Merry's Musings

MMMmmmm I smell pizza. Take-out.
An absolute fairy tale ending to a really wonderful creative day today.
Always a bit of magical fairy tale when I don't have to cook ...;0)....
I can't remember when the last wonderfully creative day I had was, so I'm letting the whole world know about it!!

I rediscovered our Christmas nuns this year as I was going through all the Christmas stuff. I have had these since my childhood, and long story short, they remind me of the Italian side of the family that I knew through my father. My relatives lived in San Francisco and we lived in LA, so we saw them once a year at Christmas when I was growing up.

I remember misty San Francisco's hills and my uncle's HUGE Santa that waved. It was 4 feet tall, taller than me for all those years. I was fascinated with it. My uncle also lived on a hill, and he kept Santa in his big bay window just wavin' to folks passing by. These were the 50's and the 60's, and even in San Francisco you put your silver Christmas tree and your animated Santa in the window and left the drapes open so everyone could get the Spirit.

We may not have seen them that often, but they kept in touch via phone frequently.

This was back in the day, I'm talking about the phone that had the rotary dial on it, before push buttons! It was a big deal when they called and the conversations were mostly in Italian, which my dad's family spoke, not me nor my mother. So after I got to say hi, (and I always got to say hi, they called me Cookie. Isn't that cute?) I would have to wait until they hung up to hear the latest news.

It was so special to hear my Dad speaking Italian louldly and laughing and talking on and on. He was a mystery to me, larger than life! Just like my uncle's waving Santa.

Well, it has been one heck of a crazy year and when I unpacked the Sisters and wound the music box I heard Ave Maria. Yeah, I got a little misty. I just got nostalgic for the good old days, and took a moment to remember how simple life used to be. I was so thankful for that moment, thankful that I had the life that I had. The Nun music box was a gift from my distant, mysterious relatives, and for my adult years I would only bring it out at Christmas to keep it from breaking. Now I have it in a new place of honor in the china hutch. I'm going to leave them out all year. Just as a little reminder of the love that I was blessed with.

As it turns out, they are inspirational in other ways as well...

I just love painting those sweet faced girls, I'm amazed at how they take shape and form, I just love how different they turn out when they are done, and they aren't done until they're done.

So I began the process, flesh paint on primed canvas board. By the time I had the triangular heads filled in, I knew I had to paint the Nuns. I knew they had to be singers too!


So, after many layers of acrylics, watercolors, chalks, sheet music decoupage, notes words, I put stamped napkins on today. I'm so excited. I didn't have this in mind at all when I began. I am so enjoying this project!. So here's a brief share, forgive the glare.


I also started a Christmas hanger,

Made from decoupaged music paper on foam core and a stamped napkin so far. I'm excited to see how this turns out.


...and a pile of Christmas bamboo tiles. I can't wait to see how they finish up. Ornaments? Pins? Magnets? Probably!


Also, I got to my tag project today.


I received the most generous pile of 'tuck-in' gifts when I purchased these amazing 4th of July hang tags from Ruebee's own Katey-d (of Caat fame)(http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5603166 here's a quick copy and paste for a quick look at her stuff)and in the pile were these awesome, coffee died, hand inked, buttoned, threaded, large hang tags. So I took some vintage Christmas images and glued and glittered until they turned into Christmas tags.



I love pennant banners, and I plan to use the 4th of July tags in a holiday banner. This year, my Santa tags will probably end up on the tree as I'm too far into the month, but the plan is for them to be part of a pennant banner too. Probably 2009.

So I'm feeling blessed, it was a very productive creative day. Merry Christmas!

Rotary phone pic courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/people/aussiegall/
(under creative commons license)