hello winter

it was a beauty of a first day of winter.
clear skies.
high of 57.
we are bracing for another storm this week.
perhaps a white christmas.

well, the gifts are wrapped.
stocking stuffers purchased.
groceries bought.
friday's meal planned.
friends and family invited for christmas dinner.
and tomorrow a day of baking.
ah! and sigh!
time to enjoy the festive part of the season.
and to reflect on the advent of our LORD.


today even made for time to get creative. seems it has been a long time. a bit behind in the december daily book...hoping to get that caught up tomorrow perhaps. i will post and share as that comes together.

a little sneak of what i am working on for january's work in progress gallery. can i tell you how great it was to get my mojo on today and work out some creative energy. alot of joy in that for me. especially after i have been away from it for a bit while focusing on other areas of life.


hoping you have time to slow down...
enjoy your family...
and worship and adore HIM.

i know...

i know...

it's been a week since my last post.

remember my to do list last week?

well, that has been some of what i have been up to.

sort of purposefully taking a break from the blog.

staying focused on home and family.

thinking through some many needed changes as we journey into a new year.

change can be good.

we'll see.

today i am posting over here.

hope you'll visit.

the december cold

winter has not yet arrived, but you would not know any better by the look and feel of things around here. it has made for a snuggly day here in the pate household. lots of reading and snuggling and tea drinking. making spirits bright and ready for the christmas season that is upon us.

this week brings me to a list of this and that on my schedule:
finishing christmas cards and printing photos for folks.
packaging gifts that are to be sent. friday should be a good day to get those out.
the kiddos have an impromptu christmas pageant on friday. there is no rehearsing. we just arrive, they are assigned their role, and an hour later they put on the most precious rendition of the baby Jesus' birth. it is fast becoming a sweet yearly tradition.
waiting for a few gifts to still arrive.
hope to get most of everything wrapped by weeks end.
oh! still have one more gift to order. i love to send friends magazine subscriptions...a simple gift they love.

i am sure there is more on my list...like i have not even finished getting all of christmas out in the house...my whole back room is empty and bare of christmas...have a potluck with friends tonight...a play our family is attending on wednesday...baking...oh, and generally being merry.

so, what is on your list this week?

december handmades

let's talk makin' gifts.

teenage boys. very challenging to make a gift for. inspired by the most recent stampin up inspiration catalog, i went with an altered bulletin board. stamped a background for each. the rock in roll chipboard is from cosmo cricket. (the rub-on failed to work for this board). the skateboarder is a clipart piece that i printed on cardstock and cut out. used some dimensional adhesive to give it some depth. i cut out the middle of the cork board and matted the cardstock underneath. then i attached a piece of foam board to the back of the cork, and placed hanging hardware towards the top.

i made these photo blocks several years back. my friend made a request for a tutorial on how to make them. so...

instead, i purchased the supplies and a paper mache box for them all to fit in. i will alter the box a bit to make it pretty, and print up a little tutorial for her, so then she will have all that she needs, sans paper and photos, to make her own blocks. hope she likes....




there is always a calendar or two on my requested list. i have several more to make. thankful for my photo printer as well as my bind it all for this project.



did you see the embellished tee tutorial on elizabether kartchner's blog a few weeks back? it was just adorable. i quickly put that on my list for my neice. i will probably make a few more flowers and make up some hair clips for her as well.

oh! and using some of heidi swapps fabulous flowers, i did just that. failed to get a photo. but i took her flowers, and some buttons sewed on to those, and hot glued them to quilt binding clips (also known as clippies in our house). perfect stocking stuffer.

another item i will be getting to is a gratitude calendar. ali e has a brush kit at designer digitals. i made several of these up last year. wonderful gifts. even if you don't have a bind-it-all, book rings would work just as well.

thanks for visiting!

december shopping

i am fast becoming the fan of supporting the handmade community. while i am making several of this years gifts by hand, and would love to completely and only do handmade, somethings just can't be handmade gifts. one of the goals i continue to work towards is building my children's personal libraries. so of course that requires supporting amazon a little, as well as some of my other favorite resources for books and radio theatre:

vision forum

lamplighter publishing

these are two small businesses i support throughout the year, but especially at christmas. their products are always welcome by the kids in my life. (oh...some adults too.)


two etsy shops i have recently used have come through in a stellar way as well.

metalmorphoz is out of canada, but shipping came to me very, very quickly. they hand make beautiful jewelry and i highly recommend them for their unique wares, wonderful pricing, and thorough customer service.

rorolee jewelry (are you seeing a theme here) also came through in a beautiful way. her pieces are so feminine. i could make my own personal list from her shop.

this heart bracelet has so many wonderful details to it. i just love it. the work is simply beautiful.

i will be posting some of the handmade goodness going on here over the weekend.

have a grand day!

december at work in progress

the gallery has been loaded over at wip. lots of mini's were produced by the design team. i think we all got the fever. the nook and pantry line by basic grey had some really sweet papers to show for itself. also there were some jenni bowlin elements that always make a kit shine. and i just couln't help but sew on every project, i think. those comforting papers just said 'sew on me!". so i did.


tea time celebrated my daughters little birthday celebration with friends. i love how she took it upon herself to serve at her tea. it was super sweet. the pink with touches of red added to the sweetness of these photos. and i couldn't help but cluster many of the goodies from the nook and pantry stickers. that tea pot was so perfect.


thanks to my friend, (you know who you are, alexandra), the daily baking of bread has found it's way in my home again. i had to use that wonderful red paper from jillibean soup to bring focus to this daily tradition. bread is such a simple comfort. especially warm from the oven. those jenni bowlin journal cards and vintage coupon added to the nostalgic feeling of this layout. oh! and i soaked the white/brown trim in coffee to age it a bit...it was too white for the layout, but that little soak helped give me the look i needed.


can't you just eat those corragated cardboard letters up? i love them. i had fun taking a border sticker and pleating the goodness out of it and then sewing it to the layout. this has alot of elements added from the whole kit. i love it when i can make lots of pieces work without overwhelming the layout. and thanks to my friends in orange county for capturing mr. pate and i at newport beach in a very fun moment. that's us at our best.


i used the jenni bowlin calendar cards and pulled a photo from each month of this past year. i forget to carry photos with me, but this mini is perfect for my bag and to always have these guys close at hand. thanks to gigi kennedy for inspiring this little book.


i just loved all these papers. especially that jillibean soup red. (i picked more of it up from my lss as it is so great!) and the jenni bowlin mini letters will be getting more of a work out on future projects.

thanks, trish, for such a fun kit this month. they are still available, i encourage you to go get ya one!

welcome december

hello friends and greetings to december.
along about august i start to cringe as to how close christmas is at that time. i begin to dread it. the celebration of the birth of our LORD? no, that is not what i dread. rather all the preparation that tends to fall on the domestic goddess of the household. that's me. that's you. well, maybe you don't think that way, but i am merely be honest here.
however, by the time the season actually changes, and the kitchen gets crankin' before thanksgiving with all the yummy smells and tastes that are inevitable, well, then i get in the mood. plus, this year i decided to get my act in gear and REALLY have my shopping done by the end of november. and accept for one teensy, winsy little thing, that is in deed a reality for me. yea me!
so, tonight after the kiddos are in bed, i put up the advent boxes, which are already filled with the months activities. and they wake tomorrow to a wall full of 24 boxes and then the celebration really begins.
the rest of the month then is filled with handmaking the handmades. and picking up stocking stuffers. getting distant packages shipped in a timely manner. making some ornaments. getting on the floor with the kids and reading all our wonderful books we save for this time of year. baking up a storm. maybe even scrapping.

but first, one look back at our time at thanksgiving.


in the busy-ness of the day we usually forget to have a family photo taken. my sister granted us this one real quick.

mr. pate. stayed busy in the kitchen. he's nice that way.

getting this girl to give up one of her sweet smiles is next to impossible. but i take what i can get and always love it.


my little pilgrim girl. she insisted on wearing this today. who can resist.



a simple thanksgiving table at my mom's house.


my sister and my cousins. we always end up in the kitchen.


simply could not keep these two away from the food. can ya blame them?

game on!

i pray your thanksgiving was a wonderful gathering.

time to turn our focus to christmas. wishing you a merry one.