Happy Holidays!

I am really enjoying the holidays this year. The music, the decorating, the cooking and especially family festivities. I'm really loving it all. I hope you are enjoying getting ready for your holiday with your family and making traditions new and old come alive!

Today I took pictures around the house. Since moving into our new home, a "real house" Steve and I have been so excited for the holidays... to be able to decorate and share good times with family and friends. I have to admit that I got started on my holiday decor just a wee-bit on the early side....um, like a week before Thanksgiving. In between now and then I have placed the final holiday touches on our home and it couldn't be any more lovely in my eyes. I love to wake up in the morning and come home from work at night and plug in the lights. It's truly like magic this time of year. I love everything about it :) I've been cooking so much lately. It's been a lot of fun. I have enjoyed using recipes from http://www.allrecipes.com/. I love how you can read the comments on the dish before you prepare it and take the suggestions into consideration. Steve and I laugh at the people who give 5 stars, yet the changed the entire recipe. I swear, those comments crack us both up. A lot of times they give really great ideas for making the dish even better. Last night I made a stuffed chicken with apples, cheese, cinnamon, onions, a wee-bit of brown sugar and some chicken flavored stuffing. You pound the chicken breast thin and role the mix into the center of the chicken and cook in a skillet with white wine and a bit of garlic. It was so delicious. I have been really proud to finally have something great to serve at dinner lately. Yes, Steve and I have been married 8 years, but during that time I've only cooked for him a handful of times. I feel bad about that, and for some reason lately I am really loving creating beautiful, heathly meals for the both of us. That makes me feel really good. Oh, yeah and the house smells SO good every evening :) That it's self is worth all of the effort!

Aside from the suzy-home maker duties (haha----just had to say that..lol) I've been working a lot at my LSS. It's been fun assisting customers who are picking out Christmas gifts for others and those who are making mini-books and cards for family members. Class sign ups have been really slow this month sadly. I've created 2 classes for the store this month, but both were cancelled due to the small sign ups. So, I think I'll hold off on creating anything until things pick up again. It's all good though....that's just the way it goes sometimes :)

In my scrappy-world, I received the beautiful new Tinkering Ink releases for Winter CHA and made several layouts and a mini album for them. I can't wait to be able to share the sneak peeks with you. Just when I think the lines can't get any better, they do. All I will hint is: Can we say.... color??!? I also have a new sketch up at Crop Addict for their manufacture challenge using Tinkering Ink's Beloved line. Here is the sketch if you would like to play along. (You don't have to use the beloved line, you can use any Tinkering Ink paper you have, it just has to be primarily Tinkering Ink) So, to play along...simply post your layout to Crop Addict's gallery using 70% of Tinkering Ink products to get a chance to win some great products from Tinkering Ink. My new position this year at Crop Addict is to create a sketch each month for a manufacture challenge. Crop Addict will have a new manufacture each month for this challenge. I will continue to post these sketches for you to use on my blog each month! I hope you like this :) Enjoy!

Well, I hope you all enjoy your time with your families this weekend. Here's creative vibes to get all of those holiday gifts finished, created and wrapped this weekend :) Um, am I a wee-bit ambitious??---You bet!

Much love,

Tessa Ann

tessaannwatte@gmail.com