Invite them and they will come...

They came, they ate, they made merry...I LOVE my friends. We had our second annual Holiday party at my house and it was attended by members of Running With Scissors, The ATC Exchange and Looking Glass Dolls.

I think in the end we packed about 25 people into the house. It was mayhem, there was tons of food, there were gifts everywhere and it was awesome. (This post is REALLY long. I tried to shorten it, couldn't do it, so suck it up and just read it.)

The tone for the evening was set perfectly when Leann, Jane and Julia arrived. You see, Leann helps to keep me strange (and that was a compliment in case you were wondering.) Based on previous posts discussing Ethel's comments about the Venus of Willenddorf, they gave me this:

This is the Venus of Willendorf, female icon for over a hundred years, revered by thousands...turned into a paper doll and dressed up in a nightie, bikini with tassels, a crown complete with eyeballs and a party dress. (These lovely ensambles were not brought to you by Tim Gunn. They are compliments of Leann, Jane and their mother. You'd think their mother would help reel them in and be the voice of reason but the poor woman has obviously given up and now lives by the rule of "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.")

This paper doll is sitting on my coffee table right now and I keep changing her clothes. She makes me giggle snort. Thanks guys.

I was a bit busy running around like a lunatic during the party so I unfortunately didn't get as many picture of people as I would like. (I saw Leann and Katy taking pictures. Check out their sites to see if they post any.) But here's what I did get:

Leann was sober enough this year to assign numbers to the gifts for the gift exchange. Although its important to note that it only took a glass of wine last year to make her cloudy.

Although the angel behind her does look concerned, doesn't she?

More poor unsuspecting guests having their photos taken. Notice the buffet of Jill's buttons on the coffee table. Everyone loved them.

This is what I got from the gift exchange, its from Sidney:

I LOVE lumiere paints so I'm really thrilled with this! Plus there is a box I can torture and fibers and see those tiny little bells? Sid says she was going to show up to the party "with bells on". She lied...but she did put them in the present so I suppose it was only a half lie.

Running with Scissors has also been doing a mini art quilt round robin the past few months and last night the group that I am in did the final exchange. The theme of my block was 'text' and here is what Sidney, Leann and Jackie did on it:



This totally kicks butt!! Its really inspiring and I've been contemplating a series featuring each letter of the alphabet. I've kind of held off on it because, well, it sounds a bit trite but seeing how this block came out has me reconsidering. The small format of the 12x12 contains it but packs a big punch too. The wheels are spinning...

When I got up this morning and was tidying up, I came across several things that I now feel bad about not giving the proper attention to last night. My apologies, gang, I was distracted. So I figured I would show them off here and do some gushing since I love them all so much...

Anne brought these goodies for mom and I. Yum! Thanks Anne!

I got these buttons from Jill. The "ignore me" one is going to work with me and the other two feed my addicitons. You totally need to check out her etsy store, Barrel of Monkeys. She is a button making machine and she does custom orders too. You can't beat them! Go - check them out, buy many, give them as gifts, get your flair on.

When we first started talking about this year's holiday party, someone suggested an alternate place other then my house. Which I'm cool with but the first comment was "But Dooley won't be there!" Ah yes, my little couch ornament is much beloved. So much in fact that Norma was a real sweetie and stopped off at the Three Dog Bakery to get him these! So even though no one got drunk enough for him to get to lick peanut butter off them, he got these and gives his thanks to his Auntie Norma.

Leann brought me this. I love henna tattoos. I'm not entirely sure what its made out of, but it will be incorporated into something weird. Thanks Leann. :)

I found this on one of my tables in my studio this morning and remembered that Emily brought this. So I ripped it open and started giggling. The Looking Glass Dolls that she and I are in is doing a doll challenge based on the theme 'games.' Emily is feeding my assemblage obsession with all types of goodies and I will be putting this to good use! Thanks Emily!!!

Anne brought a bunch of give-aways from a friend of her's that is moving and cleaning out her studio. There were lots of neat laces and Christmas fabrics but what I was really eyeballing was the neat bag it came in. I may have shamelessly blurted out that I thought it was cool and I wanted it. I found that as well in my studio this morning. Thanks Anne!

While in my studio this morning, I sat down at my work table to see what people had written. During the studio makeover, I decided rather then stressing about keeping my work table neat and clean, I would just make it an art project and let people draw and write on it. I can identify where most of the quotes came from but am a bit stumped as to who wrote some of the others. Anyone care to fess up?

I suspect that the little drawing of the guy is from Victor, Jackie's husband. I could be wrong but its my best guess. Oh, and I have to give kudos to Victor. He was the only guy, he was a huge help lugging around things that were too heavy for me and he is hereafter known as The Coffee God. (He makes a killer cup of coffee and did it voluntarily.) He was brave to spend an evening amongst twenty five jabbering women drinking and getting hopped up on sugar. Way to go Victor.

I also have lots of food left in my fridge (not the least of which is the outstanding mostacholi Heidi brought) even though I badgered people into taking their leftovers home. I swear, there was enough food here to feed an army -- and it was all soooooooooooooo tasty. (And Joan? I REALLY want the recipie for that veggie pizza. It will go well for my family's celebration of Vagilia on Christmas Eve.)

I thank everyone for coming and brining such wonderful food and for being such outstanding fun people! You REALLY make life fun and love all of you for it! :)

Oh, and Dooley loves all of you too. He thanks you for coming, he enjoyed being gushed over by so many people. In fact, he had such a good time that this is what he looks like today:


Way to go, guys, you totally wore out my dog. (He's snoring right now - L O U D L Y.)

Today I'm taking it easy. My back is twitchy from doing a bit more then I should have yesterday. One of the things I did was pushing snow around on the driveway. (And yes, Leann, I know you have seven properties to shovel. You have my sympathies. But I don't usually do it - because my back gets cranky like it is now - so I'm going to whine about it anyway.) During the snow pushing escapade yesterday, I turned around and saw this in a bush near the driveway:



What the HELL is that?!?!?! Hornet's nest? Bee hive? Its creepy. So of course I had to take a picture of it. I'm going to try to get some more shots of it because even though it makes my skin crawl, its pretty impressive that some little bugs can build this.

I'm going to ask my brother to shoot some poison in it and kill them all dead.

Happy holidays everyone.