OH, HAI!
Hope everyone's holiday season has been a joyful and healthy one.
This year my fandom involvement has been increasing ever so slightly - I’m contributing to
slashcast fairly regularly, now, and I’ve even managed some betas. Call Ripley's?
I have my eye on some new fandom-like things, such as Hawaii Five-O and Avengers. Maybe I can find some Lost Girl fans, too.
Busy year for concerts for me...I mean, moreso than usual? In the past twelve months I have seen (not including opening acts):
- Prince
- Deep Purple
- Platinum Blonde
- Paul Rodgers
- AWOLNATION
- Roger Waters The Wall (2nd showing)
- Nickelback (bite me)
- Nazareth
- Dead Kennedys
- Neil Young & Crazy Horse
- RUSH
- Alice Cooper
- Paul McCartney
I have tickets (so far!) to only one show for 2013 - Weird Al Yankovic! A Christmas gift from the lil' bro, who I will be taking. We do love us some Weird Al.
Fleetwood Mac is coming back - I’ve seen them a couple times in the past, as well as Stevie and Lindsay in solo tours, so I may instead earmark the money for tickets to something new...Rec me a (new?) live act touring the West Coast in 2013! (I’m a hard rocker/metalhead at heart, though you’d never know it by that list.) Lol.
All right, enough talk, I know what you all want. Hee.
It’s that time, again! Every year for Christmas, I choose a 'theme' for wrapping. Prior years and themes (all contain many pictures, may not be dial-up friendly):
2007:
Black Tie/Tuxedo 2008:
Winter Wonderland 2009:
Absinthe2010:
Gold Digger 2011:
Candy Cane This year, I had a helluva time naming my theme. I got several suggestions (thank you Lisa and Leila) but it remains unconfirmed. Lol.
♥ And now, for 2012's "Canadian Whiskey/Crown Royal (aka The Wrapping formerly known as Prince)":
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The workstation, aka "The Hurricane". I am trying to recycle the gold from previous years, but I couldn't help but buy some new stuff. It's like a sickness, really - Michael's Craft Store is my crack!store.
The accoutrements/bling this year. Royal purple - the exact shade I wanted was not easy to find; plum was everywhere this year, as well as Plum silver = Not my theme. So it was tough, but I managed. :D
First gift of the season, work in progress. I usually start with a medium sized gift, and I always use something right off the bat that I have been excited to use - in this case, that gorgeous ribbon, and as you will see below, a garland that is very shiny.
Close-up of finished first gift, I am pleased with it. I am going for opulent and textured this year, I think I managed it.
First and second gift finished - I've been dying to use that purple & gold paper, too. It was glorious and didn't shed glitter all over the place, very good quality.
I played around with the ribbon this year - I couldn't find wired ribbon so I had to do a little fancy dancing. Have glue gun, will travel. :D
I liked how it turned out. You may have noticed by now that I am also trying to incorporate little touches of black now and again. (I did forget that I had bought black ribbon to use, though - it was hiding underneath piles of bling, LOL)
Some more glorious paper; a moiré that was extremely durable and changed colour in the light, and you could glue or tape anything to it. That's scrapbooking scroll tape I'm using for the edges. Fussy, but pretty.
I use pre-made gift bags alot for those hard-to-box things like gift cards. I always dress them up, though! Here's a before and after of a small gift bag I used.
And another - this was a larger bag that I folded over to look like a lunch bag then modified.
I really like to stack gifts when they are related, if possible. In this case, an item that requires batteries and accessories - I wrapped in a smaller box and then attached it to the primary gift.
That black velvet-flocked paper was also lovely, but of course, you have to glue it down, tape doesn't stick to velvet, as you can imagine. I made a lot of my own gift tags this year, as I could find no purple ones. Easy to do - just take an existing gift tag that is sturdy and glue/tape paper or ribbon to the outside to cover up whatever it used to look like. Recycle, baby!
More of that delightful flocked paper - I was playing with lines, lines, lines. I like lines. *nods*
And more lines! This was a large gift, so I used 3 inch ribbon along with a very large ornament (see below). But yummy lines, no?
Pretty lines are then accented with circles and scrolls. Can't have one without the other!
Sometimes, though, I get enough of lines and I like to go all loosey goosey with gauze ribbon and loose bows and random placements. For everything, there is a season...
For the "Under 13" set there's a pile of simple gifts, just gift bags or prior year's paper (not in theme).
The Hurricane Station at the end of it all.
Roommate states: "It's like Christmas threw up in here. There's glitter in my hair." (hee!)
(almost) The whole shebang, minus a few that have already gone out the door.
"Canadian Whiskey/Crown Royal (aka The Wrapping formerly known as Prince)": The end. "
ETA: SISTER-OUT-LAW says "Purple Haze"!! sdkgd;gjd;fgkdf;gd!
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"
I would also like to thank
meredyth_13 for my English Christmas card from her and her hubby, C. ♥ Get better soon, bb!
To everyone on my flist - HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! As Oprah says, "Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right!"