Advent Stockings

I had planned on posting this earlier but haven't had much down time lately. This year I started a new fun tradition for Skyler. It is simple. I bought 10 Christmas socks and used numbered clothespins to attach each one to a piece of string. As we count down the last 10 days until Christmas - - Skyler gets to open a "stocking" each day. I just put a simple item in each sock but Skyler is really excited to receive them! It is something fun that seems to extend our Christmas celebration. Thanks Ali for your inspiration on this one!!

My latest venture

In addition to rabbit hunting today with Paul and Skyler (nope, we weren't successful - only got to see one rabbit who was too wiley for us) we got to spend a good port of a beatiful day enjoying the timber. We love being able to "see" where all of the critters have been - because of the snow.


While Paul went bow hunting for deer tonight I worked on my latest venture. The natural expansion of my photo art is that now I have been matting and framing people's pictures/artwork they would like to hang in their home. Here are some I have been working on and I have about ten more to do (sorry for the awful pic - I took this tonight with the flash and it made it look weird). I am learning as I go and certainly wish I had started out with the knowledge I have now, because now they are going much smoother, quicker and look better than my first tries.

Also worked on many Christmas presents. I made tutu's for each of my little nieces to open for Christmas in addition to other gifts.

Also, I cooked up our pheasant meat tonight and we all agreed it was delicious!! Gotta get some more of them critters before the season closes!

Pheasant Hunting

Had such a fun time today! Skyler got out of school early today, but before she did, Paul and I had the morning off and we had a date morning - so we did what we always do - we went hunting. This time it was pheasant hunting. We had an awesome time hunting behind two great dogs (Jack and Ginger - a little confusing at times - as you might imagine - someone is yelling at a dog - I think they're yelling at me. . .). This isn't the first time I have hunted behind a dog named Ginger so I am starting to get over it. Wow, we got GREAT exercise. We were plowing through snow and grasses that were very THICK and as tall as me for about 3 hours straight. SOOO much fun! I have to thank Paul for including me when a lot of husbands would have enjoyed a day out with the guys to themselves. I finally connected on a wild pheasant after years of going along on hunts - I am usually the last to shoot - if I shoot - and the birds are usually too far when I do shoot. This time I was a quick draw! :)


Great news! I finally found my camera (yep, again - as some know this is the 2nd time I have lost my camera) - so am able to post some of the photoart frames I have been doing. I don't have pictures of all of them - and some were for Christmas presents and I have to be careful which ones get posted -but here are a few:

Frieden

Gina

Zeitler

Red, White and Blue -- Gibson

I was so honored to get to do this photo art for the name Gibson. This is made for a couple who has faithfully served our country and, rightfully so, are very patriotic. Since I have a soft spot in my heart for those who have given so much so that we can all have the opportunities we have - - this one is special to me.

This was my first attempt at double matting. The undermatte is red so there is a trim of red around each letter and the main matte is blue. I also cut out the small box below the letters so the word Patriot shows through. Sorry for the bad picture, even under the best conditions it is hard to get good pics of these orders because of the glass on the front - - but also, I have lost my decent camera, which had pictures of a bunch of photo orders I wanted to post :-(. So this is my attempt to take pictures with Skyler's digital camera which has seen better days.