Homemade Christmas

Once again it was time to celebrate Christmas with my best girlfriends with our annual exchange of homemade presents. I scored the necklace (above) from my friend Rebecca. I also got a dozen tamales and some lip gloss, but don't have photos of either because they were immediately pressed into service. The necklace is made from sculpey, stamped and baked and glossed. I love it. the pattern on it reminds me of something from nature, and fairly African in look. I have got to learn how to do this!

My friend Stephenie P. made me a homemade pillow. I love this, it will match great on our guest bed. It is very fun and funky and has a great style to it.

My friend Stephanie B made felted items for us. I really had no idea what i would get from her, because we were together when we saw felted items we loved. I knew she was working with felt this year, but had no idea what she would come up with. This is already on my table.

A friend of Rebecca's knew we had a homemade exchange and contributed carved wooden pieces for all of us. I got a door stopper but have it on my bookshelves right now. It looks like a beautiful piece of sculptural art to me.

What did I give? Well, of course I don't have a photo to share! I went with an office theme and made everyone a lunch bag made from oil cloth, monogrammed notecards and a frame with flowers on them. I used felt and card making type flowers for decorations on the frame. Next year I'll have to take photos of my own gifts, too.

As for the Lemon Cookie recipe:

1 box Lemon Cake Mix

1/3 cup oil

2 eggs.

Mix together and drop cookies onto a cookie sheet for about 10 minutes. Cooking time varies based on the size of the dough balls. Mine were fairly big so I baked them for 13 minutes. I added a bag of white choc chips to stretch the dough and made a double batch. You can use this recipe with any kind of cake mix. Imagine Red Velvet cookies rolled in powdered sugar before baking. Next for me will be chocolate fudge cookies with butterscotch chips. It is not an original recipe, but one found on the internet. God Bless the internet. I do love it.

Not Much, That's What I Got

I have not felt terribly crafty since I finished up the mittens and stockings. So, there isn't much to report on the Crafting front. I did make an ornament for a friend who is a wicked game player. She will be horrified that I used Scrabble tiles, thinking I broke up a perfectly good game. But the truth is that I ordered the tiles from ebay a while back, thus rescuing what might have otherwise been seen as (gasp) trash. I found out some time later that you an also buy fake scrabble tiles in the section of the local; craft store that sells wooden pieces, making it much easier to craft with them since you won't need to purchase a game, or search for tile parts on the internet.

Our next door neighbors moved away recently and I went to meet the new neighbors yesterday, taking homemade cinnamon hot cocoa mix and homemade granola with me. The wife came over last night with some homemade cookies warm from the oven. Oh, I think I really like these people! I made lemon cookies for a cookie exchange Friday. Now, I make a decent size thick cookie, right? My neighbors toffee cookies are next to my lemon cookies in this photo. Yep. She can kick my cookie baking butt. I hope she shares her secrets. They tasted yummy, too.

I am meeting my friend Maria today. She is moving to Brazil on Friday and I cannot even tell you how much I am going to miss her. But I will be every happy to see her in Brazil soon! When? I don't know, but I know I am visiting as soon as I can.

Wintery Wonderland

I can't resist taking pictures of my house in the snow. I don't know why. I think my house is very pretty and I like it year round, but in the winter it really calls to me. No doubt when the kids are old and they are parents themselves they will want to show their own kids what the home they were raised in looked like. Then they will think Global Warming has really taken effect as all the pictures will show snow on the ground. Noah even wore shorts to school yesterday, most likely compounding his memory problems as an adult. He'll tell his kids we were so poor we couldn't afford pants.

In an effort to make homemade Christmas presents I am on a mission to make hats. The school colors are really green and White but no one believes this as the school tends to use Green and Gold all the time. Gold is supposed to be an accent color, but has become a main color. I made my first hat in Green and White much to the dismay of my children, so now I am making Green and Gold hats. The pattern is called Zportz and is available free on Ravelry if you are inclined to knit these yourself.

Fourth Grade is the year you learn about Indiana History in school. They have a day called "Wax Museum". The kids pick their favorite Hoosier off of a list and research them. Then on Wax Museum Day the kids all go to the auditorium, dressed like their person and wait for people to come press their "button". Once "turned on" the kids come to life and recite a speech about their famous Hoosier. Seth is Michael Jackson. He held his pose so I could get a photo of him.

If you look closely you will see a bit of my dog in the picture. She was fully in the picture but one eye was illuminated green and the other was illuminated blue. The red eye control on my photo program could not eradicate the glow nor the colors of her eyes.. Thus proving once again my dog is weird.

The Bounty of the Season

My friend Maria is moving soon (way too soon if you ask me, too bad no one did!) to Brazil and I am collecting some of the bounty from her home. I feel like the luckiest person alive. Not only did I receive some gorgeous couches that look great in my basement, I also got some pillows from her. I am always looking at pillows when I am at the store. You know how it is, they would really freshen up a room, but to buy them? It hurts the wallet and it is not an item that you absolutely need to have. It's just an item that I lust over. Well, I got some pillows from Maria! This is my favorite pillow. The green one in the back is my saggy old pillow, the pretty one in front is from Maria.

I would love to promise you that there will be no more pictures of mittens, but I am still working on them. Today I added cuffs to the mitten bottoms. I made some of them so that they would not need to have cuffs, but they look better cuffed, so I am cuffing them all. You will see this is not a prettily posed photo, but a photo of real life in my home. Now that I see the picture I wish I had set the scene better. I do now have hope that I can get everything finished up soon. The mittens may or may not get little buttons added on for decorations, It all depends on how tired I become from looking at them.

Seth has the most christmas spirit of all of us in the house. He loves to put up and decorate the Christmas tree, and we love to let him do as much of it as he can. He opened the tree box and pulled out the Christmas tree skirt that I made years ago. He put it on like a dress and began to dance around and sing a few Christmas choruses. He hates when I tell about him on my blog, but he is the most fun to chat about. The tree will be up soon and I have a few presents to put under it. I do not like an empty tree. Not one bit.

Oh No, Not Again!

If you are tired of looking a my mittens, imagine how tired I am of making them. After starting this mitten craft with sweaters from the Goodwill store, I quickly realized I had a whole lot of wool and needed to make something else. So, I started making Christmas stockings. I made 13 of them and they are completely made and complete. Mittens? I am still fussing around with them. Some (read most) still need an edging around the bottom and I am trying to add edging while keeping the mittens stretchable. A harder task than you might think.

I went to a card class in Nashville In a few weeks ago taught by Michelle Zindorf. she uses brayers on her cards and they are quite different from what you would usually find. I thought I would show you what I made, but I can't find my cards. That is the story of my life right now. I am not very well organized and I try to keep things picked up. So, I pick up things and put them away, then forget where I put them *sigh*

I need the holidays to be over so I can do a good cleaning around here. You know, tidy up the craft stuff, toss out scraps I don't need and get everything squared away. Of course, I don't want to wish the holidays away before they are even here. Maybe Santa will bring me some organization skills this year.

Making Necklaces from Hardware

I am not having a lot of luck moving my pictures around today, so these are not in the order I would like for them to be in.

I'll have to wait until Scott comes home to help me straighten out my problems. I like to have text between the pictures so I can exlain things better, but Blogger isn't going to let me do that right now.

I got this idea from the blog of Shelly Katzung, Accentuate 'N Ink. She posted a tutorial on how to make necklaces from washers, like you would find at Lowe's. Some of her washers have scrapbook paper on them and look very cute. She traced around the paper and cut it out so it was the size of the washer and she glued it on. Then she covered the top of it with Glossy Accents so it would protect the paper and have some shine.

Shelly also had a tutorial on covering washers with ranger Inks. You just dab it on and let it dry. That is what I used to make my necklace.

The top photo is what the washers look like at lowe's, if you'd like to try this on your own. Shelly used clips she found at Joanns to attach the washer to the necklace. I went to Joanns and bought the only four clips I saw, and I think they add a great professionally finished look to the piece. I included a picture on the clip in its packaging so you know what to look for.

The bottom photo is my finished necklace. I used a red color, maybe Plum. I have only a few colors and could only play around with what I had onhand.I also used some silver additive, which seemed to help intensify the color and attch it to the washer. Next time I try this, I'll be wearing gloves as my ranger ink skills are messy and my hands were dyed after this project. The silver circular item I added to the encklace is a donut from Stamping Bella. She has a line of plastic pieces called Donuts and Dots. But, you could wire wrap a small bead or pearl or crystal if you'd like.

Scott will not be so happy when he sees me going through his tool cabinets looking for items to color! Now I can color coordinate screws and nails if I want!

My Neighbor Pete's Birthday

There is s mall group of us in my neighborhood who have birthdays on repetitive dates. It's hard to explain so follow along, My birthday is 10-10, (Oct 10) Jen was born on 7-7 (July 7) and Pete's birthday is Nov 11th (11-11). We exchange presents in out little group. Pete happens to work for Berringer Wines and I had a collection of wine corks that he gave me last summer. He thought they were trash, but I made him birthday presents with them.

The picture above shows me holding a cork trivet. I used pre cut pieces of cork I bought at Michaels (with a coupon, of course). I glued the corks on, trying to use completely different corks. I had to cut one cork in order to make the pattern work, but I just got out a kitchen knife and cut part of it off. Easy Peasy. Hot glue was a great thing. Lay out your pattern and glue the corks on. I used two layers of cork for the bottom as one layer semed too thin. I covered the edges with a band of ribbon.

I found a thin fall wreath at Michaels on sale for 75% off so I bought a big bunch of plastic grapes in a coordinating color and cut the group apart with scissors at home. I then glued on the grapes and only Berringer corks to the wreath. I wasn't sure about it, but Pete seemed to really like it. The rumor is that he took it to his office and has it hanging there. Apparently his office is full of Berringer memorabilia.

I also gave Pete pictures of his kids which I had punched out with a 1 inch circle punch and put in pop bottle lids. I tied a ribbon to the top and put a magnet on the back. Pete is a frugal man and his wife is a discount shopper like I am. I think they were pretty happy that I used their wine corks in such a creative way. It makes me happy to give gifts that people love.

The weather is rainy and cold here. I don't like the rain part of it most of all. It makes it hard to go out and get errands done. I did put chicken in the crock pot this morning and I went out to use my Kohl's cash that I earned last week. My mom wants hand towels for her bathroom and I got that taken care of for Christmas. I also finished sewing tops and hangers on all my sweater stockings. I need to finish up making mittens and then I can get rid of all the odds and ends of sweater pieces. Seth is dying to put up the tree but Scott says no. Seth never seems to get what he wants, poor little guy.