A. Russ Original

I have been keeping my birthday list on a sheet of graph paper for years. Yes, I know while it’s not flashy or trendy… it was functional. And if I am anything, I am functional! But with this in mind… I wanted to have a system that was re-usable, something that I wouldn’t have to re-write each year, something that I could add other projects to it and keep up with everything in a single calendar format.         So one rainy afternoon, I sat down at the craft table and put together this cute little ‘Celebration’ calendar.                It was shortly after I had made the scrap box , so I had lots of large scraps, so I used them as the monthly sheets. I had printed out the months with the dates on a half of an 8 1/2” x 11” sheet. using the corner slot punch I made slots to place the calendar sheets. The back of the previous months sheet will be used to leave sticky notes about non-birthday card projects, like the ...

  In most of the circles I move in, I am known as a crafty person… for some reason…Some of my friends call me ‘Martha’ …   they all think I’ve gotten some talent for all things crafty! Recently I had a friend send me a note with a picture of a wreath and said that I was the only person she knew that could pull it off, very flattering for me… but I had never made a wreath before! So, I headed out to the Hobby Lobby to see what I could get into… I found a book there on wreaths… so I stood there in the store and read through it. It didn’t seem too difficult… so I loaded up on supplies and headed home…  I goggled a few how-to videos and then hit pintrest for even more ideas. I have to admit that it was a little frustrating at first… but it soon clicked and I was off to the races! I only took one ‘in progress’ picture, but it shows the process I used, pipe cleaners. Or as they are now called, ‘chenille stems’ really folks… since when… they’ve ALWAYS been pipe cleaners...