Well, it took a WEE bit of googling--but I found you one. Hope this will work... There were lots of other sites. I googled the string two gallon glass jar Sorry I couldn't find you a freebie...you might try craigslist. melanie Here is a link that might be useful: 2 gallon glass jar

Leaf prints. People love them. Perfect time of year. Buy cardstock, cut in half from 11 x 8 1/2 to 11 x 4 1/4. Double each sheet over and crease. That gives you a card 5 1/2 by 4 1/4; fits a standard greeting card envelope that you can buy by the 50's or 100's at an office supply. To make the prints, applying ink or paint with a brayer is nice, but you don't have to buy one if you don't have one. Buy the small RAISED inkpads at a hobbycraft store like Michael's. Dye ink dries faster but pigment ink is lightproof. Choose your leaves, and ideally put them in telephone books under weights for a few hours to flatten them, but you CAN skip this step. Next, put a leaf on scrap paper back side up (so the veins are up and will take the ink). Pat the ink on the leaf. Use complementary colors, or one color. Some people prefer just black. After the ink is applied amply, take tweezers or the petiole of the leaf and place it inked side down on a prefolded card front. DON'T LET IT SHIFT AROUND. Put wax paper or Saran Wrap on top (so you can see through it) and press the leaf to transer the ink. Do not let the leaf move. A clean brayer is good for this if you have one. Be sure you have pressed all areas of the leaf. CAREFULLY remove the cover paper, and lift the leaf off STRAIGHT UP. With a little practice, you can make beautiful prints. A "shadow" print can be made without reinking. Do about 3 on the card, overlapping them. A heavy image and two light ones looks nice. If anyone is remotely interested and I haven't been clear, reply or look up leaf prints on a search engine. Poison oak/ivy leaves are lovely, but I would pass those by. The more veinage the leaf has, the more impact the print has. Grape leaves work extremely well. Catamount

Punk, you always have good ideas and I always enjoy hearing them! Your Christmas table idea sounds lovely and I'm definitely going to try it next December. I do have some smaller trees that would work well on the table with him. Thanks! Here's a close-up of the ground jewels painting. It's done on silk, BTW. I don't know much more about the process or why they use ground jewels to paint with. It sounds like waste of good jewels to me. My guess is that artists use the chips left behind when various jewels are cut, but that's only a guess. I've just tried googling "ground jewels+paint" and didn't find anything. Hi Twomonths, and welcome to our forum! I see from your GW page that you're originally a Texas gal now living with your family in SoCal. Your ideas are great. I actually have a box of slender brass candlesticks in varying heights somewhere around here. I hadn't even thought of them until you mentioned this . . . thank you! Hope you post here more often now :~) Lynn

I don't grill, so I'd probably just roast the chicken with some vegetables, Ann T's high heat roasting method is custom made for a fast chicken dinner and things like sweet potatoes and parsnips roast well at that high temperature too. Toss the carcass in the crockpot the next day with some water, onion, carrot and celery and make stock. Let it simmer all day, strain out the vegetables, add some leftover chicken back in along with noodles or rice and you have soup. The pork I'd probably brine in cider, rub with herbs and roast too. That way I could stick a couple of baked sweet potatoes in the oven with the pork roast, maybe even baked apples for dessert. All quick, easy and ready in the oven! Off in another direction, the pork would be good as pulled pork in the crockpot too, with some BBQ sauce and served on bun or you could slice the tenderloin and use this recipe from Lars' niece, Amanda: Caramelized Pork Slices 1 pound pork tenderloin (we usually use pork chops) 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped 2 Tbsp packed brown sugar 1 Tbsp orange juice 1 Tbsp molasses or maple-flavored syrup 1/2 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. pepper Cut pork into 1/2 inch slices. Spray 10-inch non-stick skillet w/ cooking spray; heat over med-high heat. Cook pork and garlic in skillet 6 to 8 minutes, turning occasionally, until pork is slightly pink in center. Drain if necessary. Stir in remaining ingredients. Cook about 2 to 5 minutes, until mixture thickens and coats pork. (Amanda Maedgen) Annie