Holly Doodle Designs

I have a ton of catching up to do on the 12 days of Christmas swap, but my camera batteries are recharging so those wonderful pictures will have to wait until tomorrow.  Lemme tell ya, I’m rakin it in over here!  The good stuff, ya’ll.  Can’t wait to show ya.

In other news… the reindeer are probably doing their carb-load about now.  I like to say things like “carb-load” because, even if I’m saying it wrong, I sound like I may have been athletic at one time.  LOL…. Actually I’ve been dragging my 34 year old butt onto the treadmill pretty regularly lately.  As a result, I’ve managed to NOT gain any weight this holiday season.  In fact, I’ve lost almost 10 pounds.  Woo Hoo.  I have a long road ahead, but I’m gonna just keep on truckin.  My husband always says that a year or 3 years or 5 years will pass, whether or not you’ve begun working towards something or not.  So, I’m gonna work towards something instead of just wish for it.  I bet it’ll work better that way!

OK, about the title… My kids are chomping at the bit to open presents.  It’s fun to have little ones at Christmas.  My 2 year old is going around saying “ho ho ho Mewwey Key-muhs” to anyone who’ll listen.  Gets him LOTS of free stuff… balloons, bouncy balls, and other junk that ends up clogging up my toilet or melting in my dryer later.  But he’s so cute I don’t care.  Well, I cuss a little when I have to stick my hand in the toilet.  But not out loud.  Usually.  That’s just gross any way you swish it.

I DO have some pictures to show ya though.  I just finished another special order for a Marie Antoinette (movie) inspired tiara.  I have another in the same vein almost completed for another special client and I’ll show you that one when I’m done.  I may have a couple more orders for this color scheme.  I SOO appreciate the orders and they’re so much fun to make.  It’s funny, when I’m crafting for myself I put these limitations on me.  I’m not allowed to use too many old millinery flowers, or that wonderful old rhinestone broach.  But, somehow, when it’s for a client, I’m free.  I want them to be happy, so I feel liberated and can go all out, just crazy with the bounty of something.  I love that.  I will make a new years resolution this year to be more generous with myself and things I do for me.  That’s so hard isn’t it?

Here are some pics:

 Tonight, my husband and I watched “The Family Man” with Nicholas Cage.  I LOVE this movie.  We watch it every year around Christmas time.  Have you seen it?  It’s such a beautiful story.  I love that it reminds us that our little lives are so wonderfully full of blessings.  We’ve got the good life, don’t we?  I mean really.  We SO do.

Ok.  I’m off to bed, fred.  Do you do that?  My kids and I rhyme things a lot.  We say “let’s go, joe” or “later, tater”… silly things like that.  They love it.  Boy, I’m really just all over the place tonight!  LOL

Wishing you all a wonderful and joy filled week, and a very Meweee Key-muhs.

xo
Holly

Yeah, I know.  I’ve been a bad blogger.  I’m so sorry.  Our power was out for several days, and then it was all the mess of getting back to a normal life, then planning my kiddo’s Pre-K school party… you know how it goes.  This time of year is just crazy!

But, I have some fun pictures to show you.  I’m in Heather’s 12 Days To Christmas Swap and we just got to open our SIXTH giftie!  Here they are:

On the first day of Christmas, Miz Smoochie Lips sent to me:

I love this fun little birdie baby shoe that Tia made.  DARLING.  I also love the white and sepia tones.  This would have been so perfect in my little boys’ nurseries.  It’s so hard to find sweet things for baby boy rooms that aren’t sugary sweet/girlie.  I think I will put this beside a photo of my baby boys.  And say a prayer of thanks that they are nestled in safe in my nest tonight.  Thank you for the birdie baby, sweet Tia!

On the second day of Christmas, sweet Karin gave to me:

This gorgeous little journal!  She embellished the cover, front and back, with gorgeous papers, velvet ribbon, flowers, and the word “dream”.  I don’t usually journal, although I always say I’m going to start.  I think I’ll start writing down my hopes, prayers, and DREAMS in this one.  For myself, for my kids, all of the blessings in my life.  Thank you, Karin.

On the third day of Christmas, Shoshanah gave to me:

The MOST DARLING hand made charm/pendant!  This is a vintage souvenir or baby spoon, which she painstakingly covered with vintage ledger paper, then placed a tiny vintage German glass acorn in the bowl.  Then, she carefully encased it all in resin.  I think I will hang this from a long silver chain and wear it as a pendant charm.  Gorgeous.  Thank you, Shosh.

On the fifth day of Christmas, Tammy sent to me:

A tube full of MAGIC!  How clever is this?  Tammy filled a cool glass test tube with mica flake, sequins, silvery coiled wire, rhinestones and other fairy dust ingredients and corked it shut tight!  I love that she labeled it “magic”.  That way, I won’t get it confused with my “eye of newt” and “fairy dust” bottles.  Whew!  I actually think I’ll put an eye screw in the cork and hang this in my studio…. in case I need a little MAGIC inspiration!

On the sixth day of Christmas, Cerri gave to me:

A fabulous glittery white glittery Princess Bird, decked out in her best Christmas finery!  Cerri has taken the concept of her Princess Birdie girls and transformed them into a snowy white confection.  She has mica flake dust on her wings and gorgeous vintage millinery and mercury glass.  I love her.  Thank you, Cerri.

If you were following closely, you may have noticed that I didn’t have a fourth day gift.  That’s because I was the fourth day giver! I made wall-hanging framie thingies for my swap partners.  They are pretty big…. maybe 11 or 12 inches wide.  They hold a 4 x 6 picture and are made with vintage wallpaper and vintage millinery and of course glitter and seam binding!  I think they turned out cute and I will be making a couple for myself too.  Here they are.  Now, keep in mind there are ELEVEN of them!  So, there are eleven pics here!

I asked all the girls to tell me their favorite colors, and I tried to give them frames that would represent that.

I’ll be back with more gifties tomorrow.

Wishing you and yours a blessed Christmas and New Year!

xo
Holly

Hi my sweet friends.  Well, we are ICED in!  Our house and our whole town, in fact most of central Oklahoma is COVERED in a humungus amount of solid ice.  I mean covered.  We are not really equipped for this.  We do get occassional ice storms here, but it’s not Michigan or something where people have chains on their tires.  We have NO power and may not have power for SEVERAL DAYS!  That’s right.. the electric company told us that it may be several days before we have any power again. Thankfully, we do have a gas stove and a gas fireplace, so we are OK for heat and food.  And I can just put my food in ice chests, so we’ll muddle through.  Obviously, I won’t be blogging or posting any cool new stuff for a few days.

I have TONS of Let it Snow Cones that I was going to list today, but oh well.  All of my orders for cones… and in general all my current orders either have already been shipped, or will ship tomorrow. Yep.  I braved the crazy icey roads to today and will do it again tomorrow.  I don’t want anyone to be without their fun stuff for Christmas and the Holidays. I do have a couple of crown orders I’m still working on, but other than that everything is (or tomorrow will be) on it’s way.

I’m writing this post at my mom’s house a few towns away, but we’re headed back home soon.  We’re just going to snuggle up by the fire and enjoy our time together.  It was such a weird day today.  It’s sort of appalling how much I missed TV and the computer and my microwave and phone and just LIGHTING!  I am way too dependent on technology.

We are expecting more freezing rain all through the night tonight.  Our state has thousands and thousands of homes without power and we are in a tiny rural town, so I think we’re low on the totem pole, but I know the guys that do the repairs are working their little hineys off to get power back out to us.  I don’t envy their jobs!  It is SO cold out and they are in the wind, rain, sleet and freezing temperatures trying to repair downed power lines in the dark tonight.  Not fun.  So, I consider myself blessed to have a warm fire, my husband and children tucked in tight, a nice fire to warm ourselves, really it’s not so bad!

I’ll list the cones when I get back online some time, but I have no idea or control over when that will be.  I’ve also done some Valentine things I’ll be listing after Christmas.  Fun stuff.  But I’m getting ahead of myself!

If you have emailed me, or if I was supposed to email you, please forgive me!  I promise I am not ignoring you, I just have no way to access it!  I’m going to try to get in to my email before I leave my mom’s but I don’t know if I’ll be able to.

OK, I feel so disconnected.  I hope to be back soon with fun pictures and cool stuff.  I miss you guys!

I would like to wish everyone who is celebrating Hanukkah a very joyous Holiday!

Soon I’ll be celebrating Christmas with my beautiful family.  *sigh* Aren’t we all so very blessed?  We are.  We really really are.  I am saying a prayer for you all tonight.  God bless you and keep you.  Oh, and hey, any prayers you wanna say for us, I sure appreciate!

xoxoxo
Love,
Holly

Looky Looky!  Isn’t it cute?  I actually made this MYSELF!

I can hardly even believe I did it.  LOL.   I found a fun vintage postcard and used it as the background.  I removed the words that were on it and replaced them with my name and I added the tagline across the bottom.  Of course, I had to crop and resize it, because a postcard is too fat, but I think it turned out really cute.  My sweet husband even changed my website background from pink to green to go with it.  I think it’s fun. 

I’m working away on Snow Cone and crown orders.  Talk soon!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
XO
Holly