last of 2009

This is my last post of 2009, I can't believe tomorrow will be "two oh one oh" (heard that on DOOL yesterday, plan on saying it that way forever now!) At the end, it always feels like it flew by, even at times I'm sure it dragged on forever.

I have no New Year's resolutions this year, instead I decided to make my own 101 in 1001 Days list that I've been seeing on a lot of other blogs for over a year now. At the Day Zero site, you can sign up and manage your list there. I opted to do that instead of a big long blog post because there are a lot of very personal things on my list but I will share some of the fun ones here soon. I'm still working on it, it's hard to come up with that many goals, I think I'm at 30 right now.

Happy New Year to all my wonderful handful of readers! Be safe!

Christmas is gone

Christmas season is over! All my decorations came down on Sunday, it always feels so good to take them all down, guess I'm still not a big Christmas person, still working on that. Now that it's all gone, I'm reminded how empty and undecorated my place is. I definitely need to work on that next year.

It took me the whole Christmas season to get this one picture, I tried so many times and it never worked until Christmas Eve. I finally got myself a bokeh picture! Hubby was so confused when I started jumping up and down over it. Not the best you've ever seen by any means but it's bokeh.



Also, Lizzy got the best bunnyhug! I need to see if they have one in my size too.



Our Christmas was actually very relaxing, I hope yours was too.

a handmade gift

I only made one handmade Christmas present this year but I guess it's better than none. I made a small pillow for my mom for the kids to give to her, they chose all the colors that I used.



The heart is crocheted using a tutorial over at The Royal Sisters, it was really fast to work up, I plan on making a bunch more soon. "Gramma" is cross-stitched, I chose to stitch the word that way because that's how Sami tried to spell it on her own, I thought it would be cuter to misspell it. I forgot how frustrating blind stitching pillows are, I refuse to ever make a pillow that way again, slip covers are all I plan to ever do again.

friday flick favorites (on saturday)

pretty Christmas packaging



1. holiday packaging, 2. Wrapping Gifts, 3. Christmas wrapping..., 4. Untitled, 5. gift wrap Christmas 2008, 6. Christmas wrapping, 7. Gift wrapping paper, 8. Peppermint Twine on a Pink Candy Cane!, 9. printable calendar / France, 10. Doiley tag, 11. Here Comes Santa Claus!, 12. wrapped, 13. Gifts, 14. Christmas Presents, 15. Present crochet pillow, 16. printable gift tags — grandpas ornaments

see more flickr favorites here

'tis the season....

For ugly Christmas sweaters.



My sister came over today and gave me a bag from the thrift store and a challenge. She needed me to come up with an ugly Christmas sweater for her to wear to her boyfriend's family Christmas.

I had some left over felt from Halloween that I cut a Christmas tree out of. I sewed that on along with a few ornaments. Obviously, it's not supposed to be an amazing masterpiece but it looks tacky enough I think. I hope she will be happy with it.

wreath & something new!

I was pretty bummed about not getting any more wreaths made for around here due to not being able to find supplies anymore, then Sami came home from school one day with one she had made! She made this fabric wreath out of some fabric we picked out awhile ago. I had a feeling that this is what they were planning on making, I'm so glad it was! She did such a great job with it.



And, look what hubby brought home for me last week too! It was supposed to be a Christmas present but he couldn't wait to give it to me. It's a Sony DSC-HX1, so far I love it! It's not a Nikon like I would have wanted but since I'm no pro this is still great. I'm having a lot of fun playing around with it right now. Maybe soon you'll start seeing pictures that look pretty around here.

Fabulous Friday Giveaway!

Another fun giveaway for this Friday is happening over at Today's Creative Blog! I don't know how fair it is that I'm entering another Friday giveaway, I won one awhile ago for the Mod Podge. If I do win, first thing I make will be a present not for me!

giveaway fun!

Missie Krissie is having a really fun giveaway starting on Sunday and going until Christmas Day! She's got some really beautiful jewelry up for grabs, here's just one of the pieces you could win.



There's much more that you can win too, just go to the blog to find out more info.

door knobs

I made a couple door knob covers the other day to add more Christmas cheer around the place. The pattern I used can be found here, it was such a fast pattern to work up, I made these both in less than 20 minutes. To finish them off, I used red gingham ribbon, I'm so glad I still have lots of that ribbon, I love it!

Deeeaaar Santa...

I really want to make a quilt or two next year, I definitely want to make a picnic blanket and more likely work on a few of those projects over in my to-craft list. But, I need some fabric to do it all with, so I've written up a nice little wish list for you. Any of these would make me happy.


1. Golden Gate California Dreamin' would make a really, really cute and bright picnic blanket! How fun would it be to sprawl out in the grass on a quilt made of these fabrics?


2. Either the Morning Flower Fairies or the Sweet Flower Fairies collections would make my girls quilts they'd be happy with.


3. My Paris Traveler's Bag has been one I have been drooling over for a really long time! Making this would make me super happy!

Thanks for reading Santa! I hope you have time to visit me this year.

PS: Go here and write a letter to Santa too.

some birthday pictures

I didn't get the greatest pictures from the birthday party we had this weekend. It wasn't even really a party, more of a family get together. That's the way our birthdays are right now, there's just so many people in our family. Next year I am dreading having to do a party with kids from school, Sami is not going to let me avoid it forever!

We were going for a green & pink theme, hence the green & pink helium balloons. Uncle had fun with those, the kids all enjoyed him, who needs a clown when we've got him?


I made some chocolates to top the cupcakes with. Lizzy loves frogs and Sami loves butterflies, so I ordered some molds to make them happy. Chocolates, I have found out are really easy and fast to make, I think I might just start making them on a regular basis. The cupcakes were more pretty in person to look at and they were yummy too!



And then I filled up some bags with extra chocolates for the kids to take home after the party. I never thought about the goody bags ahead of time, so I had to use the bags I had on hand. The tags I stuck on the bags were generously made by Kellie of 74 Lime Lane, she was so sweet to offer to make them for me. The writing is actually in green, it looks blue unfortunately because of my crappy picture taking ability.

Christmas Tour of Homes 2009

It's time for the Christmas tours! There's a few that I'll be linking to at the end of the post, so make sure you click the buttons to see plenty of other Christmas-ed out homes!

No info, just pictures. If you want to know more about what you see, just click the picture or browse more of my posts. My home isn't as decked out as I had planned to have it this year, hopefully next year more will be done. I'm still trying to work on more Christmas crafts, so you can always come back to see what else has been done.















Thanks for coming by! Please do come again :)

friday flickr favorites

1. Not Working, 2. Origami Christmas Wreath, 3. Gingerbread baby, 4. vintage ornaments, 5. mantle, 6. all hanging!, 7. yarn ball & ornament wreath, 8. it's beginning..., 9. felt ornaments, 10. sugar cookie gifts, 11. snowmen, 12. holiday swap ornaments, 13. "A Sweet Celebration" - Candy Cane Candles, 14. Christmas Tree Table Centerpiece, 15. CafeMom Holiday Home Tour, 16. Wool advent calendar

See more flickr favorites over at 1/4 of an inch

Christmas decor

I thought I'd share some closeups of some of the decorations I have up on my fireplace, I'm actually really happy with how most everything turned out.





I had a lot of fun with white yarn as you can probably tell, there's a few pom poms up there. I love how the pom pom flowers turned out, I've seen them around the net, I thought they might look nice white. I know there's probably a tutorial out there but I didn't see one, it wasn't difficult to put together. I like the pipe cleaner stem.

The "vases" the pom poms are in, I made using this easy tutorial. I used some old jars from tomato juice to make them.

Last year I stumbled upon this tinsel tree tutorial and saved it right away. I gave it a try, it turned out a little crappy but I still kind of like it. The plan was to make quite a few of them but just making one frustrated the crap out me. And now I am left with a lot of sparkly pipe cleaners, so if you know of any crafts I could use them for let me know! I've already tried a snowflake, I'd like to find other things to make too. To make my tree stand up, I wound up a ball of the left over white yarn and stuck it in.

This post is being added as part of Living with Lindsay's Impromptu Linky Party, see more fun posts over there.

wreaths

I have a few wreaths up around my place right now, I still have a couple I want to try and make before the season is up. I'm actually going to hit up Wal Mart tonight to get some supplies for another one.

This first one I'm sharing is one I made last year but I added some granny stars to it.


These next two, I whipped up really fast one night. I cut out some wreath forms out of a diaper box, then took some tinsel and wrapped it around. I added the granny stars because everything seems to have granny stars around here this year. I really like the look of them, so far they are my favorite decorations here.



::edited::
Added to Living with Lindsay's Impromptu Linky Party

christmas ornament swap #1

I can finally post about the Christmas ornament swap I was in over at Daisy Quilts now that I know my swap partner Donna got hers in the mail.



This is the ornament I received from Donna, how cute is that patchwork star? I love it! Right now it is residing with my granny star garland that's up on my fireplace. I really love the center button, it's adorable!



This is the ornament I sent. I didn't have any end result in mind when I started, I just crocheted until I got something and I actually really liked what it turned into! I used two pieces of yarn while I crocheted to make it bulky (both were a sparkly yarn from Bernat) and made a circle. Then by weaving the green and red yarns through, I made it a wreath ornament. I think it's a cute and fun ornament.

i ♥ faces: sweet dreams

I've only participated in I ♥ Faces once before but when I saw what the theme this week was, I knew I had to get in on it again! I wasn't sure what type of picture I should choose because I have so many of my kids sleeping in such strange positions and just plain sweet looking ones.



I chose to go with a sweet one. I love this picture of Lizzy! She's always fighting her naps and then falling asleep somewhere. This was a time where she was on the couch, a nice comfy sleep for her. Her naps aren't usually this comfy, she's usually twisted up, on her face or standing up against something. I would share one of those pictures if she wasn't just in her undies. Too bad because they are some of the funniest pictures I have of her!

happy birthday

My oldest Sami turned 5 yesterday, she now believes that she is too old to be called a kid now. I asked her what she is now, she thinks she will be a mom soon. She's a funny kid that one. It was a quiet birthday, all the kids are really sick right now. I made some cute little present cakes, I wish I could have gotten a picture because they really were cute. Sami loved having "Happy Birthday" sung to her, this girl loves to be the center of attention.

We have a few birthdays in December, it seems like a lot of our family was born this month. My second baby's birthday is tomorrow too. It makes for a crazy busy month for sure. I don't think my kids get ripped off in the present department just because it's so close to Christmas, I almost wish they would, they get a lot of new toys this month. It's a good thing we go through their toys before their birthdays to give to kids who don't have many toys.

All these birthdays have had me thinking back on my birth experiences with the girls. I might post about them soon since I never had this blog when I had them, so I don't think I've shared them before. Once I get my hands on some pictures, I'll get those posts up. It wouldn't be a good post without pictures of the new babies in them.

Now I need to go make some more cakes for Lizzy's birthday tomorrow.

christmas tree

Curious about how my Christmas tree looks now that it's decorated? Well, it's not going to knock your socks off or anything like that. I'm not too happy with it but I thought I should still share anyway. I'm using it as a holiday card holder instead of the advent idea Sarah suggested.



PS. I broke my camera the other day, so I'm not sure how or if I'll be able to get more pictures of Christmas decorating I've been doing. I'm really bummed out about it because I did make a couple things last night that I can't wait to get a picture of to show off! My place is slowly becoming more Christmas-y and I love it. "Granny-chic" is most definitely the theme around here.

crochet blocks

Not too long ago, Amy from badskirt started posting about a book called 200 Crochet Blocks for Blankets, Throws and Afghans by Jan Eaton. She's working on different squares from the book and they are turning out great! It gave me the idea to work along with the book also, I think all the different types of squares would look interesting in a big blanket.

I haven't been able to get my hands onto the book just yet but in the flickr group that Amy started, she posted a link to corrections from the book. So, those are the ones I'm going to start with first.


This is block 79, Baltic Square. I wasn't sure how this would turn out, I did mess up in one spot, if you look close enough you'll see it too.


This is block 47, Queen Anne's Lace, I like this one the best.

I used Bernat cotton yarn to do them. I planned on using that same yarn for the whole thing but it's pretty hard to find that yarn in pleasing colors unfortunately. So, I'm considering these two just a little practise run, maybe I'll make them into potholders or something. When I start making more of them, I think I'll use the Vanna White yarn, I used it for the Christmas tree I made and I found her yarn to be quite soft. I've seen it a lot at Michael's, so I know there are a lot of colors I can use. I'm not sure how into this I can get just yet, I may have to wait until after Christmas to really get going on this.