Saturday Stuff

Today I was bound and determined to get something done.  Didn't know exactly what, but I was going to accomplish something!

Every year (except one) since we were married in 1983, we've written a Christmas letter.  Oh, I know they have a bad reputation and we've gotten our share of braggy ones, but we try to keep ours humorous and newsy and I guess it's worked.  In 1987 we read an Ann Landers column where people totally trashed Christmas letters.  We felt so guilty for sending them that we didn't send one that year.  When we received cards from our friends and family, everyone was asking what happened and why they didn't get a letter.  So, in 1988 it was back by popular demand and we've done one ever since.

We kept a copy each year and they now are housed in a small notebook that is stored away with our Christmas decorations.  It's almost like the Reader's Digest version of our lives.  We look through all the letters every Christmas and fondly remember those years.  It's funny - the first one in '83 was typed and duplicated on a ditto machine (I was a teacher at the time and had access to one).  In about '86 we got our first boxy Macintosh computer with a dot matrix printer so that year our letter looked a bit more "techy".  These days it's a two sided affair with the letter on the front and a collage of family pictures on the back. (I've learned to use my Adobe Photoshop Elements and I enjoy doing a digital scrapbook-type page.)  Like the letters to Santa I mentioned in a previous post, we love the nostalgia these letters invoke.

So, today I got a few cards addressed and mailed so I've made a little dent in that project.  But, I get bored easily and needed a diversion.  (Just as an aside, I dropped a stitch in the beanie and am waiting until I have a lot of patience and self-control before I tackle remedying that situation!)  I needed something simple.

I love displaying all the Christmas cards we receive and usually hang them on the stairs.  I usually staple them to ribbons or something similar.  Somewhere on the internet I saw that someone used clothespins and string so I'm trying something new.  I went to Walmart and bought a package of 50 wooden clothespins for $1.00.  I had a sheet of 12x12 Christmas scrapbook paper that I cut into 1/4" strips.  I Mod-Podged the clothespins and put the paper on them.  I hot glued some little holly springs that were left over from the gifty boxes project and ended up with these:

Jolly Card Clips

I'm going to use them to attach the cards to string that I will somehow attach to the stair railings.  I still haven't figured that out yet.  Maybe a trip to Michael's will give me inspiration - I think ribbon is on sale!!  I'll post the end result sometime soon.