Folded Paper Tree

The first ever folded paper project that I saw was too many years ago when one of my elementary school classes did a project using two Reader's Digest magazines that we folded, stuck back to back,  then spray painted black to make something really pathetic for our mothers. I hadn't thought of it for years until last year when Woman's Day magazine had paper trees like the photo on the left in one of their holiday issues. I followed their instructions to make this one out of two phone books. Their version looked good--mine--not so much, but it was a relaxing project that I could do with my hands while my mind visited other places.

Christmas Baking 2012

The photo on the left shows a sample of some of our baking and candy making this year that we used for Christmas gifts to family, friends, and a few neighbors. We truly enjoyed making all of it and the fun part was  getting to try  some new recipes that I think turned out decent.The only thing I really didn't like was the white chocolate dipped pretzels (not shown). We used Baker's white chocolate and it tasted awful. I could pick out a  strong and distinctly powered milk taste in that chocolate. Unfortunately, I didn't do a taste test of those things before packing the Christmas gift sets, because it never occurred to me that white chocolate could ever taste bad. But this stuff did-- big time! But I thank the Lord everything else was good. 

Our homemade candy and cookie list for 2012:
Wilton sugar cookie cutouts, lady fingers,chocolate samoas, chocolate spritz cookies, white chocolate dipped pretzels, cream-filled chocolate covered cherries, strawberry jelly rolls, and banana taffy.

Learning to make the cream-filled  chocolate covered cherries, the chocolate somoas, and the banana taffy was new for me this  year. About the only candy I'd ever attempted to make was the super easy boiled  chocolate oatmeal candy. I was always just a little afraid to try candy recipes. But  the level of difficulty of these treats proved to be not even close to the impossible  ordeal  I  had imagined it to be.

Cut Glass Vignette

There's no real reason for this pic other than the fact that I just love cut-glass novelties. Not completely shown in the pic is a cut-glass hurricane lamp in the background and this cut-glass candy dish in the foreground.

Centerpiece 2012

We did nothing elaborate with the table this year, but I always love the white tablecloths. Just about anything you stick on a white tablecloth looks good to me, within reason, of course. The stick deer in the photo are part of a fairly large collection that my mother made from oak limbs. She loves to make them and they are a cute addition to our primitive Christmas decorations.

Happy Birthday Scott

I'm not  partial, just honest: I have the sweetest nephew in the world. What makes him also one of the most beautiful people in the world  is his day-by-day regard and compassion for his family and his little animals. 

I wish I could have had a nice dinner for him for his birthday, but since we are so many miles apart, I did this scrapbook page instead while his birthday was on my mind. 

I don't think he was yet in school, when he drew some pictures for my mother, his grandmother, and she thought they were so brilliant for his age that she saved them all these years. They are overlayed on the bottom of the tan scrapbook page.

Fall 2012 Centerpiece

The Floating Photo Cube Project

Canning Season, 2012

Summer has been all about hard work and canning at our house. A lot of sweating, too! Although canning is a hobby my mother and I share, our plan has been to make Christmas gift sets from our canning pantry this year. As I'm compiling this list  to post, I'm thinking I should probably mention  that absolutely everything on this list is not gift intended, most of it is ours to enjoy.  Hopefully, in the months that remain in 2012, we will put away a few more things such as okra, pecans, and pumpkins, but here's what we have preserved thus far:

1. orange marmalade (9.5 pints)
2. blueberry jelly (13 pints)
3. blueberry juice (43 quarts)
4. blueberry syrup (8 pints)
5. blueberries (5 pints)
6. watermelon pickles (6.5 pints)
7. fig jam (9 pints)
8. pear jam (3 pints)
9. strawberry fig jam (9 pints)
10. strawberry pear jam (19 pints)
11. peach pear jam (4 pints)
12. pineapple pear jam (2.5 pints)
13. okra (6 quarts)
14. pickled okra (11 pints)
15. spiced pear rings (28 pints)
16. spiced pear halves (9.5 quarts)
17. Brunswick stew (3 quarts)
18. peas (11 pints)

Now, my vote for the most and least delicious foods from the list both go to two new items we tried this season: the spiced pear rings  and the watermelon pickles, respectively. The spiced pear rings are, indisputably, the most scrumptiously delicious use for pears that I've ever found, and the watermelon pickles are, undeniably, the worst--never never plan to make those things again. The watermelon rinds would have served a much  greater purpose in my compost bin than they will ever serve in this pickled state. I heard it said once, that the only thing good about watermelon pickles is that they are something to pass at the Thanksgiving buffet. Amen.

Variegated Rose

This is another rose that David planted. It, too, has decreased in size since he is no longer here to care for it. 

Beautiful Male Cardinal

Easter Eggs

I will never outgrow coloring Easter eggs.  It's an act that brings back  some of my favorite childhood memories. Those favorite memories are of the big egg hunts for all my cousins, my sister, and me at my grandparents'  home. Our mothers brought the chicken and dumplings, banana puddings, and other Sunday fare as well as other kinds of desserts. After lunch, the men hid the eggs in the lot behind the house. That lot was perfect for egg hunts since it was sheltered by a canopy of Georgia pines that served dual duty in keeping the air cool and the ground soft with a carpet of red-brown straw. After it was determined that the children had found all the colored eggs, everyone feasted again on boiled eggs sprinkled with salt and pepper chased down by RC colas (my Uncle Wilbur's favorite). 

Okefenokee Swamp Park

This sign is a reminder of the surprise Christmas in February 2012 we just celebrated. We  hadn't seen each other in 10 1/2 years so it was an extremely special visit for all of us when my sister and my nephew flew in from Texas as a complete surprise to us. We all had such a wonderful time!


We also enjoyed, immensely, a trip to the Okefenokee Swamp Park while they were here.

The Recipe

Every time I see oranges, I think  MARMALADE. My mother and I are self-proclaimed "Marmalade Queens." We love to make it during the winter months and most people who have been the recipients of a jar of it love our take on making it. Back to the picture, the cinnamon sticks were added  just in our effort to create a composition, we would never never never put that stuff in marmalade.

Christmas Table 2011

We removed the extension from our oval table to have a round table this year. I arranged the stuff and my mother made the table cloths and chair drapes. On the white round topper, she applied hand made crocheted edging that took her quite a few hours to make.

Winter Camellia

This is about all I know of you can do with a camellia since they are such heavy flowers they drop from their stems too easily to be used for cut flower arrangements. They are valuable, however, as yard shrubs because they can get quite large and they remain green year round.

For Santa

This photo of cookies and milk for Santa was inspired by a Christmas card I saw and I just had to do it. I'm thinking it's better to photograph this stuff than it is to eat it.


I made the spritz Christmas trees and the chocolate thingamajiggies while my mother made the lady fingers.  

Let It Snow

Each year in early November, we drag out, dust off, and crank up the Christmas music sound tracks and have Andy Williams and Mannheim Steamroller send us decking our halls. We start early so we can take our time and enjoy the whole experience; plus, we need to be finished by Thanksgiving if we plan to have any Christmas parties.  That's what we are doing now and that's what had me wanting to try digital scrap booking again, too. While under the influence of all that Christmas music, the song "Let It Snow" stuck in my head as a good one to scrap if I could temporarily feign non-existent the South Georgia eighty degree real world temp.

The thing about digital scrap booking that is whipping my butt is allowing some negative space on the page. I tend to pack all my pages so full of junk they just look like a collage. Gotta get a grip on that.

Blooming Okra

White Orchid

Yellow Orchid