Deck the Halls Giveaway Winner

I must beg your forgiveness for being so late, but I did draw a winner for the giveaway

{drum roll}

Susie, of Susie's Sunroom!  As soon as I hear back from Susie, the charm packs of Alpine Wonderland will be whisked away through the mail, and the sooner the better, because parting with them won't be easy :)  those prints are even sweeter in person {i'm trying hard to justify buying some for myself, but it just isn't working with my new fabric purchasing strategy.  but thats for another post...}

Thank you to everyone who linked up & grabbed buttons!  You really made Deck the Halls a fun little party :) 

{if you are wondering, I did use the random number generator to pick the winner [number 14], I just haven't got the picture to prove it.  Each link up & comment from a button grabber got an entry, including A Girl in Paradise & The Way I Sew It for writting posts about my giveaway - thanks so much ladies!}

I didn't do as much crafting with my boys as I wanted, but I know we probably wouldn't have done any if I hadn't made the decision to be so intentional this year so I refuse to feel bad about what we didn't do. 

I learned alot through this experience, like how to make a blog button!  And there are a lot of awesome bloggers out there who have been very generous to share their knowledge with the rest of us {you probably already knew that}  I also learned craft kits marked 'easy' usually aren't, and kids don't always cooperate with Mom's plan, or schedule.  We had a couple flops, which I'll spare you all pictures of {I don't want to offend anyone with pictures of bearded Virgin Marys or monobrowed baby Jesuses}  but over all we had a lot of fun Christmas crafting, and I've enjoyed seeing all your festive makes, too :)  thank you to everyone who participated!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to my lovely readers! 

Here is one of my new favorite Christmas songs, I hope you enjoy it:



I will be back to wrap up our little Deck the Halls celebration in a few days {there is still time to link up} but otherwise this space will probably be quiet into January sometime - there has been a death in our family, and I just need to spend more time hugging my kids and less online.   I'll meet you at the gym in January, and we can work off all those Christmas cookies together, ok?

Christmas in a nutshell

***You can find my Christmas link party & giveaway Here!***

I found this sweet tutorial a couple weeks ago, and knew right away I wanted to make this one with my sons :)

We had alot of fun just trying to crack the walnuts in half without completely smashing the shells :)

 

When I pulled out my craft supplies, I barely had any white felt.  My first thought was 'Oh no!' but almost immediately I thought 'Who says Baby Jesus wore white?'  Personally, I think orange is his color  :-)

One important lesson I have learned during these crafts - one of each tool isn't enough.  While forced to wait for brothers to finish up, little boys with four extra {googlie}eyes stuck to their foreheads will complain they are bored.

{I see a trip to the craft store in my future}
I will be linking up to these fine linky parties:
Happy Hour Friday; Petals to Picots; Do Something Crafty & Friday Fun Party @ Craftionary

Christmas Onions?

***The Alpine Wonderland giveaway & Christmas decoration linky party can be found here!***

The kids and I made Onion Bulb ornaments for the tree with the double sided scrapbook paper.

Now that the Christmas tree is up, I don't have to take our decorations outside to get photos :)

 

I love the extra fun that having a different print on each side of the paper adds to the decorations :) 



We stapled the ends of our onion bulbs together, because my hole punch was too large for the grommets I had.  We banged a couple up with the hammer {definitely the best part for the boys} but they just fell out. 

Merry Christmas-ing! :)
I'm linking up to Fireflies & Jellybeans and Frogs & Snails & Puppydog Tails

Deck the Halls with Children

We made our first decorations!  My inspiration was this ornament here {if you get a screen trying to convince you to sign up for Better Homes and Gardens, just click the green button up top that says continue to your page}

 

These are the supplies we used:

 

Glass ball ornaments, paper crimper, paper cutter, & double sided scrapbook paper.  Plus the paper shredder, and chopsticks are helpful if you want to arrange the paper inside the ornament.  Please be careful of fingers, one of mine had a sharpish point inside the rim.

Apparently, scrapbook paper has selvedge edges like fabric {and is just as pretty & fun - must resist the urge to start a new stash!}.  My papers were from two collections - winter tortellini and spinach soup for jillibean soup & Christmas cheer for lilybeedesign.

I had visions of long strips of crimped paper gracefully curled inside the glass balls, but after crimping the paper {I had to cut it in half first} and running it through the paper shredder, it looked like this:

more like confetti, which is lot of fun, too :)  It makes an ornament like the one I showed yesterday:

which is nice, but it isn't what I was trying for, so I made another.  This time I cut long strips of paper with the paper cutter, then crimped them, then squished them into the glass ball:

The boys were split on which they preferred, so they each made the style they wanted, adding their own creative twists {such as adding intact Santa heads}

I have a Christmas decoration linky party going on over here, go check it out!  Have a great weekend!

Deck the Halls with us!

Isn't this fabric great?  Nothing says Christmas like cows in Santa hats, right? haha
{Fabric Traditions, copyright 1993}  I just want to say that this fabric came to me in a swap, that copyright date is no indication of my age  ;)

So, I have decided to Deck the Halls Handmade this year with my kiddos!  We are going to make memories & ornaments, drink hot mulled apple cider, listen to way too much Christmas music, and watch corny old Christmas movies!  If you want to see the start of this conversation, click here

And I'm inviting you all to join us in the fun!  Here is my plan in a nutshell:

1.  My goal is to make 12 types of ornaments with my sons this year.  Some of these may be our own ideas or decorations I made as a child.  I will share how-to's for these.  Others will be ideas I found on the internet, and I'll share the links so you can make your own if you want.

2. My posts will be randomly timed throughout December - it's Christmastime, I plan on keeping this low stress for me.

3.  There is a linky party!  Deck your own halls, then come back here and link up at the bottom of this page!  Ornaments, tree skirts, pillows; if you make something that spreads Christmas cheer through your home it is eligable to be linked up!  The linky will be open through Dec 30th 2012

4.  You can't have a Christmas party without presents, can you?  I have two charm packs of Alpine Wonderland by Riley Blake Designs that will be sent to one {randomly selected} participant.  I wish I could send fabric presents to all of you!  When you link up, be sure to visit other links and comment - like passing around little comment presents! Then everyone can share the Holiday Happy  :)

PS - I'm going to try to make a button this weekend! If I am sucesful, I plan to give an extra entry to the giveaway for those who display it, so check back later!

I did it! I made a button! :)  grab the code from my sidebar and display it on your blog for an entry into the giveaway for the Alpine Woodland charm packs.  Then come back and comment on this post to let me know you did - easy peasy!  {You don't have to be linked to the party to post the button & be entered into the giveaway!}

Thinking about Christmas

I started this post to talk about Christmas ornaments & being deliberate about making memories for my kids, but first I have just got to say that Blogging makes you do some strange things.

I mean, what normal person would be traipsing around outside on a cold morning wearing PJs and slippers in search of the ever-elusive 'natural lighting' to take a picture of a new crafty creation on the shrubbery?  And by a picture I meant many pictures, on all sides trying to find the best lighting.  {I found it! If you wanted to know, it was on the side of the bush closest to the house, forcing me to stand between house and shrub. Of course}

Hmmm, where was I going with this? Right, I remember now ;)

When I was a kid, our church had a family ornament making night each Christmas season.  In the large basement room, the adults would make evergreen Christmas wreaths with advent candles in the middle.  The kids would go from Sunday school room to Sunday school room making different ornaments in each.  I still have some ornaments I made as a child  :)

The Christmas season can get busy so easily, and I don't know about you but when it is all over I can often think of things we didn't find time for that I would have liked to do with my boys.  So this year I have decided to be deliberate about making ornaments with my sons (and doing other Christmassy things, too)

So what does this all have to do with you?
I've decided to take you all along for the Yuletide ride! 
I will be showing our Christmas decorations here on the blog, and I will either share directions or a link to the tutorial we used so you can craft along too if you like.  {you might want to. hint, hint. There will be some bribery Christmas cheer involved!}

My plan was to share our first ornament with you today along with all the details, but a faulty internet connection, a migrane, and the general chaos that follows in the wake of three adorable boys conspired against me today, so I'm going to stop here and invite you all back to my blog tomorrow to see our first ornaments get crafted & find out how a little package of Christmas Cheer might be in your future.  Deal? :)

I'm going to link up with MRL's Holiday TTT which is over at she can quilt today.  Don't worry, I made sure the way is clearly marked for you, just click the pretty blue words and I promise you'll end up at the party ;)

I'm also going to link up to really Random Thursday.  I'm not sure there is truly anything random in this post, but I feel random today, and that counts, right?

That's it for now folks, I'll meet you back here tomorrow! :)

WIP Wednesday

More fabric squares are being turned into more coasters in preparation for the two craft fairs I am attending this weekend.  I'm counting on a lot of people needing a place to put their drinks this Christmas season ;)

You may not be able to tell from the photo, but each of the fabrics I'm using has either gold etching or glitter - nothing says 'holidays' like some bling, right?

I am taking part in a 2.5" square swap through The Curious Quilter {this is my third round}  This time, I'm swapping with nine fabulous ladies.  I only put five stacks in the photo, but there are nine little stacks of 100 different fabrics each that will be mailed out tomorrow morning.   I made a stack of 100 to keep for my PSQ at the same time, which brings the total to 1,000 2.5" squares.

Next step, sewing 1,625 2.5" squares together.  By Christmas. {!}

Ok, I may need to rethink that deadline...
What have you been sewing lately?
I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Grinch :)

What is your favorite Christmas movie?

Mine is 'How The Grinch Stole Christmas', the old animated film.  I love the songs, and I always crack up when the Grinch sews Max's tail through the old treddle sewing machine.  I just can't get through a Christmas season without watching this movie.  {My kids mostly tolerate my obsession}

I even bought myself Grinch pajama pants this year :)

So naturally when I saw the Grinch fabric, I had to sew with some!

This quilt measures approx. 42"X53".  I started cutting it Saturday morning and quilted it before going to bed {late} that night {or was it Sunday morning by then?....}

Anyway, the binding still needs to be pulled around back and stitched down, which I'll be doing by hand this week.  Then this quilt is off to my Mom {shhh, don't tell her}

Here is a shot of the back

The red is a Kona solid, but I don't know which one.  And I was glad to have enough leftover Santa Grinches to put a strip down the side :)

The quilting is nothing special {I wasn't up to anything ambitious at midnight}  but I do think my FMQ stitches are becoming more consistant.  Which is good, because I hadn't considered how well the varigated green thread would show up on the solid red - just trying to make do with what is on hand as much as posible :)

My kids and I have been having fun watching Rudolph, Frosty, Santa Comes to Town, etc by the light of the Christmas tree.  Add some hot chocolate and quilts, and I'd say thats about a perfect afternoon  :)  What are your family's favorite Christmas flicks?

I'm going to do a little linkin', want to come along?   Have a great day!  :)


http://rainbowharequilts.blogspot.com/2011/12/making-christmas-week-10.html

time for a coffee break

Well, I finished my mug rug :)

I did all the quilting with my walking foot; along the lines to accent the fake patchwork, and around the hearts with white thread.  Then I used red and blue thread to quilt X's over the center hearts.

I bound it with the same blue I made the hearts with.  Remember the silver sparkles on the right side of that fabric?  Well, you can't see them on the wrong side (showing), but they still catch the sun in bright light, giving it an unexpected sparkle.  I love it :)
I think I'm going to use the wrong side of the sparkly blue for Mr. 5's penguin quilt, he will love the surprise sparkle when he notices it.

Putting my mug rug to good use:

hmmm, it needs something...

Yes, much better with a cherry square.  :)
Oh, and do you remember my Christmas wallhanging?  Well, it looks like this now:

I decided that I want to be spending my time on projects that are more important to me, so I cut the panel up into 2.5" squares to be used in this scrap quilt. 
This was a UFO on my list, so now I am down to 13.  I hesitated to do this to the panel, because it kind of felt like cheating on my UFO goal, but since I'm using the fabric for something else and not just putting it back in the closet, I decided to go ahead and cut it.  Anyway, my personal goal, my rules, right?  :)

Happy Saturday!

With Seam Ripper Close At Hand...

Everything I sew lately needs to be ripped out.  Really. I can't help but laugh at myself.
Here is my latest project in need of a fresh start:

This is a panel I bought to learn hand quilting on.  Obviously that didn't happen :)  Now I'm just trying to get it done so I can take it off my UFO list. 

You can't see it, but a bit farther down on the fabric is the Nativity scene, some Wise Men and Shepards; all the usual Christmas crowd  :)   Oh, and the dove fabric is the backing.

I don't like the white thread I used above, there is just too much contrast between it and the darker colors.  I'm not sure what to use in its place, maybe gold or invisible?

The pattern has me stumped, too.  I tried to outline the important figures, and just meander all over the rest, but I don't like how it turned out.  I tried this mainly because it just seemed wrong to stitch through the Baby Jesus  :)

Then again, maybe I'll just sandwhich this with fusible fleece and forget quilting it altogether.

Well, I won't be doing any more sewing until I finish all my ripping ( I still have my BOM to rip out).  Tomorrow I'll be sitting by a sunny window with a cup of coffee and a seam ripper...

Happy Quilting to you, and may your seam ripper gather dust!