Getting Ready for Christmas

I have been so busy! I'm working on Christmas gifts and finding myself under deadlines I didn't know or anticipate having.

Every year I make an annual photo memory book for us to keep. I use Picaboo X - if you're looking for an easy, professional quality photo book program, this is the one you want. It's a free download, you work on your computer, not on-line, and the flexibility is amazing. There are thousands of very scrapbooky backgrounds available, too, as well as simple stuff that doesn't look froo froo at all.

Every year, usually in the weeks before Christmas, they offer a Buy One Book, Get One Free coupon. Normally this is Buy a Large Book, get a Medium Book (of the same book; you don't get to then make a 2nd, different book) Free.

Well, this year, expiring Monday, November 15th, they are offering Buy 1 Get 1 -- same size copy. Same size, people. So now the recipient of the free copy gets a large instead of medium.

AND -- even better! -- they just started offering Calendars! So that's on the list, too, and under the same Buy 1, Get 1 offer, only until Monday. So suddenly, the projects I was working on and planning to finish next month all have to be finished right now. -Gulp-

The good news is, I'm done with the first calendar (except for waiting on pics from my sis-in-law.....). The second calendar will only take me 30 minutes or so, as I'd already done it over on Kodak Gallery so all I need to do is more or less transfer that over.  And The Book is almost done. One last day of work should do it. I hope.

Which will finally give me time to work on the sewing project I've got going. Someone is getting a set of pieced, quilted coasters/hot pads. If I manage to figure it out and get them done. they're proving harder than I thought they would be, which stinks, 'cause I was hoping to get more than one set done. That's looking less and less likely. We'll see. Maybe I'll get some good sewing time in this weekend - it's another 3-day weekend coming up, and we're just going to stay home and relax. So, maybe.

In any case, all of this explains why I have been, and am likely to be, absent from the blog the past few (and coming) days. Christmas gifts can't wait, not when I'm on a deadline.

What projects do you have going on at your place? Have you started Christmas preparations yet? I'd love to hear about what that looks like at your house.....