Usually, my fingers are twitchy either from anticipating being knuckle deep in clay or from having been. Right now they’re a little twitchy from a bit too much Super Mario Bros. Wii. Which was bound to happen since it was one of the gifts we lucked into this holiday.

Speaking of gifts here are three of the necklaces I made for various relatives this year. It happened that I ended up not making nearly as many gifts as I usually do this year – I sometimes make 30 or 40 or more, mostly clay and jewelry ones, sometimes photographs or drawings – so I bought a few handmade items to round it out.

2010 I plan on getting back to my finished jewelry roots a bit and indulging that bug so I expect there will be more jewelry gifts next year.

Sometimes the best gifts are the simplest ones. The two cuties here are my daughter and my niece. They were ignoring the stack of kid goodies at the family gathering and working on a duo doodle with the box of markers and pad of paper I got my niece.

If the last pic was of the next generation of crafty women here’s one of the previous ones – my mom and my grandmother. While my mom is the avid collector of my efforts (and always has been, right from the fridge decoration days!), my grandmother has been my crafty muse my whole life. I followed her to craft shows as a little girl and later worked beside her at them. She’d Tsk-tsk me but really she was the entrepreneurial spirit mixed with the creative bent that got me hooked.

Here’s hoping your holidays were as sweet as mine! Minus the twitchy fingers.