American Flag Collage

We are very patriotic at the Grow Home. Maybe you've seen how we decorate around here for the 4th of July here or here. This year my sister completed our newest American decoration.

It's a 40" x 30" collage made up of 50 stars made from items like seashells, dominos, and buttons on a blue sea of ribbon, cutlery, and paper, 13 stripes of torn patterned paper with silk flowers, beads, dice, Christmas ornaments, game pieces and more.

My mum wrote a fun little I Spy game to go with our custom collage. You can enlarge the above picture or look at the smaller photos to see details and play along.

I Spy 4th of July

I spy a mouse, a rabbit, a hog

an elephant pin and a print of a dog

I spy a knife, a spoon and three more

2 pencils, a sword and two closed yellow doors

 

I spy the queen, her guard and a bus

a bridge and a crown of silver for us

I spy santa, 2 stockings, and a present that’s blue,

An ornament, a tree and a gift bag for you

I spy a strawberry, and a measure for heat

a Band-Aid, a lion and 2 shoes for your feet

I spy a crab, a pepper, a button shell

cotton candy and a blue devil from hell

white stars against a blue night sky

bottom left

top right

bottom right

Let me know if you play along. For more fun I Spy fun, check out this website.

Welcome December

It's all about the advent around here. My mum put out her beautiful advent calendar today. Every morning the niece opens a door to find a piece of the nativity and a treat.

The niece opening the first door this morning. She found an angel and a chocolate.

This is what it will look like on Christmas Eve.

And, we started a new tradition this year. Dana from Made posted about wrapping up 25 Christmas books and having her kids open one every day until Christmas. So, I raided my mum and sister's bookshelves and found 25 Christmas-themed books for my niece to read.

Some are fun

 Some have a good message

And some tell the true story of Christmas

I have a few favorites

 I wrapped them up and put sticky letters and numbers on them.

 Every day the niece will choose a book to read. I'll let her choose if she wants to start with 1 (the calendar day) or 25 to count down to Christmas.

Some are a little long so I put a shorter book the following day so the niece could finish the previous book. I tried to alternate the fun with the more faith-building so there is a good mix. The niece loves to read and open presents so I think she will enjoy this.

Thanks for stopping by today. If you have time, stop by my other blog, The Vintage Sheet Blog, I'm doing a little gift guide and giveaway link up party.

Wet dogs, ugly stockings and green marshmallows

Today was the first in several days that did not rain in the O.C. We made the best of our day of sun before the rain starts again. My mum, niece, my sister's dog Kinsey, my dog Paris and I went to HB Dog Beach.

Dog beach is full of dogs, every breed you can imagine. Paris doesn't really care about other dogs. He's more of a ladies man. We usually chit chat with other chocolate lab owners.

Paris will be 13 in May. He loves laying on the beach.

And I love him.

Next stop, the thrift store. My sister and I have a favorite thift store outside of the O.C. It is huge and crowded and the service is awful but we love it. There are always a lot of treasures. Here I am holding the world's ugliest stocking. Oh yah, I'm wearing a child's hoop skirt. (I didn't buy either.)

I did buy some shiney blue shoes. I don't usually do thrift store shoes but these looked brand new.

And I love this chicken plate. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it or put it in my Etsy store. I also bought some cute tops and a Super Bowl decoration. I'll show the latter during my Super Bowl open house.

Next stop, House of Fondue. I gravitate towards any type of "House of." Can you see that the sign says, "Euro-Chinese Restaurant?" Not a lot of cars in the parking lot. That doesn't discourage my sis and me.

Dinner was good but you have to see our dessert. We ordered chocolate fondue. The chocolate was good. The assortment of goodies for dipping was very interesting: apples, strawberries, cherries, bananas (so far so good right?) then it gets unusual one big pink marshmallow, one big white marshmallow, lots of little color marshmallows, marachino cherries, cookie assortment, dried apricots and get this-raisins.

As much as we laughed about the selection when it came, we still tried it and it was great. Although, skewering a raisin is harder than it sounds.

Thanks for stopping by my blog. I really didn't do anything extraordinary today but I had a great day. I'm glad that I could share it with you.

A Personal Note

I think it's always a good time for a love card. This one is for Dean. When we were dating 10+ years ago, we exchanged cards often. When we got married, the cards came less often. Sometimes, when we got in an argument, I would make him a love card and hide it. When he found it, he would give me a kiss and say, "I'm sorry." Unfortunately during the 5 years we were married the cards, kisses, and apologies came less frequent. We were divorced 4.5 years ago.

Two months ago we decided to put the past behind us and move forward. We are even talking about getting married again. So, I made him this love card to celebrate our new beginning.

I know you are busy getting out your Christmas cards but I hope that you take the time to send a love card. It's always a good time for a love card.

Details on my card:

Pattern papers: Bo Bunny

Stamps: Stampin Up!

Cardstock: Prism

Brad and ribbon are from my stash

I was inspired by this week's CPS sketch. CPS145.

Thank you for stopping by.