Christmas Decorating 2012

Kelly at Kelly's Korner Blog is hosting her weekly Show Us Your Life, and today it is to showcase Christmas Decorations.  Last month Katie and I went to Holiday Mart for the first time ever and I came home with these two Santa pictures.  The one in color is my favorite.

This Pat the Bunny book ornament holds lots of memories of my mother-in-law sitting in the rocker recliner holding her grand babies and slowly turning the pages to this book and holding little hands to help them feel the texture of the bunny.  This ornament was a "I must have that" when it came out a few years back.....

I like to purchase ornaments that re-live a moment from the past.  These character ornaments are from my children's childhood........

Starfish Santa I got from a shell shop at Sanibel Island in Florida....

New starfish ornament Katie got me this year on her trip to Florida...

Small table next to Christmas tree....

Christmas bulb jar filler from daughter-in-law Stephanie's online boutique, ROOM 5.  These are small glass ornaments.  She also has them in red and gold.

Playing with settings on my camera to blur the image that is closest and focus on the background.

Baby Changing Pads Play Mats

Kelly at Kelly's Korner Blog is hosting her weekly Show Us Your Life and today the topic is to show what you make or sell.  I make lots of different things.  One of my favorites to make are these quilted baby changing pads.  They can also be used as play mats or doll blankets.  You can scroll though this post and look at a few of the ones I have made in the past.  They are all the same size. I can't remember the dimensions, but I start off with 42 5" squares. 













This one is a little different........I made it with just two pieces of fabric, a print for the front and a solid for the back.  There is a blog post for each of these.  You can find them by clicking on mini quilts under the LABEL tab on the right side of this blog.  I don't have any of these in my Etsy shop, but I will make you one if you have a Paypal account.  Contact me at shaylynn812(@)yahoo(dot com) or through me Etsy shop, RileyRaniDesigns.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas......

I love sitting next to the tree and looking at all the ornaments and reminiscing about the memories that go with them.  For instance, the two tree ornaments above are from Katie and Aaron's pre-school.  A pre-school that was managed by Grandma S.  A pre-school where Grandma and Aunt Judy and myself spent two days a week being with our own kids and lots of other little ones.  I remember Grandma buying all these tree ornaments and all the time we spent putting the two pieces of plastic together after we put the little one's portraits inside.  Grandma wrote the date with paint pens.  They were a new item at the time and she had them in lots of different colors!  Below are more ornaments made at pre-school and elementary school....

I've always loved buying ornaments that had a story behind them or would be a reminder from a fun adventure.  The Santa starfish is from our trip to Sanabel Island in Florida.  My parents took us on a whirlwind trip through all the popular Florida destinations in 1997.   The Pat the Bunny book is very special because Grandma S loved reading this book to my children when they were babies.....

We had a Fisher Price school bus in our playroom that received many pushes around the house while singing The Wheels On The Bus Go Round and Round....

Aaron's love of fishing and watching Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer on VCR tape over and over and over!

Katie playing with barbies into her teen years and Aaron dressing up like all his favorite comic heros.....

Aaron also loved his Hot Wheels as a toddler.   We started buying nurse ornaments when Katie started nursing school......

I do love my tree, it's my dream Christmas tree.  It took me a long time to get to where I could buy a tall, tall tree and get it decorated how I wanted it.  I'll keep it up for a good while.  Probably well into middle or late January!  I wish I could get a good picture of it at night with all the lights off in the room except the tree lights...it is a beautiful sight!

I'm linking up to Sarah's Christmas Tree Party, RomanticHome's Show & Share Friday, SouthernInMyHeart, ItsAHodgePodgeLife, Deck The Halls Friday, Christmas 2010 Tour of Homes by TheNester  and Kelly's Korner Blog, Show Us Your Life Christmas Trees.

Show Us Your Life Favorite Bible Verse

Kelly at Kelly's Korner Blog is hosting her weekly Show Us Your Life with the topic being favorite bible verse.  I don't have one favorite.  But the one above I keep posted on my blog.  My Lord is my Savior and every morning I lift up my soul to him before starting my day.  Christian Women Online has many to choose from that you can add to your blog.  Click here to get your own.  Click here to get back to Kelly's blog.

Childhood Valentines Day

This Friday, Kelly at Kelly's Korner Blog is hosting her weekly Show Us Your Life with the theme being Valentine's Day. I have great childhood memories of Valentine's Day school parties. They were the best. It was always so much fun. Going to the store with mom to pick out the perfect box of valentine cards. Getting back home with them and sorting them as to who would get each card. Writing my name on the back of the Valentine, putting it in the tiny little envelope and writing the name of the recipient on the front. I always had to be so careful as to what Valentine I would give a boy classmate!

At school we would decorate the classroom with our construction paper hearts and paper chains and make our valentine boxes. So many memories of tissue paper and Elmer's glue!

This is not me nor my school, just a picture I found while searching Google images but it reminded me so much of my school days! We would sit at our desk with our boxes and each child had their turn at walking around to everyone's desk and putting the Valentine card inside each box. Then the Room Mothers would hand out the homemade cookies and Kool-Aid!

And there always had to be a Teacher's valentine card too.......

I also remember carrying my Valentine box home from school, going to my room, sitting on my floor so I could spread out all the cards and reading them over and over paying careful attention as to who gave me what card!

Wish I could have found an image of what my Valentine boxes looked like. This was the closest I could find. I spent lots of time on my boxes. Cutting the tissue paper into little squares, sticking them on the end of the pencil eraser, dipping them into the glue and then placing them on the shoe box that had been wrapped in paper. Or taking a strip of construction paper and folding it back and forth to make an "accordion" to staple on to the box top.....

So many fond memories. Wish I still had those boxes and tiny Valentines from years past. I would sit down on the floor with all of them and go through each box again. Okay, maybe not on the hard floor, probably on the soft couch, but I would still do it! Click here to get back to Kelly's Korner Blog.

Show Us Your Life Where Do You Shop

Kelly at Kelly's Korner Blog is hosting her weekly Show Us Your Life. Today we get to share where we like to shop. My soon to be most favorite place will be my daughter-in-law's store that will be opening soon in Ozark MO.

Stephanie has named it ROOM 5 Home Decor Boutique. It will be full of fun stuff to dress up your home. She will have accent pillows, mirrors, throws, ceramics, pottery.... I could go on and on.....

So if you are ever around Branson MO, make the small trek north to Ozark on Highway 65, where you can visit this new boutique that will be opening soon. Or if you live around Springfield MO, make the short jog south (also on Highway 65) to Ozark. The location will be at the Lambert's restaurant exit.

Click here to get back to Kelly's blog to find more fun places to shop.

Show Us Your Life Places I like To Shop

Kelly at Kelly's Korner Blog is hosting her weekly, Show Us Your Life. This week it is Places I Like To Shop. She suggested listing online stores too. My favorite online place to go to shop is Ebay. I love to sell and I love to shop there. My seller ID is shaylynnshops. My dad goes to auctions and garage sales and sometimes he gives me stuff to sell on ebay and we split the profit. He bought 400 cigar boxes at a garage sale this past fall for .07 cents each. I list between 30 - 40 a week. We also have some craft supplies listed this week that he got at an auction. Etsy is another favorite place of mine. I go there to get ideas and see what the latest styles and designs are for baby stuff. I also purchase fabric from Etsy and some day (soon I hope) I will get my own store set up on Etsy. My store name will be Stitches By Shaylynn. Click here to see the business card Katie's friend Melissa created for me.
Hawthorn Threads is a recent find of mine. It is an online fabric store that I am currently addicted to. I've made one purchase from them so far, but love to go there and fill up my cart with fabrics I love and then when I come back to reality and know that I can't spend that much money I empty my cart and a few days later I start all over!!
Katie has a Home Goods store very close to her apartment. We both enjoy the great discounts we find here.
Target is where I go to get my everyday stuff. I try to avoid Walmart as much as possible. Katie and I call ourselves "Tar-jai" shoppers.
Overstock.com is a great online place to get some really good deals. I buy most of my linens from here....
I wish there was a JoAnn's closer to my house (or maybe I should be glad there is not one close). I always cut out my 40% off coupon and keep it in my purse just in case I do drive by one during the week....
No place to me is greater than Kohl's when it comes to great deals on clothes. I like to wait until the the 30% off coupon in the mail. Then go to the store and find what I like already 30-40% off, charge it on my account and then while I'm still at the register, make a payment on my account with a check. That's a great thing !!!!
Lowes is almost in my neighborhood. I prefer it over Home Depot and go there to get my paint and my flowers every spring.
Nebraska Furniture Mart is the only place to go to get furniture. It's about 45 minutes from me and well worth the drive!
These are most of my favorite places to shop, I probably left out a few that I'm not thinking of. Click here to get back to Kelly's Korner to find more great places to do some shopping!

Show Us Your Life Christmas Tree

Kelly at Kelly's Korner Blog is hosting her weekly Friday, Show Us Your Life. This week it is Christmas trees. I LOVE my Christmas tree ! ! I wanted a tall one since my ceilings are so high, so last year I took the plunge and went to Lowes and got the tree I always wanted. It's tall, has little pine cones on the branches and can be adjusted if you want it to be shorter. This year a big thank you to Aaron and Stephanie for helping me get it out of the basement and all put together. This year we put the angel tree topper on before adding the top section of the tree to the middle section of the tree. Last year the angel was crooked so the priority for this year was to get her on straight!

I also LOVE my tree ornaments. Every year I have to add three or four new ones. I like Hallmark ornaments the most and always look forward to seeing what the new ones are each year. I like to get ones that tell a story from the past or reflect what it is going on in the present. Last year we got two for Katie that represented her nursing career.....

My Aunt Frances gave me this one a few weeks ago. It is motion activated and has a snowmen scene in it that spins around. This ornament plays many different Christmas songs too....

I don't really care for the plain ball ornaments, but do like the ones like these that have more of a shape to them. My favorite color for this type is red.............

Here's the other nursing themed ornament of Katie's.........

Aaron loved his super heroes as a child, so whenever I see one in the store that he liked when he was a little guy, I have to buy it. This year Hallmark put out Flash Gordon.....

Katie was a big fan of the Ty Beanie Babies when she was little, so of course I had to get one of those when they came out a few years back........

We added hunting themed ornaments to the tree for William............

Aaron and Stephanie both are fans of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. I got one of these for their tree and one for mine.........

And some chili peppers to remind us of when we lived in Texas.....

Both my kids spent many hours playing with a Fisher Price school bus, so when Hallmark brought out the bus this year, I had to get it too...........

Riley gave in to his sleepiness and took a nap while I was taking so many pictures of the tree to put this blog together! He's such a sweetie...........

Click here to get back to Kelly's blog to view more blogs on Christmas Trees !