NAPKINS

I know the word "napkins" doesn't usually inspire much enthusiasm, but would I be totally lame to admit how excited I have been by napkins lately? And more specifically......how great a bunch of plain, boring old napkins look in my new, awesome napkin holder! I have been wanting a napkin holder for a while now.........thinking that if I had a cutely displayed pile of napkins handy then maybe my kids would stop using their clothes to wipe their hands and faces on. So I finally got to it last week and this is what I came up with: I cut the pear shape out on my Cricut, and used it to help trace my pattern onto some wood. I cut it all out on my scroll saw, spray painted all the wood white, then sanded and distressed it. I wanted lots of color, so I cut scrapbook paper to the shapes I wanted and mod-podged it onto the napkin holder. I glued the peices together last, and after that dried, Matt helped me out by using his nail gun to nail it together for more sturdiness.

We also FINALLY got motivated enough to get out the big bag of raspberries that has been sitting in our freezer since we picked them this summer, and we made a big batch of raspberry jelly. (I have to confess that we really only got motivated because we ran out of jelly, but hey, we still get points for actually getting it done, right?) We have been in heaven the last few days eating lots of homemade honey wheat bread with jelly. YUM! We are big pigs, and I have made SIX loaves of bread this last week!

And of course, after biting into a nice warm slice of bread slathered with jelly isn't it convenient to have a napkin handy to wipe all the jelly off your face?