michelle my belle

Catching Up!

Merry LATE Christmas! Like most of you, it's been a very busy season for me. I'm still working on returning emails from 3 weeks ago (or more?), booking travel arrangements for the gift show season, making new displays, new designs, bills, end of the year stuff.... and all I really want to do is nap! Thanks to all of you for checking back on my blog even though I've been MIA!

I know I'm a little late but a couple of weeks ago I had taken some pictures of some of my favorite Christmas things that I've collected over the years. I have a little break in the action to finally be able to share them with you.

I love these illuminated vintage snowmen. I picked up another one this season at a local antique store for $8! yippee!

I've had this candy dish for years and I love it as much now as the day I bought it. You can check out their website here.

I made this a few years ago from a bunch of ornaments that I got at Goodwill.

I love drinking my morning coffee out of holiday mugs. The coffee seems to taste better : )

My Williraye Nativity that my mom started collecting for me years ago. Thank you mom!

These fantastic egg ornaments made by an artist.

And, now it's off to take all this down! Toodles!

Our Wonderful Allen Designs Staff!

I had to throw our studio dog into the mix, he is a great source of love everyday for us all. I took this the other day when it was snowing outside! Isn't he cute!

From left to right, Katy (graphic design/shows), Mary (shipping/lots of misc!), Dane (production/misc.), Alison (shop manager/customer service with a smile) and myself (bon bon eater).

I heard on the radio the other day that the one thing that most people could give up during the holiday season was their work party. And, after my over cooking the chicken this year my staff may have to agree with this statement. Maybe they do already? It was still a nice time to get together and visit casually especially this time of year when things are so hectic in the studio. Gary and I worked hard trying to make it a special evening to show how much we appreciate and care about them.

We played Bingo again, this time WITH PRIZES, it went much better! Prizes are a must with Bingo.

This is the last of the parties at our house, at least the "planned" ones. Looking forward to meeting deadlines next week and then chilling out with my family. Oh.... and I better do some Christmas shopping since I haven't even started yet!

Anyone have any suggestions on the DDR's?

Ski Season Begins

Just so you know, I'm posting everything several days late. The dinner on the previous post actually happened last Friday. We finished cleaning up after everyone left and went to bed around 12:30am and got up at 5am to get ready and go skiing. I went to be with my family, but didn't end up skiing, I sat in the lodge returning emails (they have free wireless internet!) and trying to catch up on things neglected.

It was a gorgeous, cold day! Both the kids did great and had a blast. No one got hurt!

The ride home was peaceful...

Can you say OVERCOMMITMENT!

My momma and my oldest.

There's an upside to overcommitting I feel. You tend to get a whole lot done!
I don't know if I'd feel so overcommitted right now if I had one extra employee. And, actually I'm on the down side of the mountain at this point, I'm hoping!

Our good friends Amy and Braden have so graciously put on our church's staff dinner for the past 4 years. And, we let them use our house for this event. It's a way we can give and also a little incentive to quickly get the house decorated for Christmas. This year seemed a bit more stressful than last but it all turned out wonderful in the end. Praise to God.

Chef boy Braden.

Amy and Dawn in the kitchen.

Including spouses they fed a beautiful meal of prime rib and salmon to 43 people and had 10 people in the kitchen helping. I'd say that was a full house. See, don't say you can't do a sit down dinner if you have a big family!

Tis The Season to be...BUSY!

These are some of the reasons that you haven't heard from me much in the past two weeks! The studio has been super busy. And, I'm still down an office person. So.... I'm it!

Hosting my daughters youth group for craft night, (the night before my studio sale, WHAT was I thinkin?) I couldn't believe the noise level of 10 12/13 yr. olds!

My employees helping me set up the studio sale till 9pm the night before. I have some amazing people working with me! I ended up finally going to bed at 3:30am. I'm definitely getting too old for "all nighters". I used to do them all the time. This time I think I even started hearing voices! I was back up at 5:30am to finish all the details, get my kids to school, get the coffee on, put out the signs and be ready by 10am for people to start showing up.

We had a fantastic turn out. It was so good to see everyone, old friends, new friends, customers. A blessing of a life I live.

I have more to share but I'm out of time. I'll leave you with an original that I sold to a darling customer of mine. If you're reading this Mary, I'll get your other original out to you tomorrow!

Goody Giveaway Congratulations!

Sorry to have taken so long to do the drawing. I promise that I didn't include any comments, referrals or newsletter signups after Nov. 30. I used the Random Number Generator to pick the winner this time instead of printing out and cutting them apart.

Thank you so much to all of you who spent your time to enter in my contest! I was so blessed by all of your support. I was so impressed that I'm going to giveaway a total of 3 of these!

The first one picked was London of My Little Dish from her comment on 11/20.

The second winner is..... Idea Girl from her blog referral!

And, last but not least just for her dauntless perseverance.... Shannon from Eight Crazy. (i counted 9 comments!)lol!

Congratulations and Thank You again for playing!!! Check back, I'll be doing another one soon. : )