info I have for you.

However, you can go to my Etsy store: www.bellyartsmama.etsy.com and see all of the pictures of my listings there.  There are a few costuming items, a few very gift-able items and more listings coming soon- hopefully tonight!!

Through Cyber Monday, I'm offering free US shipping (shipping in the US)!!  Offer ends Nov. 27th and all orders placed Nov. 21st - Nov. 26th will be shipped Nov. 27th-28th.

Buy handmade for the holidays!!  Please share this to help spread the word!

Enjoy your Thanksgiving, friends!

With the picture situation and all, I may be moving this blog soon.  Will let you know!

My Piano Lamp

From approximately 3rd-4th grade, I took piano lessons.  Sometimes I really liked it.  Sometimes I would hide quietly and hope my mother forgot to take me.  Since I had 2 younger siblings at the time, that happened pretty often.  Really, I'm glad I had the lessons.  It helped me easily learn to play the xylophone, marimba and chimes in middle school band- which meant I got to go on the King's Island trip... honestly, my entire reason for joining.  But, also, I believe it really helped me to feel and know music more easily when it came to dancing.

Regardless of how I felt about the lessons, I was really happy when my Mom uncovered the lamp to my piano.  It sits on my art table now.  It's a red-head dancing... apparently, I see myself in her. :)

Sadly, I'm still on the look-out for the interior pictures of the house we stayed in in Cass.  I synched my phone and it said all was well, but can't locate them on my computer. :-/  Mercury is in retrograde, so hopefully it isn't a permanent issue.

Speaking of Mercury in retrograde, besides being a time of miscommunication, confrontation, misunderstandings and other nasty things, it is also a good time to re-work, re-do and finish what you started.  Unknowingly, I started going this direction yesterday when I started working on cleaning and organizing our hall closet again instead of going to the fabric store to buy cute stuff for the baby toy patterns I just bought on Etsy.  Even though buying the patterns is a way to start projects, I decided I'm going to use as much fabric as I can that is already in my sewing room.  Initially, I started planning ways to use the orange fleece left over from a Halloween costume a couple years ago.  That's re-working/picking up where I left off.

Anyway, since progress on my closet isn't very exciting, I found these lamp pictures that I took a couple months or so ago and forgot to share.  :)

Hoping you are able to re-work, re-do and put old issues (which come up during Mercury in retrograde) to bed. 

Halloween Train and Trick or Treat

Down the stairs from the Company House we rented to the store/depot/museum, which you can see  in the picture... very close!!

Our little guy loves trains, as I'm sure I've mentioned.  Growing up, my family visited Cass, WV- a historic lumber town, home to the Cass Scenic Railway, and where one Irish line of my family can be traced back for many generations.  The Slavens were the original settlers of the area, so with the veil being so thin between the worlds close to Halloween, I'm sure many ancestors accompanied us on this visit.  We stayed in one of the company houses and as soon as we got there, I was overwhelmed with nostalgia.  

The Halloween train only runs once a year on the last weekend of the season.  They did a great job of making the day full of fun. The train was decorated and full of costumed passengers and staff.  At the station, they had candy for the little ones and a fire to stand by.  Our costumes were thrown together and not too fussy, but still a lot of fun.  Angelo was a lumber jack and I didn't really think about Cass being an old lumber town until we got there.  Him staying warm was my main concern; not sewing a separate costume was the other.  

Angelo's costume didn't arrive until Halloween, so he got to wear it to the mall trick-or-treat and the rescheduled-due-to-Hurricane-Sandy neighborhood trick-or-treat.  His late change of mind for his costume meant we got big discounts on the pieces.  And the obscure choice was really impressive to me; though we went with bought pieces, it was still assembled from various sources, not an all in one package.  This is what he was going for.  The red rubber boots Doofenshmirtz got later and you'd have to see the Phineas and Ferb "Wizard of Odd" episode to get the reference. 

Even though not that many people were out for trick-or-treating on Saturday, it was still fun and even felt like the real thing.  Can't complain about more Halloween!

Halloween ATC's From the Darkside

These are the other ATC's I made for another one of this month's "from the Darkside" swap- "Halloween" of course.

These ATC's started out as regular playing cards, were sanded and then color washed with acrylic paint, then stamped with a Tim Holtz stamp.  The witches are vintage photos I altered in photo shop, siloutted and then adhered.  Then, the final details were added; glitter glue on the top one and glitter marker on the bottom one.

Check back tomorrow for another Halloween report. :)

Pumpkin Party 2012

 As you can see, the pumpkin party _did_ actually happen!  There were power tools involved.  Many pumpkin seeds were roasted and then eaten while watching Halloween movies.  This was a great party- a fun theme made even better by the awesome company.  Our last one was about 2-3 years ago and while I'd love to do another next year, I'm not going to write it in just yet... we will have a 6 month old then!!! :)

While I didn't get my house all piled up with sparkly and rusty bits (or do a lot on my "would like to" list due to growing a human being and most of my energy being devoted to baby and Angelo), we did have more decorations up outside for this party than on Halloween due to Hurricane Sandy blowing by.  We were very lucky and only had rain and one night of 25 mph winds; no power outages.

This post started out as a Halloween round up since I just found my camera cord today and wanted to report our festivities before the mood was completely fizzled out.  But, there were too many pictures for one post, so look for another one tomorrow and the next day. :)

Hoping your Celtic New Year celebrations were great!