Disclaimer: This blog holds Christmas gifts... Dad - don't peek till after Christmas!

Hello!! I hope everyone is having an absolutely lovely day! It's quite muggy here in Georgia but warm. Still a great day though... I've been busy getting everyone's gifts made and put together so I wanted to share them with you. This first one is the one I gave to Laura. John, a guy I work with, said the felt 'envelope' was excessive but that's what we do as artist - right? Go over the top. The bird was an embroidery pattern from Elsie. And the envelope had a nice little surprise of a Cambridge Coffee gift card inside - she loves coffee. Probably her biggest expense besides groceries... as it is the majority of a college student's greatest expense. Our friendship began with our love for Kristin Billerbeck novels. I used to think C.S. Lewis was cheesy when he said, "Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one!" That was mine and Laura's encounter when I saw her reading the Spa Girls series in Cambridge one day. I didn't think anyone else around Auburn had heard of Billerbeck. Anyway, I got her the first two books from the "What A Girl Wants" series. She gave me some awesome guitar picks and a Death Cab for Cutie band shirt. She's awesome. 

These are the wonderful, glittery reindeer my mom found at Target. I made the decorative bows around their necks. Aren't they great! My mom helped a pretty good bit which was wonderful spending time with her and learning from her. I made these for the grandparents and Aunts and Uncles. I still have one more reindeer to finish. 

    

This is my favorite!! My brother, Chase, always has screen names or e-mails called 'the eskimo friend'. When I was listening to Damien Rice the other day, I realized that was where he got the idea from. Damien sings a song called Eskimo so I painted all of the lyrics in the background and then put 'so i look to my eskimo friend' on the sides. It was so much fun to do this for him. I really hope he loves it! I also got him a couple of things from Moosejaw.com. He probably gets tired of getting paintings every year. haha - just kidding. This will only be the second year. 
    

This is one of my projects from the Elsie class. The heads are wooden balls from Hobby Lobby and I sculpted the bodies out of clay. So cute! 

   

  
One more project from Elsie's class. I LOVE these! They are old books from a thrift store. The top one is The Legend of Paul Bunyan. I got it for my dad because he's in the lumber business. Sometimes he claims to be a lumberjack. ;o) I think he'll love it! The other one is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The last present for my brother (I got him a lot this year). Whenever I think about him, he defines adventure. I thought it would be cool to do the cover like a treasure map (idea I got from Elsie) so I did. 
  
    

Finally.... I got my hair done today!! I haven't had much luck with hairstylists in Auburn so I just came home and got it done by Donna, the lady who used to do it. She did EXACTLY what I wanted! I'm so excited about it!! (side note: this picture is mainly for Courtney because I just got off the phone with her telling her about it. I'm sure it doesn't look as awesome as yours... haha)

K- I'm off to play. Or maybe watch a movie. Or maybe nap. Or maybe all three. Actually. No. I think I'm going to practice these dance moves first. Then all three. 

and if that wasn't enough for you, here's some holiday cheer. My friend has this obsession with Relient K... and well, it's kind of slowly rubbing off on me after he sent me some CD's a couple of months ago. Enjoy: