2020 Christmas Cards

This was my favorite photo of our family that we put on our Christmas card this year.

It seems appropriate for 2020, we're all Done, so we're on the floor.  And we're also all in our Jammies.  It seemed perfect. 

For our actual Christmas Cards this year, I did something different.  I hand painted watercolor cards.  I've been practicing watercolor painting over the Quarantine.  I'm not fantastic, but enough that I could create some basic stuff with my watercolor pens and water brushes.  

For every person to whom we sent cards, I made something special.  I don't know if they loved them, and I repeated a few styles that I enjoyed making.  But Eric told me that I should take photos of them before I sent them.  So I did. I missed a couple, so if you got one you don't see here, please take a pic for me. ;) Anyway... Here you go.  Feel free to tell me if you got one, or which one you like best. 

Christmas star filled with love

Christmas Star - also a cross. 

3 hanging ornaments

Rainbow Tree

Holy Family

Impressionistic Christmas tree with Blue Angel on top. 

Christmas tree - wet first

Christmas tree - wet brush

Holy Family with evening sky. 

Christmas tree with golden angel and gold sparkle

Christmas Star over blue mountains

Christmas star in starry sky

Peace wreath with berries

Watercolor trees

Holy Family with Christmas Star

Tree sillouettes at Sunset

Joy wreath

Christmas star/cross

Choral Christmas Tree

Watercolor trees

Christmas Tree with Gold Angel

Joy to the World with Wreath

Magi Find the Child

Gifts under the Tree

Christmas tree

Christmas star cross

Watercolor trees with a touch of gray

Rainbow tree wet first

Christmas Star with Cross

Christmas tree with two tone swooshes.

Wreath of Peace

Kathy's dogs got paw print balloons for Christmas - 

I had a friend in mind when I painted this.

Ahsoka on a card with trees- my first dog

Little wonky, but Lisa said she wanted it, sight unseen.

Sunset at Lake Michigan 

This one was for Uncle Rick and Trish who joined us in Michigan City this past year.

I know it's a lot of photos, thank you for checking them out.  

I'm quite proud of myself for completing these.  I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Maybe next year, I'll try again... but start before December. 

Life is a just a bunch of berries.

 315/366

I got a crazy idea.  

I decided to order watercolor paper over the summer.  

I found some watercolor pens, and decided to start painting.  But the pens wrote really fat, so I got out some paintbrushes and a cup of water, and diluted them a bit. I didn't really take a class, just kind of flying by the seat of my pants, so Pinterest and I are going to be starting something new for the holidays. I hope. 

I finished this blanket! 

Lisa and I picked out this super soft yarn at Michael's when the kids went back to school on the First Day.  I found this lovely varigate, then when we went back in September, I picked up a skein of blue that kind of matched.  I was toying with making this for Christopher, the blue being his favorite, and purple being his school color.  But I decided to keep it for the whole family.  

Or for me.   

It's so soft.  

I love this yarn.  

It's Bernat Velvet.  Well, the varigate is Velvet Stripes, Blackberry Frost, and  they were discontinuing so I had to stock up. 

The purple was Majestic Purple.  

Looks So Good! 

Sam took this photo of me.  

Pretty good! 

He's got a good eye. I kind of liked how this shot was off center.

I decided with this gorgeous blue - it was one of the clearance skeins of Bernat Baby Velvet in Indigo Velvet.  It's like all the kinds of jeans ever.  

I'm taking the rest and making a scarf and hat for myself. 

I enjoy... pretty things.

7/366

The kids went back to School.  

It's weirdly quiet around here. But I had quite an extensive To-Do List to work on. 

The first thing I did was get the mail, apparently it had been a while. 

Freebies! 

This year for Christmas, I cashed in some of my Essential Rewards points for Free Goodies for me. 

First Thieves Cough Drops, which couldn't come at a better time, and also true for the Thieves spray. 

But the real treat, the expensive goodie was Jasmine oil. 

I didn't have that one, but I had saved up enough points to spoil myself. 

One drop of this is pure luxury. It reminds me of the beach in Maui when we passed by the flowers growing there, known as Pikake.  I'm guessing they were a Jasmine cousin, because they smell just as sweet and flowery.  I'm looking forward to making some perfumes! 

I get so surrounded by the boys that I enjoy taking some time for girly things. 

I took a soaky bath, and did some coloring. 

The theme for the day is "I enjoy..."  And I enjoy art projects; pretty things, like perfume in pretty bottles and a fresh box of colored pencils. 

Another treat just for me, a box of colored pencils.  I received this colored pencil box for Christmas. 

I don't have to share them either.  

All for me.  I've enjoyed coloring after the kids go to bed, in my Psalms book. We're doing a Bible Study of Psalms and Proverbs in my Christcare group.  I enjoy doing some coloring with the same passages that we're reading.  I haven't had enough time to make art. 

This is my newest favorite pretty art project. 

Starry Night. 

I got into Diamond Dotz as a gift for my friend Kathy, and then I got one for my niece for Christmas. I must've wished outloud just one too many times because Eric got me this one, and I Love it! 

I can't wait to see the finished project. 

Ice Ice Baby

We were really worried on Saturday when we woke up hearing we'd gotten an eighth to quarter of an inch of ice come down in the night.   Friends commented on early morning fb posts that they were stuck on the highway.  I-74 was shut down.  It was time to worry about our Loved Ones traveling, and wonder how we were going to pull off all we had cooking.  

Meanwhile, my backyard looked Beautiful. 

We decided to skip out on the Boys Gymnastics Class, and just take them to church.  We figured if it took twice as long to travel across Brownsburg as usual, that's like 10-20 minutes, as opposed to Zionsville which goes from 40-hour and a half.   Don't think so.  

Little did we know, the Gym agreed, and 8 hours after we'd made the decision not to go, we found out they'd cancelled the kids end of semester party for the weather.   Good thing, I hadn't wanted to drive that.   Our driveway was a sheet of ice.  Good thing that we could go slow, and that since our street had never gotten plowed last week, there were enough bumps still in it to provide some traction.  

Meanwhile, we turned the Christmas lights on, so the fam would see the trees. 

It made it extra sparkly.  And I love the bitty blue bokeh in the background.  

Check out that ice!  

We're gonna drive on that?!

Beautiful needles before they drop.

The Dawn Redwood is a tree whose needles change in the fall/winter, and drop, only to grow back in the spring.  It's one thing I love about this tree.  That and they grow Big! 

I love how the ice floats on the needles and sits on the branch. So cool. 

But not for long. 

Luckily, it got up to 35 pretty quickly, so by the time we got home from taking the boys to church, at 10, the ice was turning to slush.  Still, I'm glad I got these beautiful pictures of our Dawn Redwood.