Christmas

Kennywood Holiday Lights

/ Jodi / 20 Comments

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One of the many wonderful things about living in the Pittsburgh, PA region is our beloved Kennywood Amusement Park.

I have such fond memories of going there as a child for my Grandpap’s work picnics each summer and many school picnics throughout the years.   When I was young, it seemed bigger than life, a vacation fantasy land, so vast, so magical, so exciting!

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Then it became a place Marty and I visited on dates, and it was funny how much smaller it seemed from what I recalled as an 8 or 9 years old.  It was still a magical place, and I was still deathly afraid of the roller coasters…  (I’m quite the “ninny poo poo” friends – I have to admit!)

Eventually, Kennywood became the school picnic destination for our boys, and we created even more precious memories with them and their friends.

Even Marty’s parents told tales of dates to Kennywood when they were young!

Founded in 1898, Kennywood is one of the oldest and most beloved amusement parks in America.  What started 110 years ago with rides like the classic carousel, evolved into a place that boasts the technological advancements of today’s steel lopping roller coasters.

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So Marty and I decided to have a date night Saturday and visit Kennywood’s Holiday Lights.

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What a fun evening we had!

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And what an amazing job they did transforming the park into a holiday spectacular!

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Marty asked one of the guys manning the bonfire (how fun is that right in the middle of the park?!) about how long it took to install the over 1 million lights that adorned the park.  He was told it takes two full months with 12 guys working full time on it.

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The iconic Potato Patch was open with a very long line for the quintessential french fries with cheese that are a MUST HAVE when visiting Kennywood.

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There was a spectaculator light show on the lagoon choreographed to holiday music.  The way the lights reflected on the water was just mesmerizing.

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The Thunderbolt is the iconic wooden roller coaster that is the flagship ride at Kennywood.  Santa and his team of reindeer had it reserved all to themselves for the evening.

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Not only was religious diversity represented with a Menorah…

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and a nativity scene…

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there was even a spaceship and alien from MARS!

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It was a great way to end the day I spent putting up our Christmas tree and decorating our home for the holiday season.

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If you are in the area, Kennywood Holiday Lights is open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings from 5-9pm until December 21st.  Tickets are $16.99 at the gate with some savings for those that purchase on line ahead of time.

Here’s to the kickoff of a wonderful holiday season!

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

 

White Christmas Shaker Card

/ Jodi / 14 Comments

White Christmas Shaker Card

It’s the day after Thanksgiving…

What a wonderful day we had sharing with family and friends.  I hope all of you that celebrated did also.  We are STUFFED to the gills with turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie, and we have lots of leftovers to continue the feast for at least a few more days.  I hope to share some more about that later, but for now I wanted to share another Christmas card I made, since we are now in full fledged Christmas season!

I made this SU White Christmas Shaker card after Linda Heller from Where the Rubber Hits the Road was kind enough to send me some SU shaker frames (from our #FreebieFriday random drawing contest).  For this card, I cut and pieced two of them together to create a larger shaker to contain this scene that is reminiscent of this time of year – getting the annual Christmas tree.  I stamped it all in Memento Black Ink and then colored in with SU Stampin’ Write Markers.  I filled it with some sequins, wrapped it with SU DSP and sponged the edges to vintage it up a bit.  Finishing touches were a linen thread bow and brown metal brad.

The SUO Challenge SUO#110 this week is “Marker Fun,” and this one was fun with markers, so I am sharing there.

I know just who this card is going to, and I hope they have as much fun shakin’ it as I did coloring it!

White Christmas Shaker Card

Cheers & Thankful Holiday Hugs,

Jodi

 

Get Your Santa On

/ Jodi / 13 Comments

IMG_1349On Saturday, I got my Santa on!   On Christmas cards that is…      We had a JOLLY ole’ time with Head Elf Cindy (of CindyLeeBeeDesigns).  What a sweet, generous, and talented elf she is!

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And check out her great stampin’ studio!  If you are in the Pittsburgh, PA area, Cindy holds classes at her studio in Pittsburgh Mills Shopping Mall.  You can create some cards, go shop, eat, catch a movie – all in one stop.

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Feel free to visit her website here or see the info on her storefront sign below.

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We whipped up all of these cute cards in two hours – and all with one stamp set from Stampin Up called Get Your Santa On!

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These were my fellow classmates elves sharing our creations.

IMG_1337So – Yippee – four more Christmas cards done!

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We stamped and chatted and embossed and chatted and drank coffee and chatted.

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We cut and punched (and chatted).

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We colored (and chatted).

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We learned new elf tricks from our head elf instructor.

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And we got this cutest ever favor!!  (Made with the SU Curvy Keepsake Box Die cut)  Oh Cindy – you might even rank higher in my book than Hermie the elf now!  And that is really saying something!

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Thanks for a great time, Cindy.

Thanks for chauffeuring Stacey (of StudioDesigners).  Be sure to check out her site too.  Stacey is uber talented and creative and also hosts wonderful classes in Cranberry Township, PA.

Great fun with all of you ladies!

Now – go get YOUR Santa on!  Christmas is only 52 days away!

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

Making Christmas Cards

/ Jodi / 33 Comments

I can’t believe it will be November in a few days!  Christmas is going to sneak up on me this year – I just know it! I best get busy on some Christmas cards!

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I made two last evening, both using The Paper Players Sketch Challenge #219 as my inspiration.

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I can’t decide which one to enter into the challenge….

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For both of these cards, I used the Stampin’ Up Ornamental Pine stamp set with various Christmasy DSP and heat embossed the sentiment with gold onto vellum.

So two more done, and……
….how many ever more I make….. left to go!

That’s how we roll
at
Life in between 🙂

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

PS I’d love to hear which one you like better. Will you leave a comment and let me know?

 

 

 

 

 

Silver or Gold

/ Jodi / 17 Comments

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This week’s Paper Player’s Challenge (PP#218) is to make a card using Silver or Gold.

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I always find it challenging to make a card with Silver and/or Gold for some reason, but I love The Paper Players Design Team and strive to participate in their challenge each week.  This is my third silver/gold card I made this week, and one that I finally feel worthy of submitting for the challenge.

I was excited to try true watercoloring on this card with brushes and watercolors.  (Well – at least my first stab at using paint and brushes to create a rather obscure, abstract background – gotta start somewhere!)

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 I used my little starter watercolor set, which is Sakura’s Koi Water Colors Pocket Field Sketch Box to create my background on SU watercolor paper and then heat embossed silver snowflakes and the Merry Christmas sentiment from the SU Endless Wishes stamp set.  I added a couple silver sequins and framed it in glittery silver paper.  I then dabbed some white “snow” with SU’s Gorgeous Grunge stamp and added a piece of silver and white ribbon tied into a bow to the top.

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I continued the theme on the inside with more silver embossing from SU Endless Wishes.

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Another Christmas card done and ready to save to send to someone special on my list.

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

Abandoned Home: wwMc12

/ Jodi / 3 Comments

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My friend Janet spotted and called this abandoned home amongst the brilliant Fall foliage to my attention on our walk at #ChristmasintheWoods yesterday.  More to come later on our fun day, but thought I’d share this for my daily #wwMc (Walk with My Camera) photo today.  Happy Sunday!

Through the years – Making Christmas Cards

/ Jodi / 13 Comments

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I made my first Christmas card one evening this week.

Don’t go all hater on me.

I love Christmas.

Our little family has had a long-standing tradition of making homemade Christmas cards.

It is one of the many wonderful things I learned from my friend, Jill, who carried on the tradition from her Mom.

Every year around the middle to end of October, we would come up with a Christmas card idea.  Through the years either I drew it or, most often, one of the boys would draw it for the year.  We would have them printed, in black only, and then spend countless hours together in the evenings coloring them with markers.

When the boys went off to college, the homemade Christmas card tradition ended.  For a couple of years I sent boxed Christmas cards.  Then I just quit sending them all together.  Seems the tradition is dying.

Then last year I began my stamping hobby, and I was excited to be creative and make Christmas cards again.

I don’t send as many as we used to, and now every card is it’s own unique creation.  I don’t like to make a bunch of the same card.  In fact, I’ve barely ever made two of the same.  The joy to me is in making each unique and individual and the process of creative creation.  So if you get a Christmas card from me these days, it was made just for you and it’s the only one like it.

But as a special memory of all the sweet cards we’ve made through the years as a young family, I now have a collage hanging in my office.  I bought an old window sash at Construction Junction and modge podged the cards and the photos that went with them on it.  It is a sweet memory as I work from my home office during the day or craft in the evenings or on weekends there.

Christmas Card collage

Here are a few of my favorites through the years.

I adore this one Nick made when he was six years old of the family in the living room – Dad in his chair, the lights on the mantle of the fireplace (if you were wondering what that is across the top 🙂 ), the coffee table on the bottom, and how he labeled everyone.  I love that we all have big smiles.  It took us countless hours to hand color this one as we sent at least 100 cards out every year.

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Another fave is this one Jake drew when he was six years old of Santa and his reindeer flying through the starry night over the houses below.  I love these plump smiling reindeer and Rudolph’s red nose.  (anyone that knows me knows how much I LOVE Rudolph!)

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And there is this one Nick made at 9 – we laugh now looking at this interesting Santa face.  But look how Santa is waiting to give you a hug!

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And this more simplistic, primitive angel he drew at 12.  (they were growing tired of coloring by now…)

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Another favorite is this one Jake drew at seven years old.  This one makes me smile seeing the blue marker line “blooper,” and the hearts colored in on the people.

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And each year I would put a photo in the card – often times corresponding with the card “theme,” like this one that went with Peace on Earth.

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or when I made homemade nutcracker tin soldier outfits for them to pose in…

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And then they became a bit more sophisticated, like this one Jake drew at 16 years old.

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Such sweet memories and reflections.

So you may be seeing some Christmas cards I make this year here.  Each will be made with love and with fond memories of Christmases past and the anticipation of the joy in Christmases to come.

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

Rubbing our Feet, Rubbing our Eyes, Creating Memories

/ Jodi / 11 Comments

#Writing 101: Your Voice Will Find You

You’re told that an event that’s dear to your heart — an annual fair, festival, or conference — will be cancelled forever. Write about it. For your twist, focus on your own voice.

A couple years ago, I was invited into a “sacred” ritual with my (then future) now daughter-in-law and the girls in her family.

BLACK FRIDAY Girl’s Night Out Shopping Extravaganza!

I can just hear some of you right now as you read this saying/thinking:

“YUCK!”

“NEVER!”

“Only Crazies go out shopping on Black Friday!”

(I used to be one of these!)

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Then there are some of you reading this that have a secret smile slowly forming at the corners of your mouth.  You know who you are!

Your mind is beginning to race.

Admit it – by now you are already starting to think about your plan, beginning to map out your excursion.  You’ve got the bug!

Black Friday Shopping is a crazy “tradition” here in the United States that is designated as “Opening Day” of Christmas Shopping Season (even though Christmas decorations are ridiculously already out now in the beginning of October at most every discount and department store).

Black Friday occurs on the last Friday in November – the day after Thanksgiving each year.  There is a huge hype created by most every retail store by advertising (weeks ahead of time) very specific special sales and discounts for just this day.   The special sale price is usually on particularly popular items, sometimes hard to get, and most always in very limited quantities causing waiting lines to form hours (and sometimes even days) before the sale begins for savvy, smart, competitive, mentally-deranged shoppers.

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I used to laugh at those half-baked lunatics that stormed Target to save $10.

Now I’m in the club.

It’s not that I even ever really have anything in particular on my list that I have to get.  For me, it’s just about being with the girls, celebrating a “tradition,” and doing something completely different than I ever do any other day of the year.

We meet up at around 10 or 11pm Thanksgiving evening so we can start our shopping at the stroke of midnight to take advantage of every second.  We shop our way through the entire time we are usually snug as a bug in bed and don’t quit until noon for a full 12 hours of laughing, shopping, eating, rubbing our feet, rubbing our eyes, creating secret pacts over gift selections, hiding from the others to purchase something someone gasped over, helping hide others from the one buying something for the other, bumping into friends, eating breakfast at 3am and lunch by 10 am.  We shop until our feet and eyes can take no more.  Until we’ve laughed so hard our throats hurt.  Until our wallets are empty and our trunk is full.

We are creating bonds, creating memories, creating traditions.  It’s so much more than shopping.  It’s an event to look forward to, look back on, tell stories about, grow close together through.  I think it should be called Fun Friday – not Black Friday.

What would truly make this Black for me would be if it were cancelled, if we didn’t do it, if I wasn’t invited/included.  It has come to be an annual event I look forward to.  A special time with the girls that gives me some kind of nonsensical, ludicrous pleasure.

Yep – I joined the club.  The Annual Fun Friday Club.  I think I am going to put this name up to a vote this year 🙂

Call me crazy, but don’t call me at 3pm that day (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

She said I’m Cuuuuute!

/ Jodi / 27 Comments

#Writing 101: Happy (Insert Special Occasion Here)!

Tell us about your favorite childhood meal — the one that was always a treat, that meant “celebration,” or that comforted you and has deep roots in your memory.
Free free to focus on any aspect of the meal, from the food you ate to the people who were there to the event it marked.
Today’s twist: Tell the story in your own distinct voice.

As I contemplated today’s writing assignment, the first thing that came to mind was Christmas Eve and Holy Supper at Grandma’s House.  It really IS one of my favorite childhood tradition memories.

But I think I will save that for another time.

Then I got a little punchy and thought about writing about when we had Corn on the Cob for dinner when I was growing up.
When we had Corn on the Cob for dinner – that was dinner…
Corn on the Cob…
That’s it…
Just lots and lots of Corn on the Cob…
I liked it…   Thought nothing of it…
Until I got a bit older and found out that people typically serve Corn on the Cob as a vegetable to accompany dinner – not as THE dinner.

But then what kept coming to mind was “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

Yep.  That’s it!

Waaaayyy back when I was a child (a hundred thousand and fifty some years ago), “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was aired on television ONE TIME each year.

It was usually around the first of December.  (Because way back then, we didn’t start thinking about (promoting/pushing/shoving in your face) Christmas until AFTER Halloween and Thanksgiving.)

So the airing of “Rudolph” marked the beginning of the Holiday season to me as a child.

It ranked up there with the arrival of the J. C. Penney Christmas Catalog in the mail.

But I digress.

We are supposed to be talking about a favorite childhood meal here…  one that was a treat – that marked a celebration.

Well – the airing of “Rudolph” meant a great celebratory “meal.”

It meant Mom would pop a fresh batch of Jiffy Pop Popcorn.  A VERY special treat!

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I was mesmerized watching her shake the flat foil-covered pan over the stop top burner until the foil rose, forming a steam-filled crown of buttery puffed corn kernels that smelled like heaven on earth.  It was a rare treat – saved for special occasions such as this.

Salty popcorn

My brother and I would get in our warm footie pajamas after a playful Mr. Bubble bath.  With our hair still wet and our rosey cheeks squeaky clean, we would find our place on the floor in front of the black and white TV with rabbit ear antennae anticipating the excitement of Rudolph’s escapades with the Abominable Snowman, to the Island of Misfit Toys, and back to save the day for Santa!

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Along with the heaping bowl of artificial buttered puffed kernels of heavenly goodness, the piece de resistance was the HOMEMADE Hot Cocoa Mom would make with…….. wait for it….. the BEST part of all……. Marshmallow CREME!!!!!!!!

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The Marshmallow Creme would cover the entire steamy cup of cocoa so that it would take almost the entire hour of the program for us to be able to drink since it sealed in the steam, but also created the stickiest, most delicious cream mustaches on our upper lips that mingled with the salty delight of the popped corn.

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To this day, I still watch “Rudolph’s” first airing on CBS – usually at 8pm followed by “Frosty the Snowman” (which I needn’t watch anymore).

I still make popcorn, and I sing EVERY single song out loud with a huge smile on my face.

I still feel so sad for “Rudolph” when the others make fun of him.

I still feel giddy when Clarice tells him he is cute.

I still feel sad when Mrs. Claus tells Santa to “Eat Papa – Eat – No one likes a skinny Santa!”

I’m no longer afraid of the Abominable Snowman – FINALLY!!!!  (But still freaked out by the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz – SCARIEST movie EVER!)

And I still CLAP with joy when Rudolph saves the day – and the misfit toys.

I can recite just about every line.

I sing every song out loud and proud.

I am strange – aren’t I?

Can anyone relate?

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

 

 

 

 

Christmas in July

/ Jodi / 25 Comments
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Just Add Ink Challenge #224

I can’t believe I made a Christmas card…..

in July……

Not at all ready to do the Christmas thing yet – though the crazy chilly weather this week almost makes it feel like Christmas!

Well – that might be exaggerating a bit…  but I did have a sweatshirt  (can you believe SWEATSHIRT) on last evening it was so chilly.  55 degrees F on July 29 in Western PA is CRAZY!  Practically a record low.

When I first saw the Christmas in July Card Challenge at Just Add Ink a few days ago (when the weather was normal 80 degree July weather), I thought – NOPE – no way – not doing this one….

Then, I just kinda got intrigued by the inspiration pictures that were provided to create a card from:

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and came up with this one.

Well – at least I have my first Christmas card done.

Thanks for the inspiration and the fun Christmas in July Challenge Just Add Ink Team.   Merry Christmas! (in about 147 days)

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Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi