I am a secret tacky-Christmas-letter lover. When we get one where all the writer does is brag, I laugh and find it entertaining. Also feel a little pity for the poor souls who are in such denial of the real world. I really do enjoy hearing about people's lives. Some friends of my husband (people I have never met) send letters and now I feel I know them personally. We started writing one about 6 years ago when we had a disaster home problem (broke in half, condemned. sorry wrong forum) and everyone wanted to know every year how it, and the law suit was progressing. I got so tired of writing all the details over and over (especially because I have arthritis in my hands) so I just typed it all up, added a little info on our work, told about the dog's activities and sent it on. The first year, I changed the name at top and added a personalized paragraph, but since I print it out at work (sshhh) and use fancy Hallmark paper, it was taking up a lot of time. So now I do the tacky-Christmas-form-letter and hand write a small personal note. This way I can go in to work early one day and run them off before anyone knows. I absolutely hate getting a card from someone with just their names written on it. Even worse is the name stamped on it with my name and address typed on a computer label. I feel like I am just a nuisance that people feel need to be taken care of and do it in the quickest, less painful way possible. I am also very busy but start at Halloween and address just 1 or 2 a day. It's easier to add a personalized note when that person is the only one I need to think of that day.

I think that you can embroider almost anything on a card - you just need to be mindful of the stress you put on the paper (or cardstock would probably be better). Do you have fabric embroidery experience? I'd think you could take almost any clip art and use it as a pattern for your stitches. If you haven't already, take a look at Sublime Stitching for some neat pattern ideas. Or browse around on etsy to see what some other paper artists have come up with (more inspiration than patterns in this case). Good luck! Here is a link that might be useful: craftfetish blog

I'm sure most GW members will disagree with me about what is important in the design of a house. For that reason I don't respond to many full house design plans but this one deserves to be defended. I have come to the conclusion that many GW members (or the designers they find on the internet) start with concepts based on smaller relatively casual spaces we are all familiar with like apartments or vacation houses to which they add additional larger, often redundant, spaces and large garages until the most important living spaces are forced deep into the mass of the house with few or no windows and the transitions between the major spaces seem to be afterthoughts. I have always rejected that approach. I often create dining spaces in a kitchen but would never combine a kitchen and a living room. I don't find it attractive to sit in a living room and look at someone's backside at a counter or to sit at a counter and look at a sink or cooktop. I would never design a kitchen without a major view to the outside because it is the most active space in the house. Call me old-fashioned, I don't mind; I'm old enough to condsider it a complement.

I absolutely love Elf. and I absolutely love being joyful and dorky about religion. I had enjoyed Skipping Christmas so when the movie came out, I saw that. As is often the case, I felt that the movie didn’t fully capture the book, and went a bit to the silly side. Similarly, for the Grinch, I don’t think that Dr Seuss transfers at all well to live action, and for animation it all depends on the screenplay. A lot of the fun of Dr Seuss is in the text and narration, and of course his illustrations. Last night I watched White Christmas and Miracle on 34th street again, mainly because they were streaming and I was too lazy to get up to put in a DVD. I should watch the Mara Wilson version again sometime. I’m going to have to buy the DVD of A Charlie Brown Christmas to be able to watch it. The CD is already my Christmas party music of choice!