HELLO EVERYONE!!! I'VE MISSED YOU ALL SO MUCH!!! AND IT'S MY ONE-YEAR BLOG ANNIVERSARY!!!

Hello and a Happy New Year to you!!!  I hope you all enjoyed the holiday!!!

Our families have all returned home (California, Washington State, Louisiana and Mississippi).  The hubby and I dropped the last of our family off at the airport today.  I can't say I was happy to see them go, however, I wasn't sad either.  Between their arrivals for Christmas and staying through the New Year, it was just exhausting -- all the running back and forth!!!  As much as I was relieved for them all to leave, I've already started missing them -- but NOT enough for them to come right back!!! LOL!!!  I've been going non-stop and I need a very looooonggg break!!!

I have so very much missed my regular crafting and all of you!  I didn't think much of my time would be monopolized during the families visit but it ended up they took up all our time.  The hubby and I had the task of chauffering them from one family to the next.  My poor little car has never been driven as much as it has the last several weeks!!!  My son was lucky, he had work to use for an excuse -- ha!!!

Our New Year celebration was amazing!!!  I think it was the best one yet because we had more family to all come and be together at one time than we've ever had!!!  And we were combined families -- mine and the hubbys!!!  It was one big party instead of our having to share the evening between his and mine!  It was terrific and I truly enjoyed every moment bringing in the New Year!  I hope you all enjoyed such love with family and friends coming into this wonderful new year, and that it will go on forever!

Anyway, I'm back now and ready to go!!!  I did do a little quick project for you. I have done some personalized pencils and they are so easy to do.  I think school kids would just love these tucked into their school bags with little messages on them.  Now when you do yours, don't do as I've done and show them before they're completely dry -- I just couldn't wait to do something and get back here.  Here they are still wet and all but in all their glory:

As I said, let yours dry first; but aren't these so cool?!!!  Let me tell you how easy they are to make:  find copy paper close to the color of the pencil(s) you will be using or use a word processing program to create a cell and fill with the color closest to your pencil(s); type in the name or message then print it out.  Cut out, very close around the edges, the wording and decoupage to your pencil using white glue or decoupage glue.  It's just that easy!!!  I used  the Times New Roman font for these set at 10" to fit between one of the sides on the pencils.  I have a couple ready to decoupage onto more pencils in red.  And, I'm going out to find more colored pencils!!!

Did I mention it's my one-year blog anniversary today?  Of course I did and, within the next few days, I'm going to have a surprise for you in honor of my anniversary celebration!!!  With not having the time to spare from our families, I was not able to get prepared in time for today, so be on the lookout!!!

Now that I've dropped in to say hello to everyone and to let you know how much you've been missed, I'll do a bit of visiting, and then I'm off to play around with my Imagine.  I haven't had time to do anything but look at it with all the families here.  So far I'm not too impressed with what I understand of it, so I can't wait to explore to see if I can come up with something exciting.

Well, I'm off to have some fun!!!  I may not get to you all this evening but (for real this time) -- I"M BACK!!!  And I'M COMING!!!

I'll be seeing you!

Glad to be back and able to hang out again!!!