On the First day of Christmas...

On the First Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me....

I thought I would start the First Day of Christmas by Sharing my treasures that I received from friends, far and near.

Of course, Santa did NOT forget about sweet little Charcoal..

EVEN though he was very naughty, he STILL made out like a bandit, proving again, it might not matter if you are naughty or nice, Santa still forgives and delivers...

Never has Charcoal had more than one tennis ball at a time, and he was hilarious!  I took one ball out of the bag, and soon, he had 5 out!  Yep, 2 are who-knows-where...time will tell.

Spoiled baby got some treats from Miss Gloria...so did Mommie! 

Crystal sent me and Charcoal some treats...

Always happy art, a reflection of her!

Jolanda, from the Netherlands, 

sent this hand-painted Charcoal...
LOVE IT!!

Christine, from Germany, sent these beauties for me.  

Beautifully painted and I love the domino!

Sweet Lynn, who sends treasures 

all over the country, 

made this awesome Santa for me.

Now, here is the problem...

I got ready to take the picture 

and a four-legged, furry child, 

STOLE and ATE my candy Cane...

heavy sigh--PAPER and all!!  

This was the only Candy Cane 

I had in the house to use for the photo...

Yeppers, 

He LOOKS all 

sweet and innocent and laid back, 

but I tell ya, he has some "thievin'" in him!!

Miss Linda sent this to me, 

but CHARCOAL thought it was his 

since it has "Labrador" written on it.  

We are still in negotiations...

And then, Wendy sent Summer Sausages...

He is getting his share....

I took time on Christmas eve to do this drawing 

with Prismacolor Pencils.  

It was fun to just play! 

I am getting a bit better, 

but so much more to learn.
Design is by Amy Mogish.

Yes, Charcoal...I SEE YOU...

I brought a little bit of my 

Christmas Tradition with me on Christmas Day. 

 I cooked Country Ham, Biscuits, 
Garlic Cheese Grits, 

Creamed Corn, Fruit Salad 
and a Tomato.

It was so very yummy and brought back precious memories.
Served on Mommas white plate.♡

My friend Wanda brought us this Nativity Flag...

And a bucket of 3 flavors of Popcorn

I love getting Popcorn!

Karalee sent me these cute ornaments!!

I adore them!

Nancy set this pretty ornament with a planning calendar.

 Do I dare TRY to plan?!!  LOL

This is a better picture of the mug.

I got this cute Gingerbread Ornament from Michele...

This is DA Naughty Boy with his haul from Santa...

As we enter the 12 days of Christmas,

 may we NEVER forget to keep the 

Spirit of Christmas Alive all year.

I am beyond blessed for those 
who thought of me.

My prayer is that I will take opportunities 

in this coming year

to Pay it Forward with 

Random Acts of Kindness.

I hope you will each do the same.

I am GRATEFUL and BLESSED!...~charlotte♡

Snowman Bottle

I was looking for some painted bottles that I did several years ago, and I think I gave most of them away.

So, as I was thinking about painting another one or two, I saw my 3 packages of DecoArt DecouPage Paper sitting near my work area, and I thought, I think I will try to use some of this on the bottles and then paint a snowman on the paper!  

This paper is very thin and easy to work with.   It is similar to wrapping paper.

Of course, my favorite is the music paper~~I have used it for several projects.

I am not going to go into how to paint a snowman, but I am sharing this link with you for some fun Circle Snowmen that a friend did to show me HOW to paint them.  I love to learn new techniques.

Click here for a tutorial that Cathy from Tolentreasures has on her blog on how to paint Circle Snowmen.  They are so much fun!

The bottles I used are from the Dollar General Store--they were Sparkling Cider--one of my favorite Christmas Treats, each year.

I don't drink alcohol, so this is just a fun change from my REAL COKES...lol

You can find some neat drink bottles

To prepare them, I simply rinsed them out, and then pulled the labels off.  They weren't sticky labels, so I sanded them and wiped them clean--they are going to be covered in glue! 

I cut several pieces of paper and found that longer, skinny pieces of paper were best and didn't wrinkle so much.

I used an old scruffy brush to add lots of DecouPage (Matte is what I used) on the bottle and smoothed out the paper with the brush.  I made certain to have glue under all of the paper and on top of it.

Just keep gluing and smoothing until you get it all covered.

I then brushed a very heavy coat of the DecouPage

 on top and allowed it to dry.

You will find some spaces that weren't covered, so just add them

I free-handed the snowmen bases with 

circles of a medium Blue.

This is one of the snowmen.

And the other snowmen...

just some different angels of the snowmen, 

so you can see.

These are the colors I used.

I used the Matte Decou-Page  to seal my snowmen, 

and then spinkled this fine dust over them and they are sparkly!!  LOL The pictures don't show that, though...

Just another fun idea for you to enjoy.

I hope that you are taking time to enjoy this Advent Season!

I am simply Blessed to create~charlotte♡

Uodate: after meaning to paint a Tag, for over a tear, to add to tgem, I out fur around the tops! Aren't they fancy smancy?!
😁😂🤣😃