I had the treat of spending one afternoon with my gram and grandpa while I was home.  Every year we used to bake cookies for Valentine’s Day until I left and then grandma ran the operation solo.  This year we picked up where we left off.  Spin Dr. Grandpa played DJ with his old records while Gram and I whipped up the dough in the kitchen.  We had so much fun–lots of giggling and taste testing and me getting side-tracked taking pictures and talking on the phone.  I have another video I may put up later, but for now I thought this was pretty sweet.

I made these earrings for my friend, Doveen right before I left for CHA.

Doveen owns Dove of the East, a fabulous scrapbooking company that has papers and embellishments inspired by her world travels.  And guess what she just launched at CHA?  Rubber stamps!  The images are really beautiful and I can’t wait to use my sets.  Shrinky dink charms anyone?

I have a bunch of these dove components so I’m going to share the dove-love.  Leave a comment by Tuesday at Noon EST to be entered in a drawing to win a pair of the dove charm findings.     Watch this space Wednesday or Thursday to see if you won.  Have a super weekend-good luck!

A long time ago, Cynthia talked about Deezer.com on her blog.  It was perfect timing because I think it was right around the time I had lost my internet radio because of copyright stuff and where I live.  Neato.   This band is a fav I found there—I especially like Writer’s Block.  If you like Lily Allen, you may enjoy Just Jack. And thanks Cynthia and Norm for finding the station…

It seemed like a brilliant idea to sit in front of the movie screen on the plane ride home.  A little bit of leg room, full screen view—makes sense.  Although, that was when I was booking my tickets while sitting on my couch.  Little did I know my legs couldn’t stretch all the way out in front of me.  I also thought the flight home would be around 11 hours. Nope, the captain came on the speaker and said, "our total flight time today will be 14 hours and 52 minutes."  I turned to the girl next to me and said, "what did he just say?!?"  I love direct flights, but eeesh, that was a long time!  I’m pretty sure I was seeing mirages of Lazy Boy chairs and my very own Starbucks barista.  Thank the Lord for all the free magazines I picked up at CHA! 

The trip was all worth it start to finish.  I got to catch up with everyone and meet so many new and exciting people.  I came home to a lovely bouquet of flowers—thank you Butchy.

And a very relieved pup—he’s never thrilled when the pack splits up.

This dog makes our hearts melt.  I can hear all your gagging noises, but I don’t care!  When I got home, Rocker was scampering and hopping about (doing the happy dance, as we say).  I even got a few yelps of joy.  I set my suitcase down and then my purse and turned around to find Rocker perched on top of my suitcase-tail wagging looking straight up at me.  I could go on, but it’s time to make the donuts….

Lori Borntreger!  Congratulations you won the ring kit!  Please send me your address so I can send your ring!  candie(At)candiecooper(dOt)com

Thanks everyone for your comments!  I made it home safe and sound yesterday after about 20 hours of travel time.  Lord.  The flight was 13 1/2 hours and went surprisingly fast.  I always forget how hard the first day of jet-lag is though.  China is 13 hours ahead of Indiana so that always makes things interesting.  It’s very cold and snowy here today so I didn’t go out.  Instead I watched a lot of the QVC Paper fair and DIY channel.  That was fun.  I flipped through my parents channel options-all 9 gazillion of them.  It was the first time I actually felt like a foreigner in my own country.  It’s always the choices that make me feel like that.  So many options for so many things from dish soap to cheese.  It’s kind of dizzying, but it makes me love our country all the more.  Now what’s up with all these energy drinks?!?! 

Hello Ornament Thursday!  It’s been quite a crafty week to say the least.  Saturday, was Second Saturday where we decorated picture frames.  Saturday afternoon there was a holiday bazaar of sorts at the international school.  Then on Sunday at 9:30, the brunch with Santa kicked off.

Me and my pal Meg helped the kids make Shanghai Snowman ornaments.  We cranked out 56 snowman ornaments in an hour and a half!  That’s a lot of snow, er, spoons as it were.

The kids did a great job picking out their parts and pieces; snowflakes, felt hats, scarves, buttons and so on.  There were a lot of decisions to be made.  And I learned that carrot noses look good pointing in any direction.  My favorite part was when they put on the face.  We used Sharpie markers so they could draw smiley faces or dots or whatever their little minds came up with.

Last night we had a little Christmas gathering at a friend’s house.  I had 20 Shanghai Snowman ornament kits left so I took them along.  It didn’t take too much crackin’ of the crafty whip to get the men in on the fun.  One of the guys was positive he hadn’t crafted since first grade. Love that.

Me Crackin’ the Crafty Whip!

By the end, we were all smooshed around the table making snowmen ornaments.  The crafty bug is very contagious as you know!  You can see from the first photo, each ornament has it’s own personality.  We had some good laughs and everyone got to take home ornaments.

Anna (in above picture) made a bunch of super cool snowmen, including this one.  She’s a very creative and crafty girl after my own heart.

We’ve got nearly 30! people participating in Ornament Thursday Virtual Craft Night this week.  Yowza!  Check em’ out and feel free to join in next week~the last ornament Thursday before Christmas!