First Finish

While the lead-up to Christmas ended up being more stressful than I had planned on, the after part has been wonderful.  The kids are off school until Monday, so it has been a full two weeks of time at home just hanging around. I think My Favourite Boy has logged more days in his pyjamas than not.   I didn't take the decorations down for the longest time, in part because it just felt wrong to do it while the kids were still home; but also because I was really enjoying the extended holiday season.  I have had a few occasions to play around with my sewing machine; I started a few little things and even got a quilt top pieced together that has been sitting in the closet for a few months.  I can't estimate a finishing time on it yet because I have to buy backing fabric for it.
A project that I did get done is the Big Project.  Yes, Amy will get her wedding gift before her first anniversary!  I have worked like gang busters on it the past few days and all of a sudden I had a completed blanket on my hands.  I am really proud of this one, so you will have to look at a lot of pictures!  This is my very first blanket:

Full Frontal Blanketness

Up close with all those open fan shapes

Doesn't it look nice on my couch?

Doesn't it look nice in my basket on the hearth next to the stone surround?  A perfect combination I would say!

It even goes well with the blue couch in the living room :)

This is going to be very hard to let go of, but at least I know it's going somewhere nice. 

 What's a wedding if you don't get a crocheted afghan?  No one can laugh later at the colour combination either - ecru stands the test of time, just like white appliances :)  

I am happy to be finished; most notably because it's 6 months over-due, but also because I want to get to work on something else.  What, I'm not exactly sure, but perhaps something with lots of colour.  I have a stash of yarn in the cupboard just waiting to be used.  The biggest challenge is finding the right fit between stash and idea!

J'ai Fini

Although a few days ago I could have easily said, "Je suis fini", which still means "I am finished", only it means the ultimate finish!  Yes, I am done preparing for Christmas.  By the skin of my teeth, but I am done shopping, and making.  On Wednesday I had to admit I committed Christmas hubris, where once again I did too much; made too much; bought too much, etc.  Anyway, here is what we have been up to:

 Dipping dried fruit in chocolate for My Favourite Boy's "something to eat" gift.

Dipping licorice sticks in chocolate and sprinkles for gifts, as well as making countless candies!

The kids dipped many, many pretzels in white chocolate and sprinkled them with coloured sugar for teacher gifts.

I found these cute bags at the dollar store and they worked just perfectly for the pretzels.

I stitched up a bag for a Secret Santa gift at a networking group I belong to:

I also made chocolate sugar cookie snowflake cookies for each member and a little tea envelope:

Of course I got the china cabinet varnished and everything put inside it :)

And I foolishly decided that every child in each of the two classes needed to have a felt and candy cane mouse so I made 48.  Yes, that was very, very foolish.

Today I have to deliver some Avon orders and clean the house.  I can't believe in a few days it's all over. I seriously think we need to celebrate Christmas over the 12 days so we can enjoy ourselves a little longer; unwind a little longer.  However, I have a suspicion that I would think of sewing and craft projects that just had to be made as gifts somewhere in those 12 days!

I hope you all have a great Christmas and a wonderful 2012.  As you no doubt noticed by now the one thing I did not do was write up my Christmas cards!  I didn't even get them out of the box this year.  In fact I don't even know if I have any.  Maybe you will get a Valentine card, but then again, who knows?!

Merry Christmas!!!

Weekend Stuff

I bought an all red puzzle at the thrift store a few years ago for a dollar.  My idea was that we could bring it out on Dec. 1 and the goal would be to have it done by Christmas Eve.  The first year we got a bit done; I don't think it made it out of its container last year, but this year we did it!  It only took the weekend to do too.

It was challenging, but fun too.  I had forgotten how addicting puzzles are.  I could never pass by the table without just trying to find a few pieces that fit!

My Favourite Girl squirrelled herself away at the craft table this morning and came up with another totally fabulous creation:  behold our plasticine and popsicle stick creche!

She's just so awesome I can't get over it :)

I also gave Mr. Crafty World an early Christmas gift:

There are now two cars in the garage and not one car and a partially refinished china cabinet.  The china cabinet is in the dining room, wearing it's second coat of stain and will be ready for varnish this week!

All in all a productive weekend I think.  I also got the house cleaned.  Both kids were at a movie night last night until 10 and Mr. Crafty World had a work function.  The house seemed so lonely and empty I decided to have a date with the vacuum cleaner.  Fun, fun, fun in my Crafty World!

Slow Day

I'm being so pokey today.  I haven't done much but upload some pictures and scout away on the internet for useful things.  For once I don't feel too guilty, because I have been productive lately.  I filled the freezer with chicken recipes.  I have almost completed my Christmas shopping.  I have been sewing.  In two days I started two sewing projects and finished them both!  Mr. Crafty has commented three times in the last week on my habit of having many projects on the go: I guess it must be getting to him.  Perhaps it's the fact that there's a partially refinished china cabinet in the garage where his car is supposed to be.  Maybe he's jealous that my life has so much more variety than his.  Who knows.

Anyway, back to those projects.  A few years ago I accumulated some wool sweaters and ran them all through the wash to felt them.  So they sat in the basement until I decided to make something.  I have seen cute little stuffed owls all over the internet in the last year and wanted to make one for My Favourite Girl.  I ended up with this colourful  owl and sweet sleeping owlet:

For My Favourite Boy I made a soft stegosaurus out of blue polar fleece.  Again, started and finished in one day!  So proud of myself :)

He will make a great companion to this (very dirty) t-rex I made last year.  I think My Favourite Boy will be pleased.

I have to say it's so much nicer to sew upstairs where there is some natural light.  If I had done these projects in the basement there would have been many breaks for tea and email checking, etc.  The only downside is I have to completely clean up my mess when I'm done!

I have also been doing a bit of crochet: working on some holly leaves during My Favourite Boy's karate class and the Big Project after supper.

I'm almost half-way done the main part, and then there will be edging.  Or maybe not!

For the rest of my pokey day I hope to make some lip balm for My Favourite Girl.  Her lips crack terribly in the winter and I want her to have something nourishing on her lips.  I found a few recipes this morning on the internet, along with a recipe for home made laundry soap I might give a try again.  It's been years since I made it last, but I think I still have all the stuff.  I have the time to make it anyway!  

I might pop over to the library and pick up a craft book they have on hold for me: that will make for a fun afternoon's entertainment.  Supper will be left-overs so I don't have to worry about that.  So, for today life is good.  

P.S.  I found out last night that I did not get the wedding coordinator job at our church.   To be honest I'm not terribly disappointed; it was good to get my resume dusted off and have to stretch my brain again  to promote myself in cover letters.  Since then I have applied at two more places and time will tell.  Nothing is going terribly quickly around here lately so I am waiting patiently for once.  

Christmas-y

We have been decorating.  Once Advent started My Favourite Girl asked everyday if we could put the decorations out; including the tree.  Last week I succumbed and put everything out while the frightful weather outside carried on.  I'll spare you all the details, but here are my favourites this year:

The tree, of course:

As we were decorating I remarked that it was really my tree in a way.  I know where all the ornaments came from because I either made them, bought them, or selected from the kids makes.  That's probably why I love decorating it so much.  We have a Christmas story I just love, called 'Christmas in the Country'.  In the book a little girl describes Christmas in the little house she lives in with her grandparents.  As they pull the decorations out of the closet and she looks at the glittered balls and other things she has made, she says she love the ornaments because each one reminds her of her whole life.  That's exactly how I feel about our ornaments.  There's the ceramic wreath I made in grade 1: one of my first experiences with "real" art. The glass balls filled with rose petals from the three dozen roses A. gave me when he got his Commission;  the blown glass baby shoes commemorating My Favourite Girl's first Christmas; and all of the foam, popsicle stick and tissue paper creations made by my two little elves.  Oh my, I'm getting teary eyed just writing about it!

Next: the kid's tree.  This little tree was Mr. Crafty World's and my tree before we bought the big one in our first house.  It came with us through many moves and now we use it in the basement for the kids to decorate.  They have a lot of fun decorating it each year and adding new things to it.  My favourites this year are the paper chains and button wreaths:

I love the new little hand made decorations like this sweet elf:

...and these snowman pots:

Another project the kids made are these snowball votive holders.  I was amazed at how well these turned out and created our mantle display around them.

I bought round glass votive holders from the dollar store and we coated the outside with white glue and rolled them in epsom salts.  I put a few coats of clear acrylic spray on the outside after they dried to keep the salts from falling off.  They look so sweet when they're lit.  I'm using the battery operated tea lights in them; that's why the light is so yellow.  

It finally started to look festive outside as well this week.  We had our first "real" snowfall and it was so beautiful.  

The kids had a blast at the bus stop making a fort and growing big plans to make it enormous when more snow fell.  Alas, most of it has gone now, but it will come again I'm sure.

Have a blissful day :)

Seasonal Makes

The weather has taken a turn for the better here the last few days.  Yesterday was so nice we could be outside without our jackets on. I bought a bunch of mixed greens and figured I had better change our garage window planters while the soil was still soft.  Last year I was too late and had to pour boiling water over the dirt to get my greens in!

I used one bunch of mixed greenery from the store and supplemented with a bit of my own cedar and some of the neighbour's - shh! don't tell!  I made two like this:

I bought a tree shaped ice cube tray for a dollar with the idea of making more crayons or bath fizzers or something.  Last night My Favourite Boy and I made bath fizzers to test it out.  We used balsam fir, sweet orange and a little bit of pine essential oil to scent them.  They smell like Christmas to me!  

  

The recipe we used was 1 part citric acid; 1 part epsom salts; 2 parts baking soda; witch hazel to mist them and about 1 tsp of our essential oil blend.  We colored the epsom salts to get the speckled look.  The outer trees are green by the way; it's not showing up so much in this picture.

Since Advent begins tomorrow I decided I had better finish off a cross stitch project I started last year during Advent.  I finished my cross stitch as a flat fold as best I could.  I messed it up a bit, but I think I'm the only one who can tell :)

This is what a flat-fold finish is like:

Sort of like a little easel is the best way of explaining it.  I bought this fabric this year and I love it.  I think it's the perfect fabric for this so I'm glad I waited.

Here it is next to the Advent centerpiece My Favourite Girl made in Sunday school last year.  Each week you pull a tissue paper 'flame' out of the candles.  As far as kids crafts go I think this one is spectacular, and plan on keeping it for as long as I can!  Isn't it just the cutest?

I heard back from the church about the wedding coordinator job:  they can't decide between myself and another applicant so we have to respond to some scenarios they are creating for us next week.  All this will take place via email - thank heavens.  It makes me feel good that I'm the top two; of course I don't know how many applicants there were.  Maybe only two!

I also just applied for a job with a company that makes school lunches.  Not cafeteria style: parents order the lunches and they are made in a commercial kitchen and delivered to the schools.  This would be a great one because it's from 9-1:30 during the week and whenever school is out you don't work.  Fingers crossed I get called for an interview next week.  Prayers please!  One of our cars needs a replacement transmission so the sooner I can get working the better! 

Thanks for stopping by :)

My Newest Hooky Project

I have discovered Pinterest.  If you have a few hours to kill and want to spend them in front of the computer screen, try it out.  I found a picture of a crocheted cowl with a link to a pattern yesterday and loved it.  I pulled out some yarn I was saving to make myself a regular scarf and set to work on it last night.   It took several hours, but I finished it tonight.  There are 23 rows of 55 crochet stitches; some double, some single and some half-double.  It's wide enough I can pull it up around my ears if I don't have my hat.  I guess I twisted the foundation row while I was beginning and ended up with an Infinity scarf.  Oh well; at least they're all the rage right now!

(Please ignore those tired eyes: it's the result of too much cross stitch and crochet recently.)

If some of you are wondering how my other, big, crochet project is going; you know, the one I was supposed to have finished for July 2, well, it's coming along.  I think I'm almost half done.  I am not going to speculate any more on when I think I might finish it.  Every time I do that I end up putting it down for weeks at a time.  Let's just say it will make a nice first anniversary gift.