The Super Creative Lynnzcrafters Team Celebrates Christmas!

  

Many months ago my team and I started discussions of how to celebrate Christmas this year. We brainstormed ideas, gathered input from others, and decided on celebrating in many ways that we never have before. We decided for the first time to try a cookie swap, a tag swap, yummy pot luck lunch, Christmas handmade grab bag, and of course some stamping and projects. 

The picture at the top of this page was taken with my brand-new selfie stick by my friend and downline Sharon, who is visiting at her daughter’s house in Virginia, and was unable to be with us. I love my new selfie stick thank you Sharon and we missed you so much!

  
Here is just some of the food, I snapped a picture before it was all set up, but believe me it was delicious!

  
Here are the groupings of our cookie and tag swaps, we had 11 people signed up so everyone put a half dozen cookies inside each bag so everyone went home with 10 different kinds of cookies. 

  
Here is a close-up of just my tags that I made with our beautiful vintage Stampin’ Up! suite called Home for Christmas. 

  
My wonderful friend and downline Amye volunteered to make each participant a recipe booklet, so we all emailed her our recipes last week. She typed them up and printed them on our Stampin’ Up! whisper white paper and decorated the cover how cute?!!! Thank you so much Amye that was very sweet of you! 💕

  
We also had a Christmas grab bag. This was optional, but eight people participated, and they wrapped their gift in plain paper and tucked it under my poinsettia plant as soon as they arrived (I have not had time to put up my big Christmas tree yet… And wondering if I will have time at all??). The gifts were just outstanding I’m still blown away by the creativity and talent from this group! 

  
The way you play the game is you draw a number, we had eight people  who made gifts, so numbers one through eight were written on pieces of paper. The person with number one opened the first gift and that was Tiffany ….but she didn’t get to keep her gift for long, because each person along the line can choose to either steal a gift that has already been opened or pick a new gift. I know this game has a lot of names (at work we’ve call this the Chinese Grab Bag)…  Is there an official name for this way of selecting Christmas presents?

We play that after a gift has been stolen three times it is now “frozen” and can’t be stolen anymore. And that’s why I’m wearing this big cheesy grin because I was the third and final steal for this beautiful wooden Christmas tree and tag holder- made by my wonderful friend and downline Judy (she admits she had a little bit of help from her husband Joe)… It will be so perfect for me and I’m planning to take it to my last craft fair of the season this Friday. 

  Carol went home with this 12 x 12″ dry erase board made by Sheila. 
  
Judy went home with this stunning framed winter scene and package of tags made by Laurie. 

  
Laurie went home with this adorable set of four seasonal framed pieces made with the window die made by Amye. 

  
Brigid went home with this cute kitchen towel made by Elizabeth. 

  
I didn’t realize the sun was so bright on everyone’s faces – sorry about that. Amye was pretty happy to go home with this gorgeous vintage jar that Tiffany decorated so beautifully!

  
I’m sure Sheila’s family was very happy that she went home with this huge mason jar full of Hershey kisses and decorated so sweetly by our very own Carol… Get it, sweetly 😉

  
Tiffany went home with my Christmas tree that I made out of our designer series paper in – color collection, I used 2 inch squares and curled them up stapled them and then hot glue them onto a styrofoam cone and then hot glued it when it was done unto a small terra-cotta pot. 

  
Last,  but certainly not least, Audrey is holding up the gift that Elizabeth won (she had to leave before the game was over), this gorgeous little felted wool Santa was handmade by the uber talented Brigid, when asked, she said it probably took 10–12 hours of handwork to make this piece. Let me tell you the picture does not do it justice. It’s on a little spot on my mantle until I can get together with Elizabeth and give it to her … I’m growing very attached to it. 

  

Throughout the day we talked about and prayed for our dear friend Jamie who was not able to attend as she was rushed to the hospital. At the time I wrote this blog post last night she was still in surgery. All of our hearts are with you Jamie and saying prayers for your full recovery.  On the second Sunday in Advent my prayers shifted from peace to prayers of mercy and healing for my dear friend. 

*Update: Jamie came out of the surgery well, late last night, they have determined it was a stroke prayers needed for full recovery. 

Thank you all so much for stopping by today be sure to come back tomorrow when I share my projects and my gifts that I gave to my team -this blog post is long enough for today. 

I would love to hear from you, please leave me a comment I treasure all the comments you leave me! Have a wonderful day, 

Lynn