Holiday Traditions Exchange

My package is all finished and ready to be sent to my swap partner in Canada.

Meg from Sew Liberated is the host of this fun swap. The rules were to send 1 Holiday recipe:: my mother's recipe for pecan snowballs is the perfect choice in my book!

1 Handmade ornament::

I ended up making 3 total

Crocheted Snowflake

Quilted Christmas Tree

and a third ornament which went so well with the third rule:: a Family Tradition.

My Family Tradition is hunting for the pickle ornament on the Christmas tree. An Old World German tradition.

A Felted Pickle Ornament

Now off to the post office...

Two Handmade Hats for Her 2nd Birthday.

Good friends of ours had a party for their little girl yesterday, who had recently turned two. Lori (Veronica's mom) made all kinds of wonderful goodies, including the grasshopper cake and little bug cakes for each child at the party. Veronica loves bugs!Lori also made Veronica's bug party dress.
So what do you get such a sweet little girl with such a crafty, talented mom? Knitted hats of course! Lori had asked me to make Veronica a hat to match the coat she made for her daughter. I also couldn't resist the idea of making one with a bug theme.
So two hats it was!

This hat was completely my own pattern. The flowers are crocheted.

This hat I found in the book Stitch and Bitch Nation, but it was for adults. I altered the pattern to fit a child and added a crocheted bee, also my own pattern.
These are the types of hats I am planning on selling in my etsy shop in the new year.

Fun and whimsical infant and children's hats, along with some other sewn items.

Happy 2nd Birthday Veronica!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

The past few days we've been rearranging rooms and decorating for Christmas. The rearranging idea has been something I've wanted to do for a while now, and of course Andy finally agreed to the idea... the same time we would be decorating for Christmas. The nice part about this, is that the whole downstairs got a full cleaning even behind the furniture. The bad part is, after two days of moving heavy items...a piano, a hutch, an entertainment center, and sofa's (one went to the salvation army)... well lets just say a nice long hot bath was needed! So what did we switch around? We swapped the dining room and family room. We are loving the new lay out!

So step into my foyer and I'll give you a complete tour of my holiday decorations... and if you have no idea what my dining room and family room looked like before, you can go here to see last years holiday decor and the original set up of our rooms.

Lets Begin.... Come on in!
Living room

Dining room

(piano is under the big window in the back)

top of hutchmantle

entrance into the family room

family room

(we are thinking about repainting this room after Christmas, we liked the dark color for a dining room, but would prefer something lighter for a family room. Plus I don't care for the checkerboard design anymore, got tired of it.)

Jackson's 25 days til' Christmas socks. There are 25 socks (all of his socks from when he was 6mths to 12mths) and each one contains one Hershey kiss. He will get one each day starting Dec 1st until Christmas. It's a fun way to count down the days.


Our stockings are hung in the kitchen with care.


Now we just need to decorate the outside of our house.

Hope you enjoyed the tour, thanks for stopping by!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I'm somewhere lost in my sewing room... but I'll be back here next week with lots of projects to show you. Andy has the next four days off, we are heading to my mom's for Thanksgiving tomorrow, putting our Christmas tree up and decorating the house on Friday. Then on Sunday we are off to King of Prussia for a little girl's 2nd birthday celebration. I hope you all have a wonderful day tomorrow! Here is my last list of Gratitude this month...

• I'm thankful that I have such wonderful friends in my life that are only a phone call away, even if I just need to talk or vent.

• That we were so lucky to have nice neighbors living next to us for so long, and can just hope that our new neighbors will be just as nice.

• Homemade Cornbread

• Adding more things to my crafty to do list, because I'm ahead of schedule

• Really being in the holiday mood this year, and looking forward to watching Christmas movies by the tree, with some hot chocolate and loved ones.

• That Jackson handled the H1N1 vaccine just fine.

• That Jackson is protected from both the flu and H1N1 and I can finally stop worrying.

• All of the friends I've made in my crocheting/knitting class, and the funny stories we all share.

• That I am finally committed to running and have stuck to my schedule for 4 weeks now.

• That a friend of mine decided to start coaching me to possibly run a 5k with him in the spring. (Wasn't something I even thought about doing)

• That my Mother in Laws new dog seems to be very friendly with little kids running around. She rescued a pitbull/American bulldog, named Elsie. She is 2 years old, and a sweetheart.

• I'm very thankful of being able to give... with the holidays coming closer, Andy and I talked about what we wanted to do about giving each other gifts. We realize that we are blessed to be able to buy the sewing book, yarn, or fabric that I want at many times throughout the year, or the cd, video game or musical equipment that Andy may want. So at this time of the year it almost feels wrong to get more. So we've agreed to not buy each other gifts so that we can focus on giving to those people who make our life better all year and give Jackson a Christmas every child deserves.

• And finally I am thankful that my sister will be here in less then a month, I haven't seen her since last Christmas. I can't wait to see her and I know she is excited to see Jackson, since he has grown so much since her last visit.

Sanity Check

Is it just me...or do you have piles of lists, patterns, things to remember, projects started and not?
It's getting a bit crazy around here and trying to keep my head above it all... can at times seem challenging. There are deadlines, gifts, things I'm being paid to make, swaps, Etsy store to open, business cards to make, and you would think I would just skip this whole Joy in the New Year challenge, but that's become personal! I want...um.. need to get those finished! Oh and I forgot... cookies to bake! Really, I want to bake cookies! :)

I'm not much of a reader, I have a hard time sitting still and focusing, thinking about all the other things I could be creating with my free time. But of course the one time I already have way too much on my plate, I find this book:
... and I'm hooked. It's written by Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia to some) about her life. It is so humorous and takes me away from all the deadlines and projects, but finding the time for reading too, that's a tough one. :)

WIP: lots and lots of ironing...

I finished sewing up the triangles for a UFO; my Halloween quilt, and then it was onto the ironing. Ugh... I really don't hate to iron, but a tall stack of 1/4 inch seams to be ironed flat isn't my idea of an afternoon. I also can't stand a pile of anything that needs to get done, so ironing it was, until the stack was complete. Now onto squaring them up and then my favorite part... playing around with all those squares to decide which pattern I want to make. Lots of ideas!

Happy Birthday Andy!

Happy 33rd Birthday Andy!!!

We love you!

You are a wonderful husband, father and best friend.

Thank you for always coming along on my adventures and making us laugh so, so, so much! :)

I know he wants to kill me for doing this.... hahaha