Recycling | Aluminum Cans

In the United States, approximately 31% of all aluminum products comes from recycled scrap. That's a great number, but with more help by everyone, we could make that number climb.

By recycling your aluminum products you are helping the environment in several ways. One of which is conserving energy. Each time aluminum is recycled it only takes only about 5% of the energy that it takes to produce new aluminum. In fact, Wikipedia states that aluminum can be recycled infinitely and never loses it's quality. And amazingly about 75% of all aluminum products that have been produced since 1888 is still in use today due to it's repeating recycling capabilities. Which is awesome!

Do you recycle your aluminum cans?

Ink Pen Found in Woman's Stomach after 25 Years

Did you ever misplace an ink pen after just having it in your hands? Well, I bet you never found it where this British lady did. In her stomach!

I was searching the web today for handmade Christmas ornaments and somehow ended up on the Jezebel site and was amazed at this story.

It all started when a 76 year old British woman went to the doctor after having health problems of weight loss and diarrhea. She was then scheduled for a CT scan and the doctors were shocked. They discovered a felt tip ink pen in her stomach.

When they gave the lady the news, she thought back and remembered an incident when she was examining her tonisls, stumbled and swallowed the pen. She had apparently just forgotten about it. But how in heck do you brush off something so serious as swallowing an ink pen and then just forget about it? And for 25 years thereafter?

On a good note, the ink pen didn't cause any organ damage whatsoever, but was said to not be the root of the woman's weight loss and diarrhea. And after extraction and to everyone's surprise, the felt tip ink pen that had been lodged in her stomach for 25 years still contained ink and was in working order. Amazing!

Costume Jewelry Christmas Tree

I absolutely love Christmas time and love to decorate anything. In fact, I try to put a tree in each room, even if it's a tiny one, like in the photo below.
That's the tree I have in my bedroom sitting atop of my jewelry cabinet. So I thought, "hum, why not decorate it with some of the costume jewelry I've collected over the years from auctions and estate sales." So I did.
The ropeing is actually a long beaded, wooden necklace. And the topper is a diamond-like keychain, lol. And as you can see, most of the ornaments are just random, old earrings, most of which were mismatched in old jewelry boxes I've bought. I knew I held onto them for some reason, and now I've found it. lol.
So here you have it, my costume jewelry Christmas tree.

Garden Trellis

Back in the summer I wrote about wanting a little garden trellis out in our side yard. It's pretty bare out there. So I wanted something that I could hang flowering baskets from and also maybe run some grape vines up.

Well, I drew it out and my wonderful husband went to work.
Below is some pics from the build.

Here's the place I picked out where I wanted the trellis.

And here's a pic after about an hour or so of getting started.

And here's the pic below of it almost finished. That's me and my hubby, Greg. I just love that he can basically build whatever I draw out! It gives him a challenge I think. lol. Whatever it is, I'm just glad he enjoys doing my lil projects. Cause without him, I couldn't get it done.
And ta~da! Here's the finished project. Nothing fancy or perfect, but it's exactly what I wanted. And I am sooo happy to have it done!

It's been a few months now, since it was built and I did make the most of it through the summer. I filled it with flowers, hummingbird feeders and planted some grape vines up the back. I hope they will climb in a few years and completely cover the top.

Since it's December now, I just recently went out and strung holiday lights all over it. Here it is below. lol. It's first Christmas~

Tree Ornaments

This year I loaded down our tree with almost all of the ornaments we've gathered over the years. Including those from our ornament giving tradition, (click here to read more on that.) So I just wanted to take a closer look at the tree and share some pics of the ornaments for todays post.

The first four ornaments below were all gifts from my sister-in-laws from Christmas's gone by. I just adore them.



Here's one, below, of my absolute favorite soft white, glass ornaments. I just love the glow it gives off when a light is directly behind it. It's not an older ornament on the tree, but it was bought at a flea market, well a box of 4, for only $1.50 and they are older. The box looked like from the early 80's or so.








Oh, here's one,below, of my husbands old Hotwheels Car Ornaments. I think, without going down and looking, it had a date of the late 1970's stamped on it. He has two of these. One year I had him a tree fixed up of only guy-type ornaments. It was kinda cute. We saved this one out of an action box years ago and he has held onto it ever since. I'm guessing we've had it now for about 11 years or so.





Below, if you look closely, is Santa's outfit hanging up on a clothes hanger. lol. I bought it at the local Peddlers Mall just last week.

Here's an old ornament we've had around for years. I won an auction lot box that had vintage Christmas ornaments in it and in the mix I found this cute wooden one. It has 1976 engraved in his hat, which isn't at all a significant number to me, but I just had to keep it. Well, it kinda is, as I think maybe my older brother was born in 1976.

That's just a handful, but the camera wasn't focusing just right on the last few so I gave up for now. lol. Was probably just some of the flashing Christmas lights causing interference, but not for sure.

Swagbucks Snowball Fight

The first ever Swagbucks Snowball Fight has began. It's game on for teams; Let it Swag vs. Jingle Bucks.
I have been randomly assigned to team Let it Swag, and as of right now we are barely ahead! YAY!

First off, if you haven't heard of Swagbucks you can join by clicking my link here. And if you are already a member but haven't heard of the snowball fight here's some info.

It's basically a fun little game challenge that lets the members compete by trying to earn the most points by doing the basic things on the site such as watching the Swagbucks TV, searching, doing tasks, completeing surveys and doing some of the special offers. Keep in mind the game run from December 8th- December 21, 2011.

And the members of the winning team will earn 25 swag bucks each, plus the member of the team who earned the most individual points for the winning team will earn an additional 100 swag bucks. I'm no way around this, because so far, I've only earned my team like 71 points, but hey, they add up!

Have you joined in on the Swagbucks Snowball Fight?

Christmas Tradition | Collecting Memories not just Ornaments

When I married my husband almost 13 years ago, I soon realized his family has a few traditions that I just love.
One of them is the ornament giving at Christmas by all the girls in the family. My husband comes from a family of 4 siblings same as I do. But that then leads to also the 3 sister-in-laws also. And his mother also participates in the tradition. And as the years go by, the granddaughters and so on, are also starting to join in.
Anyways, all the girls had a long lived tradition started by one of my husbands sister-in-laws, Betty Jo, that instead of giving traditional gifts each year, we would exchange an ornament.
Each girl, of course, tends to have a favorite color or love of something, and we try to incorporate this in each years' ornament gift. For example, my husbands sister, Lisa, loves owl ornaments because of how they look on her tree. So for this year I'm gonna try to find an owl ornament or make one.
The ones pictured above is what I have picked up through the year to act as starters to their ornament gift. I will probably use them and just customized them this week for each girl. I have some that is not pictured also that are already repainted and ready to go.
I just love this tradition and as the years have flown by, I am realizing I am collecting memories, not just ornaments.

Christmas Around My House | 2011

Every year, I try to keep a theme for my Christmas tree. But this year something happened... I went wild with the bags and bags of ornaments I had in the closet. I started my tree colors out in a soft gold and soft red only. With white lights as the main (cause their made in the tree) and threw on a strand of red to make it match. Started putting up red and gold balls and ornaments then the tree topped, also red, and a red poinsettia under it, then before I knew it, I had on gobs of every color ornament all over the place. lol.
So, there for a minute, I actually thought about taking them all back down and starting over, but there was just too many. And so I left them alone and finally realized that without a theme, it's actually pretty cute. But next year I have my mind set already... It's gonna be a soft white and blue.(I picked out the tree topped for next year today, blue & white.)


Here's some random photos, below, from around my house this year for Christmas. I got the idea for this post from a fellow Gather, Adelaide. She had a great post on her blog, Norwegian Phoenix.




Below is the fireplace mantel I asked my husband to build to go around the great stove I found at the flea market last week, here's that post. He got it done, but I haven't painted it yet or added any embellishments. But had to hurry up and get some things on it for Christmas, as I couldn't wait. lol.



Here below is a wreath I made last night. I saw in one of Adelaide's pictures that some had the cute xmas balls on them. So I tried to make one but I need some more smaller, red balls to really finish it up. And I also decided to make it on a grapevine wreath instead of the traditional green ones, just to fit with our house's primitive theme.







Below is a pic of lights on my garden trellis.

Sugar, Spice & Everything Nice

Winter is cookie time here! And so the baking has begun~
Here's some home-made sugar cookie's I made. I then just sprinkled them with white powdered sugar and then dashed them with some crystal color sprinkles. I think it makes them look like icy snow and all winter like. lol.

I just love to bake...

Do you have a favorite kinda cookie?

Vintage Christmas Cards | Jingle Bell

This is another one of the Christmas cards that's in my Vintage Card Collection.
I'm a big fan of anything with these type of snowflakes on them. I love how they say there are no two snowflakes exactly alike.

Vintage Christmas Cards | Glory to the Newborn King

I had a little extra time this evening so I decided to scan a few more of my vintage Christmas cards from years past. This is one of the prettiest in colors that's in my Vintage Card Collection.

Zebra Ideas for Room Makeover

Below is pics from my birthday gift. Sounds weird? Well, it was a different kind of birthday gift for sure.
My husband turned me lose on one of our spare bedrooms and let me remake it.

The room before was plain, with stark white walls, as it had been since we re-done this entire house about three years ago. And it had just kinda sat empty ever since.It was super plain. Nothing in there.

Well, i recently got a tanning bed and put it in there. And my sister Amber, had the idea to make the room a zebra theme! And we went from there.

 I just love how it turned out. Here's some pics:

 

Magnolia Tree in Full Bloom

Magnolia trees are simply beautiful flowering trees with an aroma like no other. They are named after Pierre Magnol who was a french botanist.

I got a few good shots of my Magnolia Tree this year when it was in full bloom.The fragrance is so hard to explain because it smells so good. I would describe it as a vintage perfume filling the air. It's a soft aroma but yet very noticeable. So hard to describe if you've never smelled it. And the blooms... oh the blooms are just big and beautiful!



Below are me and my niece Emma headed for the hammock under the Magnolia tree. It's our favorite place in the summer. And when fall rolls around, we still head out there to swing we just take a blanket with us.


Have you ever seen a Magnolia tree in full bloom?

Game of Cornhole | Rules

Cornhole is a fun outdoors, summer family game that we enjoy at cookouts. You may also know it by the name bean bag toss.
It's a simple concept game. You simply throw bean bags towards a board and try to sink it in the hole for 3 points or at least land it on the board for 1 point. The team that reaches the score of 21 first wins.

We play every year at most every summer cookout.

Official rules of cornhole can be found at ACA (American Cornhole Associatin).

I'm not very good, but with the right partner, we win every game each year, so far! lol. Here's a pic below of me with the medals! I hope I didn't jinx the next game!!! lol



Have you ever played the game of cornhole?