Black Friday

Are you going--or have you already been--shopping today? The biggest shopping day of the year and I hear that one quarter of the U.S. population will go shopping. I'm very tempted because of all the hype, but I think I'll stay home. Goodness knows that after the last several days, I'm pretty well shopped out! In any event, I have some quilting things to do and I think my only trip out will be to the post office. Besides, my husband threw out the newspaper before I could look at the ads. Do you think he planned it that way?!

I hope those of you here in the U.S. who celebrated Thanksgiving had a wonderful day filled with family and friends. We spent a quiet day doing things around the house and then went to my in-laws' house for dessert in the evening. My husband baked two pumpkin pies to take along, and they were yummy! Because dessert was at 6 p.m. and we didn't have our turkey sandwiches for lunch until around 2 p.m., we ended up having our dinner after we got home from dessert! Backward, I know, but it worked out well.

There's still no real, all-out decorating going on here as I've continued to clean and get the house ready to decorate. I spent most of Thanksgiving day cleaning out my craft and junk closet in my son's room as well as some of the other drawers and places I store things in there. Looking at some of the craft stuff I still had brought back memories of the '80s! I took out a couple large bags of trash and emptied a few storage containers, and when I finished, the closet looked much like it did before I started. Somehow that doesn't seem quite fair! But at least now I know what I have in there and where it is.

After we got back home from visiting relatives, I went into the Sweat Shop and played around with my big wooden letters, trying out different techniques with paper, stickers, inks, and stamping.

I couldn't get a good photo that really showed the true colors, but I think you get the idea. I'm reasonably happy with my first efforts at playing around with these materials.

I think I'll either put these up on a shelf that can be seen from the front door or I'll put them in the living room somewhere. I think. I'll have to play around with different ideas and decide where I like them best.

I have more letters that are smaller and will spell Holly Jolly. I think I'll just paint those, and I'd like to somehow mount them on the wall over my stove. Any ideas on how to do that? I can't think of anything temporary that wouldn't be affected by the warmth of the stove and oven. The letters in "Holly" are smaller than "Jolly" and I was thinking maybe pins stuck in the wall would be reasonably invisible but strong enough to hold up the smaller letters, but I'd probably need small nails for the larger letters. Or maybe I'll think of a completely different plan by the time I get them done--who knows?!

If you're braving the shopping crowds today, I wish you good luck and good deals! Thanks for stopping in to visit with me!