Better Late Than Never

The past few years my neighbor and I have exchanged Christmas presents, not just for ourselves, but also for our kids.  I really like to make (and receive!) hand-made gifts and this year I stumbled across a super cute pattern from Wild Olive.

It's a felt ginger bread house!  How adorable is this thing?  I hand sewed all of the pieces, but the real time sucker was the cutting.  The pictures don't show a big pile of little candies.  Actually, you can see some of them in the little baggy to the right of the house.  My little neighbor girls are little young for the tiny pieces this year, but in another year or two I think they'll have a good time decorating the house to the nines.  And mom will appreciate this gift because this way her girls can get the gingerbread house experience without all the sticky, crumbly mess.

I'd really love to make one of these for Rowan, but he's not really in that type of thing.  If I could somehow add gears and/or wheels, though, he'd be all over it!

Oh, I don't' think I mentioned that I just finished it today.  December 30.  Oops.  I also have a stack of tea towels to embroider for some other friends.  Maybe they will turn in to New Years gifts.  Or Valentines gifts….

What's the latest you've ever given/received a Christmas gift?

My First Real Tree!

Squeeee!  Ever since I've had Rowan, I've gotten extra excited about the holidays.  Having a little one just adds a whole new dimension to the fun.  

One of the traditions that my family always did every year was to go to a little local Christmas tree farm and cut down our own tree.  I really wanted to continue that tradition this year.  This is the first year that we're actually staying home for Christmas and now that Rowan is 2 1/2, I figured it would be a good time to start.

Sadly, the really nice trees aren't native to Southern California, so even though we went to a Christmas tree farm where you can cut your own tree, we decided to go with a pre-cut.  Here's what the native trees look like:

Pretty, but not ideal for hanging ornaments on.

Here's the one that we picked out:

It really didn't look that big.  Until we got it inside.  It just barely fit!

More importantly, though, (or at least the point of this blog) was how I decorated it.  I started my making a tree skirt.  Good ol' Pinterest to the rescue!  I found this awesome idea, bought a bunch of felt,  and then packed it all up with me when I went to visit the family in Kansas back in October.  I'm in LOVE with how it turned out!

I think after this year I might add some bling to it.  Maybe some sequins or some gems….

The other thing I made was a garland from hemp twine and matching felt circles.  I cut the circles out with my Cricut to save on time.  Then, since you have to have Heat 'n Bond on the felt in order to cut it with the Cricut, I just ironed two circles together with the twine in-between.  

The garland is a little hard to see here, and of course my camera seemed to have eaten the picture I took of just the garland, but you can still see it peaking through in places.  Same as the skirt, I think I want to bling it out a little bit for next year to make it pop more.  I was originally thinking sequins, but there are sooooo many circles.  It would take me clear until next Christmas to finish it!  I'm making maybe a big sparkly gem in the middle of each one.  

I also have a Barbie tree I put up every year.  Once it's all finished I'll take some pics and make another post!

Thanksgiving Tree

A bit late, but here's the latest installment to my tree of seasons.

Last year all I had was Mr. Turkey.  This year I added the pilgrim squirrel and the Indian bear.  I've learned that the sizes on the Create-a-Critter 2 cartridges run smaller for some reason than they do on the original cartridge.  I would have rather had the bear and squirrel a little bigger, but by the time I realized they were smaller than the turkey, I really didn't want to go back and redo them.  

Now it's time to figure out how I'm going to style the tree for Christmas!

Weekly Pinterest Update

How is it that the weekend is over already?  I had a rough week, even with Thanksgiving and all, so this week's roundup of pins are not craft related, but more in the way of inspiration!




I just adore this. Marilyn is such an iconic symbol of beauty and she was no petite, half starved waif!



How I Met Your Mother is one of my favorite shows and while Barney might not always be the best role model, sometimes this quote can do the trick.

Another great show is the Big Bang Theory. Wouldn't having someone singing Soft Kitty to you make you feel better?

Hopefully these will perk you when you're feeling down! Remember, you can follow me on Pinterest here. I'm always finding new goodies!