Back in the Saddle Again... sort of...

It's been a long time since I have felt very crafty given all that has been going on in my life of late, but that old magic feeling is creeping back into my life and I spent a few hours over the last few days doing a little project that serves not only to quell the crafty beast within but also serves to align our family a little closer with some of our more fleeting goals.


In this case along with jumping off the Christmas/holiday machine we have also decided to do our best to jump of the "birthday machine". Our personal hope is to bring our family birthdays back to simple affairs and in line with that we have decided that we will give simple-memory gifts to those we love and are lucky enough to spend time with on their birthday.


In keeping with that theme I crafted a whole smack-load of personal Birthday-Wish candle holders since each person no matter how old or young deserves a special wish on their birthday and this is just the candle for that!

(Above) I have prepackaged up a few of them using pages from vintage* birthday themed books as the backer cards and "ransom note" style cut outs and *wish* tickets on the header cards.
The rest of these little guys and girls are waiting their turn on the shelf in my office.. they look a little shell-shocked from the flash photography but assure you they are quite happy there.

* Please rest assured that all the books used are books that have been found in the damaged bin at our local used book store, no true vintage books were given up to this craft.

Well THAT was unexpected!

Needless to say I did not expect to fall off the earth from July to September..but who does? In my case life got very sad very fast .. After an 8 year battle with cancer my Father died in August. I was very lucky to get 10 blessed days with him and to be so lucky as to be with him as he died. During that time I got to spend time with my sister, reconnect with two women who were like mothers to us and get to know our most wonderful Aunt Ruthie. I will miss my father so very much, in fact I am not sure it's really sunk in that he is gone. I am not sure how long it will take but I am sure that when it really gets here it's going to be a whopper.

During those 10 days with him I was able to take him to fish on his beloved lake and get this photo.. I miss you daddy!