Christmas Gift Card Holders

I whipped these up tonight for some gift cards for Christmas.  They were very easy and I made three of them in about 15 minutes. 

I cut two 42 x 3.5 inch strips and sewed them right sides together along the long sides.  I turned them right side out and then cut them in thirds.  I folded them in thirds and sewed the edges down, leaving the flap free.  I decided not to put any trim or buttons, just sewed across the ends so they wouldn't fray.

My quality control cat is checking them out...she gave them a thumbs, or paws up!!

Very cute and easy!

I had made some of these this summer from a Lazy Girls pattern.  A bit more complicated, but still very cute for those gift cards!!

Baby Jesus Ornaments

I saw some really cute baby Jesus ornaments posted here and loved them!  I am trying not to buy anything, so I wanted to use what I had.  I bought these four gold vine nests at Salvation Army this summer, for a quarter each.  I knew I would do something with them eventually and that time has come!

I made mine a bit differently...I used vintage silver pipe cleaners to create the stars on one end of the pipe cleaners.  I attached the other end of the pipe cleaners to the nest underneath the head of Baby Jesus. 

The only thing that I purchased was the half ball wooden pieces and they were a quarter each too.  I painted them light flesh color and used a paint marker to make the eyes.

I used bleached muslin for the swaddling.  They look really sweet on the tree!

I am thinking these would look good as package decorations too!

Wordle Word Cloud

I read a post about using Wordle to make word clouds.  There are several options for adding words to your collection...one of them is to type in your blog URL.  I tried that and tweaked the color and font and got this!  So cute! 

I am thinking I will have to make a wall hanging using a word cloud from this site! 

It was so fun to play with the alternatives.

I even made one with family names!

Check out this site...I can see some Christmas presents originating at this site!

Christmas Ribbon Candy Wool Garland

I made this great felted wool garland from recycled sweaters.  As you may have heard, I love working with felted wool and have a modest (or immodest) stash of wool. 

So, anyway, I will show you how I made this garland...let's get started.   I picked an assortment of wool scraps that coordinate in some manner. I started with the multi color stripe that has two shades of green, navy, gray, red and black.  And I added some of those colors and then some others that coordinated with those...I kept going until I had 12 colors.

Using my rotary cutter, I cut 1 inch strips from each color.  I made my garland about 7 feet long, so I cut 46 strips (just a random number....depends on how thick your wool is, if it is all very thick you would need less).  I actually cut 50 strips but found four of them underneath my chair when I finished the garland.

So here they are...

I wanted to use wool yarn for this and I had this sport weight that I had bought for a bit of nothing (and I am still working on eliminating my stash and makin do with what I have), so I used it.

I found my reallllllly long needle and threaded it with a piece of yarn 2.5 times the length of the garland I wanted to make.

Then I folded the wool strips accordion-style and put the needle into the middle of the end and

pushed them onto the needle and

then down onto the yarn.  I had knotted the end of the yarn so it would keep the wool strips from falling off the other end.

I just used a random arrangement of colors, but you could repeat the colors in order too.

The yarn at the ends I looped for hanging.

Some of the pieces of felted wool had extra pieces sticking out...like here and

here.  To fix this problem I just snipped off the extra pieces that stuck out.

And here is the end result!

Very pretty, huh?  It reminds me of Christmas ribbon candy...my great grandmother used to give my family two giant tins of Christmas candy each Christmas.  One of the tins had ribbon candy and the other had those filled satin looking candies...I wonder if they still make that kind of candy?

Looks great stretched across a window or strung on the Christmas tree.

I love the dark rich colors...

but I can't wait to make one in spring colors too!

Craftaholics Gift Exchange

 I am so excited to participate in Craftaholics Anonymous Gift Exchange again (last time I did was in July--here is my post from my gift then!) Today I received my gift in the mail...I was so excited.  I got this lovely Christmas cookie plate from Tiffany.

I love it and it is such a cool plate...

Great lettering and

lots of bling on the edge of the plate!  I am loving it!

Thanks Tiffany and thanks to Linda for sponsoring/hosting this exchange!!

Click here to see what I sent to Tiffany!

Snow Family

You may have noticed the cute snow family in the background of my Christmas decorating post....

I made these a few years ago, the bodies are made from muslin and stuffed with weighted beads in the bottom so they stand up and don't fall over all the time.  They were very simple to make, easy to sew and fun to dress.

They mimic our family, a snow mama and a snow boy.  The mama has a jacket made from an old quilt (one that was well worn and had too many holes to use as a quilt), trimmed with vintage velvet ribbon in a great soft brown color.

She also sports a wool rose pin which keeps her jacket snug.

Her snow boy has a bare head and cute button eyes and a really long carrot nose.  He is wearing a vintage child's coat from my friend Agnes who has passed away now.  The coat was worn by her husband as a child. 

The coat shows much wear and I can picture this cute little boy wearing it and getting dirty!

The coat's buttons do not match...and I love that about it a lot!

Now look closely in this photo.  Notice the little pink flower near the second button from the top.  My great niece Elena who is 3 put that there because she thinks the "baby" snow person is a girl and she wanted her to have a flower like the snow mama!   Pretty cute!

Slacker!!

 I feel like I have been a certified blog slacker lately...

But in my own defense, I have been busy at home.  In the past week, my son and I have put up the Christmas tree, minimally (my style this year) decorated the house for Christmas, put the Christmas lights up outside, tormented the dog.  Just the usualy stuff!

This year we went with the unlit fake tree that we have had for a few years.  I love a real Christmas tree but after last year's experience, we decided to use what we had (yup that is the easy way out!).  So out of the coffee table (which is a blanket chest that my grandfather made) came this beauty.  Well, it wasn't so beautiful until we wrapped 400 lights and hung a zillion oranments on it, but you get the idea.

Now, in the Christmas box we have some special seasonal items for our dog Rachel....she is not so fond of these items and wishes they would just stay in the closet!  So here is Rachel with her Muttluks and winter coat on.  She walks funny while wearing the boots so we always get a kick out of her performance.  We only leave them on her for about 15 min (well she actually only leaves them on for that long!) and then we pack them away until next year!

I hung the snowflake wreath on the front door (which badly needs a paint job). 

And pulled out the brown accessorized snowmen my niece Ruth gave me for Christmas a few years ago...

I made an arrangement on the front deck with lights inside it...it is a giant red pot with evergreen boughs and some greenery with jingle bells and a giant strange looking poinsettia stem.  I put 100 lights and some pinecones inside the pot, so even though you may not be able to tell in the picture, it looks great day and night.

A view up my driveway that evening.  It was a lovely day and we got a lot of pre-winter chores done outside.

And last but not least, Rachel got to wear her jingle collar.  She isn't so sure she likes it, but it makes her look like such a party dog!!  And it is much safer for the squirrels she chases since they can hear her coming a mile away!

I also made this cool banner for my blog for Christmas using Picnik.com!  And I did it myself, all alone!  I also made a banner for my etsy shop...

and a button for my blog, although I can't figure out how to "share" it...

Anyway, I am ready for Christmas, are you?