Friday Fun

Yesterday was a day off school for the kids, so Mr. Crafty World took the day off work and we had a family day out.  One of our favourite places to visit is Port Perry; a smaller town about an hour away from us.  We love to stroll Main Street, with it's charming buildings like these:

And these:

We have a routine for our visits.  After parking the car we head down toward the water and our first stop is usually here:

This is one of those charming candy stores that have been here forever, and are not part of any franchise.

My favourite part is the display of vintage candy moulds:

They make their chocolates right here in town too.

The kids get all excited like, well, kids in a candy store! They always want to buy things like Jelly Belly jelly beans and gummy candy.  We always have to give them a lecture about buying something special from a special place like this that you cannot buy at the convenience store.  Despite their grumblings we never leave there empty handed:  yesterday we bought two kinds of  fudge; pecan puddles in dark chocolate and milk chocolate covered marshmallows - all made in Port Perry and not the Wonka factory!

Our next stop is always Tribal Voices.  They sell lots of stone jewelry; Indonesian wood carvings and other fair trade goods.  We ooh and ahh over everything and sometimes come out with a bits of polished stones or incense.

After that we head across the street to The Wee Tartan Shop and get our fix of British goods.  We were hoping to find a bit of family tartan to put on the table for our first ever Robbie Burns dinner next week.
We didn't find the tartan, but we did come out with some more treats:

By this time Mr. Crafty World and My Favourite Boy have come to the end of their patience with shopping:  it's time to eat lunch and there must be no delay!
We always head to this little bakery where you can still get a grilled cheese sandwich or soup and a biscuit for under five dollars.

They sell lovely little squares, pies, buns and doughnuts; again, all made right here.  There are no super fancy cakes and pastries on gold foil doilies here.  It reminds me of the bakeries of my small town youth.

The main reason for eating lunch here is really this:

...the largest apple fritter you can imagine for dessert.  Mr. Crafty World always asks them to set one aside for him when he orders his lunch, just in case they sell out before he finishes.  You can even ask for it grilled should you feel like going completely over the top.

Tummies full, I take advantage of Mr. Crafty World's grilled apple fritter buzz and we do a bit more window shopping.  We check out the toy shop, the miniature shop and the big gift shop.  Our last stop is always this lovely place, where I usually buy some pretty bit of china or vintage linen.

For once I came out empty handed, but I still got an eye full of pretty things.  After this shop we get in the car and head back home - sampling our treats the whole way.

In the later part of the afternoon we saw The Hobbit.  I think this movie was at least an hour too long and not worth the price to see it.  I was not alone in my thinking either.  Why did they have to split one book onto three movies?
When we came home we all jumped on the couch and watched two episodes of Merlin, our new favourite Netflix show.  It's nice to have a series that we can all watch together, and that we all enjoy.  It made up for the Hobbit fiasco for sure.

I do have a creative finish to show you that I finished last night, but I'll save that for tomorrow.

Thanks for visiting and for taking the time to comment on some of my posts;  I really enjoy hearing from like-minded souls!

Jenn

Unexpected Residents

Like many of you I am cleaning and organizing.  I am often in a creative funk at this time of year, so instead of whining about it I decided I would tackle the basement storage area in the month of January.  As most of the days are gloomy, it is a good time to be down there and I don't feel like I am missing out on any significant vitamin D intake.  I gave myself the whole month to do the job, and I feel pretty optimistic that I can finish.  Thankfully all the purging I have done over the past year has made it much easier!
Not expecting much creative mojo to happen, imagine my surprise when I was able to browse through my books, pick a project without excessive agonizing about it, and complete not one but two things in as many days!  Meet Maisie and her baby, Sugar:

Sugar is from issue 11 of Mollie Makes magazine.  I wanted to make three baby mice, but the pattern  was so fiddly I stopped at one.  Since I didn't want Sugar to be an orphan I made her Mummy using the small rabbit pattern from Tone Finnanger's Crafting Springtime Gifts. I made the face a little longer and made mouse ears in place of rabbity ones.  I would love to crochet some little sweaters for them, but I don't think I could make up a pattern just yet. 

Last Saturday I again headed to the basement with my big mug of tea and made a few more cards and some gift tags.  I had just received some new stamps and an embossing folder the day before and was anxious to use them:

I really enjoyed making the gift tags and will probably make more of those.

Today I get a chance to try something new:  I am going to install a new kitchen faucet.  Ours started leaking before Christmas and now it's so bad we have to shut the hot water off under the sink each time we are finished using it.  Silly me thought I could just replace the washer in the handle:  I didn't know they don't use washers anymore, it's all ceramic cartridges - which, incidentally, they don't make a replacement for our discontinued Ikea faucet.  So, brand new faucet it is.  This time I made sure to buy one that I can replace the cartridge if it breaks in seven years.  Slowly but surely I'm learning!

Have a great day!

First Finish

Here is the first chart I stitched for the Stitch from Stash challenge:  JBW's Fleur de Lys.  I found this box while putting away the wrapping paper and decided to mount the stitching on the lid. Cut, shape, glue and in fifteen minutes I have a finished finish, that's not a pillow!  I stitched this over one thread on 28 count linen:  brutal on my eyes but it does make for a better size.

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to implement 'Card Making Saturdays'.  I have been wanting to do this for years.  Basically it involves me going down to the basement in my pyjamas with an enormous mug of tea and cutting and pasting away: ending up with a nice variety of home made cards for sending.  This past Saturday I finally did it and made five cards which I quite like:

Today was the kids first day back at school.  It snowed so much last night we were sure the buses would be cancelled.  Much to their disappointment they weren't, so I had the house all to myself for the first time in three weeks.  I didn't do too much other than putter around and drink tea, but it was nice.  In a few minutes they will be back and the house will be noisy and full of life once more.

Thanks for visiting!!

Happy New Year!

I think the time between Christmas and just after New Year's Day is my favourite of the season.  Now I love, love, love Christmas, but there is something so lovely about the slow period after the big hustle and bustle is over.  We hang out in our pj's a lot; take advantage of post holiday sales, and generally just take it easy.  I even learned to make those picture mosaics, so I can join the fun of the year end blog review too!  You will have to bear with me as I include the Ice Storm one:

It was so pretty afterwards I took tons of photos.  It was awfully dangerous to be walking around though!

I created a Crafty Makes mosaic:

And of course a crochet one:

I didn't create one for cross stitch because of the few projects I had, the photos weren't that terrific.  One of my New Year's resolutions is to stitch more!

I was having so much fun I made a pretty skies mosaic:

And one for flowers too!

You're probably grateful I ran out of time, but I do have plans for a France mosaic and possibly one for all the great chateaux we saw there.

I have also been having fun setting crafty goals for the year.  More than likely I won't succeed in meeting them all, but it's so much fun to think I can right?
I am very excited to have joined the 'Stitch from Stash' group.  The object is to stitch from the charts we already have, using the threads and fabrics we already have.  You can spend up to $25 per month, but my goal is to keep the costs as low as I can.  I do confess to having bought some charts late on New Year's Eve before the challenge started though!  Funny how a spending deadline makes you question whether your stash is big enough, when the day before you realized you would never stitch all your charts in one year!

I would like to extend the challenge to include the lovely free charts I have downloaded from all sorts of talented designers.  I keep finding them and stashing them, but not stitching them!  Let's hope this year I can make a dent in those computer files.

Last night I started on two cross stitch projects from my stash, and am sad to report that one of them already has to be frogged.  Ugh!  Better luck tonight I'm hoping.
I also started a new crochet project with some yarn Mr. Crafty World got me for Christmas.  It's a little slow going, but it's going to be pretty I think.

Well that's it for today.  It is so cold outside so it's a perfect day for stitching.  I don't even mind if the dog sits on my lap because she keeps me warm!

The Last Bits

I so wanted to stitch up a bunch of ornaments this year - thinking way back in January that I could easily do one per month.  Sheer folly for me to think that, I know.  I only got one ornament made this year and this is it:  my Nordic reindeer.

This was more of a fly by the seat of my pants kind of project.  I borrowed some Scandinavian knitting design books from the library and stitched the motifs I liked.  I had plans for a few more, but you know...

Last week I finished up a couple of other projects.  I wanted to make My Favourite Girl a dream catcher using one of the doilies her great-Grammie had made many years ago.  I did a lot of hunting on Pinterest and Google images to figure out how to put it together.  I'm sorry the pictures are so terrible, but these things were impossible to photograph with any degree of success!

The feathers are made from felt and fabric that has been fused together.  I used some of my extremely coveted Liberty fabric pieces for some of the feathers, but I have to tell you it was really hard to cut into it!  Seriously, my hoarding instincts need to be overcome!

I hope she likes it: at 11 she does appreciate the work that goes into hand made things, and it does give those doilies another life outside the linen closet.  I didn't cut them or anything so they are still perfectly intact.  She will like knowing she has something of her great grandmother's, who sadly passed away in the spring time.

I've still got things in the works for Christmas:  today I'm giving a carved wooden dragon a "do-over" and I have some stockings to finish.  This is the kids last day of school before the break so therefore my last day of uninterrupted quiet.

I wish you all a very happy holiday and a creative and healthy New Year!!  Thanks so much for visiting and your sweet comments!

Jenn

Craft Party

We hosted a 'Holiday Crafternoon' here yesterday for some of My Favourite Girls' school mates.  I had done something like this before, way back when the kids were five and seven, but I was interested (and a little anxious, truth be told) to see how it would go over with 11 year old girls.

I spent a lot of time looking up fun crafts to make: something they would feel excited to make and proud to take home.  We had three tables of crafts, plus a good portion of the kitchen counter.  In the end it ended up being too much: not because they didn't have time to finish, but they were just crafted out.

The girls were all very enthusiastic about the crafts, but I think the cookie houses were the biggest hit.

The crafts available to make were cookie houses to decorate; hot chocolate cones; candy sleighs; chocolate covered spoons; bath salts; and a variety of ornaments.

I had a table of paper crafts to make as well, but the girls decided they wanted to watch a holiday movie instead.

I have to admit this was A LOT of work to put together.  It would have been a considerable expense too if I did not already have most of the supplies.

Mr Crafty World and My Favourite Boy were sent away from the house during the party, happily I believe.  After dinner My Favourite Boy decorated a cookie house with the left over candy and it was a joy to watch him happily piping on icing and deciding where things should go.  
Suddenly things felt so festive and fun again.  He then said he wanted to make all the crafts the girls did while he was out, so the kids and I sat around the table and crafted away the night.  It was wonderful, and it made me happier than I had been all day.  It was decided that next year it would be much more fun to have another crafting party, but just us.  I couldn't imagine anything better than doing my favourite thing, with my favourite people, at my favourite time of year.

Gifts

This year I finished my gift shopping early.  I wrapped everything too; made sure each child has the e*x*a*c*t same number of gifts and put them away where I will find them.  I can't tell you how liberating this has been.  Truly like a gift to myself.  Since then I have been able to do fun stuff - purely indulgent stuff that has no deadline and is just for me.  Things like: crocheting lacy things for my neck and a completely frivolous candle sleeve.

I made myself an earring holder from a thrifted frame and wall paper, plus a little chicken wire and stash trim.

I helped My Favourite Girl make a pillow for her Girl Guide gift exchange in a completely non-stressful way:  ie. not between me putting something in oven for dinner and setting the table, all the while watching the clock and kicking myself for not picking up something at the dollar store.  It was a hit, I hear.

The feather pattern is from magazine called  (I think) Make It .  She did all the hand stitching herself and even the machine sewing.  I must really be relaxed if I let her use my sewing machine!

I have a few gifts to make, but there is no pressure:  I am thoroughly enjoying the process and putting lots of good wishes into every stitch.  I should be done by the end of this week.

Now I'm drinking eggnog flavoured coffee ( one of the lovely hostess I received from our Christmas party last weekend); listening to my Dixieland Christmas CD and contemplating doing a little bit of card making.  Oh, life is good when your holiday shopping is done!

Thanks for visiting:)