Ornament Exchange

What was I thinking? I really don't know....

This is my latest endeavor. I put together a handmade ornament exchange at work. We had 13 women decide to participate. Each one of us makes 13 ornaments, then we have a party to exchange. You give one of yours to each person in the exchange, and in turn, they give you one of theirs. You end up with 13 different handmade ornaments.

Here's a sample of the ones I've been making. I'm not sure this was the best time to try to teach myself soldering...but by the 13th one, I had gotten much better at it.


I created a double-sided Christmas collage, sandwiched between two pieces of glass, then soldered them together with jumprings on the ends to attach the wire work and crystals.

Although the soldering is far from being done well, I'm very happy with the way they turned out.

Since I finished the collaged ones in plenty of time, I decided to make another one for each person. Each woman will also get a beaded letter ornament.



This is what the final projects will look like when I give them out this Friday night. I'm excited to see what kind of ornaments come my way.




Next year, someone slap me if I do this again!
Just kidding.

Catching Up

I think I need to change my expectations. No more will I expect I can keep up with this blog, no more will I fret over it, and no more will I start my message with "gee I haven't kept up" (well, after this time.)

From now on, I will write when able, motivated and have something to say. (My guess is I will probably do it a lot more often now).

So, Friday night in the Amidei house. Tom is off working at the bowling alley. Haley is fast asleep after reading in the Twilight series for hours tonight. I've been playing with the new marquees and scrolling photos on my blog. (Fun stuff by the way). I've cooked and cleaned up already. I've visited with a new and dear friend (thanks again Nicki), and now it's "my" time.

What do I do? Go sit at the computer where I spend most of my day because of work...only now it's by choice. I get to look at family and friends blogs, I get to watch tv shows I didn't have time to watch earlier this week, I get to stay up all night playing silly computer games, and I get to not worry about how late I stay up because I don't have to get up early tomorrow morning and go to work.

Ah....life is good when you're an adult!