Christmas? Already?

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Where has the time gone? It seems Hallowe'en was just a few days ago and now Christmas is fast approaching. Well, we haven't been letting grass grow beneath our feet at the Dorchester Senior Center. We've been busy crafting! Just take a look at some of the things we've made in the past month.

We celebrated the beauty of autumn's colors with two different cards. One card featured a bare tree that was covered with tiny, multicolored leaves applied one at a time. The other was an easel card that featured detailed rubber stamped images of autumn leaves and a diagonal border of leaves across the front. The unique construction of this card allows it to stand up like a painting in an easel, hence the name. The ladies liked the easel card so much, I created another one, this time featuring a photo frame.

With the holidays right around the corner, it was time to start Christmas crafts. My crafters really liked the decorated gift bag they created some weeks back so I designed another one for them to make. We followed that with paper ornaments, reindeer gift tags and a Christmas card.

On top of all this crafting madness, I have been doing my annual holiday decorating thing for the senior center. Decorating for Christmas and Hanukkah takes a lot of time because there are a LOT of decorations and because it is a large room. I'll take pictures of the room when it is completed and post them for you to see.

In all of this, I haven't done a lick of holiday shopping or decorating for myself. Time's a wasting'. I'd better get cracking.


Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

The crafts classes continue...

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Between the volunteering I do for the senior center and a decorating project I'm working on for my daughter's high school, I've been too frantically busy to write about what I'm doing. I'm going to try and condense things here in an effort to catch up.

For a change of pace, we switched from card making and began making other things from paper. Thanks to a very successful visit to Material for the Arts as well as some generous donations of craft materials from private donors, I had lots of new materials to work with. Here you'll see a pretty pink and black memo holder complete with cards for writing little notes. These have small round magnets on the backs that allow them to stick to a refrigerator or filing cabinet.

Then there are two different styles of gift bags. The one pictured here is in a blue floral pattern but the seniors were able to choose from a variety of floral colors including chartreuse, peach and gold. This bag came with a coordinating gift tag and a matching little gift holder crafted to look like a matchbook and perfectly sized to hold a single square of Ghirardelli chocolate.

The other gift bag was made to look like a pale green mini tote bag and features a matching gift tag and a velcro closure. Class participants even got some coordinating tissue paper to place in the bag so they could be ready to wrap that perfect little gift.

The card you see here will be this week's project, a generic birthday card that is suitable for both men and women. It's generally more difficult to choose colors and themes that are suitable for men so this is a welcome change. This will be my final project for this season until I return in September to continue the craft classes. I must dedicate myself to completing the project for the high school in time for the graduation ceremony at the end of June, then spend time preparing my graduating daughter for her transition to college. So many things to do, so few days in which to do them.

Oh yes, the remaining photo. The senior center will be conducting it's own version of American Idol called "Dorchester Senior Idol". The photo represents the scoring paddles the judges will be using to score the participants on a scale from one to four. I created the paddles from some old hand fans with wooden handles by removing the original cardboard fan and replacing it with one that I designed. I just thought I'd throw them into the mix here as well since I had some fun making them. Oh yes, one more thing. I not only got to make the paddles, I'll get to use them. I've been asked to be one of the judges for the talent contest. This should be fun!!

Okay, no more time for chatter. I'm off again to put nose firmly to grindstone. I've got flowers to create and floral arrangements to make and a prom to prepare for and a graduation coming up and...

Boy, I need a vacation.


Ballo ergo sum- Gitana, the Creative Diva