Author Archives: ~~Rhonda

Living in a small town, I share my life with my husband Russell (married in 1977), five children (one still at home), and six cats (one indoors, the others outside).

I teach an online class called “The Christmas Notebook” which is about all things holiday prep. The many facets of celebrating Christmas comprises one of my favorite hobbies. Other favorite things include gardening, reading, cooking, and scrapbooking.

menu plan monday ~ september 5, 2016

Happy Labor Day! Our son and his family came over this afternoon. We grilled and chatted and ate pie and chatted. It was a fun afternoon. The grilled shrimp was delicious! Pa took the twins out to drive the golf cart. Rose Red is pretty sure she and Snow White are the only eight year […]

putz Christmas tree lot

I am still tweaking the Putz “Christmas Tree Lot” that I’ve been working on the past few days, but it is almost done. In my last post, I explained how I made the base for the Christmas Tree Lot. It had to be larger than those I usually make to have room for the trees, […]

putz Christmas tree lot…making the base

This past Friday, I made the base for my new Putz / little glitter house, the Christmas Tree Lot. This is the bottom of the base. I like to add a Christmas card surprise on the bottom. Because I want to add trees and a sign and wreaths and roping, etc., the base needed to […]

drafting a new putz design

I wanted to add a Christmas Tree Lot to my collection of Putz patterns so I drew up a pattern for the sales shack. This is as far as I got with the project today. I will make a base for it tomorrow and, once I have it glued to a base, I can start […]

menu plan monday ~ august 15, 2016

We have had a very busy week with a couple of big events going on. First of all, my Dad has been in the hospital for eight days. He is now doing better and may go home tomorrow, but it has been a hard week and he has gone through a lot. My sister and […]

glitter test

I’ve been emailing back and forth with an online friend who is making her own little glitter houses. She is having a problem with glitter loss after the houses are done. My friend did some experimenting with different kinds of glues and glitter, but hasn’t found a solution yet. I decided to do a glitter […]

menu plan monday ~ august 8, 2016

It has been a busy few weeks! We had the grands here the last week of July for Bible School. It was structured as an art camp. On Sunday evening, VBS hosted an art show so the children could show their parents the work they had done. Everyone was asked to bring snacks, so we […]

new spool ornaments

I finished a few more spool ornaments. I plan to take proper pictures and post the ornaments to Etsy today. How do you feel about snow like the red one has? Yes, please? Or, no, I like them better without? The bead stars I used on my previous spool ornaments were blue like on the […]

menu plan monday ~ july 25, 2016

Just for fun, I thought I’d show you my spool jars since I mentioned them in this post – spool ornaments. All this stuff came from my mom’s stash. I am happy to have it and to use it to carry on her creative efforts. I got my artsy genes from her. Thanks, Mom! After […]

spool ornaments

I noticed on Pinterest that my spool ornaments, and the tutorial for the same, get a lot of pins. Since they are popular, I decided to make some for my Etsy shop ChristmasNotebook. BTW, here’s the link to the tutorial: ornament tutorial: bottle brush tree on a wooden spool If you make any, I’d love […]