Merry Christmas!

This year's Christmas card.  

It is our mountain cabin, with a few improvements to the landscape!  Merry Christmas to all!

Small Quilty GIfts

If you exchange small gifts or stocking stuffers with a group of quilting friends, here are some great ideas from our Whacky Ladies Christmas brunch last Friday.

From Gloria, everyone received an owl pin cushion made from beautiful funky fabrics.  LOVE!

Gloria also gave us some candy and some Mary Kay product samples.


                                       


From the Moda Bake Shop collection, a mini-charm pack of fabrics from Carol.

Great idea...Carolyn gave us a bag of S'mores ingredients with instructions!  

                                              

Also in the bag, some bobbin covers.  I had to look this one up.  It is called a bobbin clamp or tulip.  You can string them from one of those metal key chains to keep all your bobbins together.

For you stampers out there, here is a set of gift tags with cute floral decorations.

We have some clever ladies in this quilting group!

Christmas Brunch with the Quilters

It has been a busy week with many Christmas functions and parties.  One that I look forward to every year is the Whacky Ladies brunch at Brig's Restaurant in Wake Forest.  Besides the great food, we have a gift exchange and also share small gifts with everyone.

I hit the jackpot this year on the gift exchange.

I thought Lori had made this Christmas stocking, but she says it is from Hobby Lobby.

It was stuffed with lovely gifts...the best being four yards of beautiful fabric!

There was also a very pretty journal, which I will enjoy very much.

 And stuffed in the toe, some Ghirardelli chocolate squares!

Opening all the small gifts was like Christmas morning.   I thought I took pictures of these as well, but I must not have.  I will take one of the owl pincushion made by Gloria next time- it is so cute!

Charlie and I used a gift certificate he got as a retirement gift to eat at The Angus Barn in Raleigh with our friends Ricky and Mary.  They decorate it beautifully at this time of year, but you can always count on seeing lots of quilts hanging on the walls.

I have continued to paint lots of angels, and sent this one to a relative who just turned 90.

I purchased some cards with a framed mat that allows you to insert photos or artwork.

I think that soon I will be offering these for sale in an Etsy shop to raise money for cancer research, a subject close to my heart.

I hope that you are enjoying the holiday season.  Busy as it always is, Christmas time is my favorite. I have been sharing a Bible journaling page each day of December to try to keep in mind the "reason for the season."  Here is one that I did recently.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all of you!  We have gotten through Christmas, New Year's, and all the holidays in between, here at the cabin with our family.  We feel very blessed.

We have had so much fun together.  Our little Princess Charlotte was so cute opening her gifts on Christmas morning.  

Granddaughter Lily wanted to do some sewing.  She decided to make quilted fabric coasters.

I am so proud of her for learning how to use the sewing machine!

We watched a lot of football games, including the semi-finals for the National Collegiate Championship.  Our daughter-in-law is a Clemson fan, so we all got decked out in orange for the big game against Oklahoma.

The weather alternated between rainy and sunny warm days.  We got in a lot of walks and Gator rides.

They have all gone home, the house is clean and the decorations down.  Time to unwind the rest of the weekend before heading back home to Raleigh!

Hand-Made Christmas

I have been to three Christmas parties with friends since my last post!  Should have gone to another on Saturday, but it is getting down to crunch time to get my preparations ready for Christmas.

The "Christmas Craft Night" with my daughter-in-law's mother was a first for me, and a really fun idea.  Emily and her mom are awesome hostesses, and this party was no exception.

Maribeth had set up four stations with instructions, a finished product, and all supplies needed.  I felt just like I was back teaching elementary school and creating successful learning centers!

One of the most popular was the fabric garland.  We each got a strand of electric lights, and all we had to do was knot strips of fabric, burlap, trim, etc.  Mine is going to look perfect hanging over the kitchen window in the mountain cabin.

I also love my snowman ornament.  We used chopsticks to stuff some fiberfill into a clear glass ornament.  We twisted red and green pipe cleaners and glued on cotton pom-pons to make him some earmuffs.  A permanent felt-tip pen and some orange paint created the face.  How cute is that?

We also made some plain red pillar candles look much more glam for the holidays simply by applying double-stick tape and adding glitter.

There was another project to make gift bags out of lunch bags, but I have not decided what to put in it yet.  I have an assortment of ribbons, tulle, and gift tags punched from Christmas card stock.

Maribeth said all her project ideas came from Pinterest, and most of the supplies came from stuff she already had or the Dollar Store.

The next morning I drove back to Wake Forest for the annual Christmas brunch with my Whacky Ladies quilt bee.  We have a tradition of exchanging small gifts for everyone, and a larger gift for one person in a "Dirty Santa" game.  (Person number one chooses a wrapped gift and opens it; Person number 2 can steal it, or choose an unopened gift, etc.)  I managed to hang on to my beautiful little snowman quilt made by Marilyn.

Mary made Christmas trees from buttons and cinnamon sticks!

Lori added crystal beads to wooden Christmas ornaments.

Marilyn made the blue heart-shaped snowman ornaments.  Her embroidered felt ornaments represent a good percentage of my Christmas ornaments after twenty years or so of this Christmas exchange!

Donna Made machine-embroidered mug rugs in red and white.  I'm not sure if she somehow made these via a computerized pattern on her long arm.

I feel so lucky to have these enduring friendships and people to share my love of quilting and crafting.

Folded Fabric Ornaments

How are you all doing with your holiday preparations?  Here in Raleigh life is busy, busy, busy, with special lunches, dinners, parties, and outings with friends and family.  Over the Thanksgiving holidays I made some ornaments to exchange with my quilting friends at our holiday parties.

I saw the instructions for making these Folded Fabric Ornaments on You Tube.  The video is by someone with the unlikely name of Crouton Crackerjacks.

His turned out to be perfectly straight and even.  Mine were kind of lumpy and uneven.

Oh, well, I got them done in time for our latke party last Wednesday for the art quilt group (notice some in Hanukkah colors?)  And I think I have enough for my Whacky Ladies quilt bee brunch on Friday.

Someone decided to knock over our mailbox last week.  I came home from eating dinner at my son's home, reached to check the mail, and met empty air as the post and box were lying on the ground.  One of the nice things about renting is that you just call the landlord's agency and get it taken care of. Now our old dented mailbox has been replaced with a shiny new one.

December 3 was the five-year anniversary of adopting our sweet dog, Kasey.  We got her from a family who had gone through a divorce and changing situations.  They did not tell us that she had heart worms.  We got that taken care of.  Later she had to have surgery and physical rehabilitation for a torn cartilage in her knee.  Before she even recovered from that, she developed an abscess from a broken tooth, and had more surgery for that.  This little free dog has cost us thousands, but she is so sweet, and is a very good dog.  She does not leave the yard, is content to mostly sit at my feet all day, and has been such a good companion.

We kept our granddaughter, Charlie, last weekend.  What a joy!  She will be three in January.  She seems so grown!  It will be fun to watch her enjoy this Christmas.

My husband is continuing to recover his strength after all his cancer treatment and surgery.  In fact, he has been working every day for the past two weeks to try to finish up the financial year for his clients.  We hope to be able to spend a couple weeks at Christmas in the mountain cabin.  It is all decorated and ready for us!

Flocking at Home

Hello, everyone!  It has been a whirlwind week.  Last week we celebrated Christmas with my son's family.  It was wonderful!  Love to get my kids and grandkids all in one place!

I got a book that I have been coveting...Joanne Sharpe's The Art of Whimsical Lettering.

I will look forward to spending some time playing with my text on journal pages, cards, maybe even artwork.

We had a lot of fun, good food, and fooling around.

Dave "borrowed" my Christmas sweaters years ago for a Tacky Sweater party, and never gave them back.  He won a $75 prize at work for wearing the blue one that I thought was so pretty.

This hat was a popular hit.  It reminds me of the movie, A Christmas Story.  A true classic.

I have done some decorating for Christmas at our Raleigh house.  I decided the green artificial wreath on our front door did not show up at all against the black painted door.  After looking online for white or glittery wreaths and not finding one I liked short of forty dollars, I decided to visit my art supply stash and lighten up that wreath.

I found a tube of heavy body acrylic paint in Titanium white, and used almost the whole tube.  There was a small bag of snowflake-shaped crystals in my embellishment jar.

For added sparkle, I used glitter and glitter glue.

I used two cheap paintbrushes to apply the paint, and a palette that used to be a microwave container for something or other.  I covered the work area with freezer paper.  When I was done, I balled up the paper and threw the brushes and palette away.  No mess to clean!

Basically, I worked paint inside the pine cones and spread it on the foliage and pine needles.  That thick white paint made realistic snow.  I sprinkled glitter on the paint while it was wet.  The snowflake crystals went on with the glitter glue.

Now it shows up much better!

I bought some silver and white ribbon, but have not decided whether to add it or not.

Peace Be With You

Worship of the Shepherds by Bronzino

 

 

Wishing you and yours the peace and joy of Christmas.

It's Been Very Merry

Just back today from visits with family in South Carolina and then western North Carolina.  We had a blast, but it is good to be home.  We got Kasey out of the kennel today, and she is a fluffy golden ball of energy after her grooming.

The visit with the grands was so much fun.  Loved spending some time with them. 

We had great weather on all the days we traveled, but it rained a little on Christmas afternoon.  Lily borrowed Melissa's new umbrella to get in a little bike riding.

When we went to visit the McBrayers in Rutherfordton, NC,  we got to see lots of little great-nieces and nephews.  I was finally able to meet Lindsay's new baby, Kaylee (and that's little Jada looking on).

Kaylee seemed to like her new quilt!

Charlie got a new quilt, too, but it is an art quilt.  Here is Sunday Drive.

I began this quilt back in May in a Faces and Figures workshop with Pamela Allen.  It took me forever to ladder- stitch with embroidery floss around all the raw-edge applique. 

Some of the tiniest bits are fused, and the figures are zigzagged with invisible thread.



The deer and turkey were cut from commercial novelty prints, but everything else was just cut with scissors freehand.  That way it is personal, and reflects "the hand of the artist."

I used dupioni silk for a few of the Christmas trees and also for the Gator. 

I quilted it on my Gammill.

On the back label, I did a photo transfer of us on the Gator in the same location, but in the photo we are driving away.

It feels so good to get a project done- especially one that has such personal meaning for us.  And in time for Christmas, too!  I have two other-hand-made gifts that I will share next time.

Wishing everyone the peace and joy of the season!