Christmas present, Christmas past

I'm working on painting a present for Nate for Christmas. (Don't worry, it was a request, so I'm not ruining the surprise.) He has been collecting lots of cards for different versions of this game called Dominion. Have you heard of this game? I usually mess up and call it Domination. At first, I thought it was some sort of D&D thing, and I was like, "No, I refuse". But it's not at all, it's more like monopoly meets rummy. You accumulate properties through accumulating money through accumulating a strategically planned set of action cards. Changing it up with different cards totally changes the strategy and keeps it interesting.

here's my favorite version of the game

So anyhoo - instead of having 10 different boxes of cards stacking up, Nate picked out a wooden briefcase type of box from Hobby Lobby to organize all of them together in one big box. My present is to paint a Dominion style scene on it. I hope I do a good job. If you never hear of this project again, you'll know that it turned out horribly.

if you never see this box again, it's because it looks like crap

I did some painting presents last Christmas as well.
There was this stormy sky / twisted tree scene I did for my mom:

12"x12"x0.5" acrylic on canvas

I also did a set of four little magnets. They're an all-star sampler of favorite wildlife spotted in my friend's backyard:

Coopers Hawk, Hummingbird, Duck couple, and Indigo Bunting

God bless 'em, they actually have these on display in their homes. 

Something else I plan on making for Christmas are some delicious toffee cookies.  We went to a Christmas party last Saturday, and amongst the fabulous food were these cookies. The hostess told me it's the chocolate chip cookie recipe off the back of the Nestle chocolate chips bag  BUT - instead of chocolate chips, you use toffee chips.   I have bolded this information for your convenience.  Trust me, they're amazing.

buy a bag of these and head off to tasty town