Snowflakes are falling.....

It's been awhile but I have been very busy. We had a progressive dinner where my house was one of the stops...Doing what I used to do in a month to decorate for Christmas got done in 10 days. I realized that I have traveled or been recovering from surgery and hadn't decorated for about 5 years.Meanwhile I got old! But this is one of the projects I did:
I found on Pinterest some Popsicle stick snowflakes and had to make some. I also taught a few people how to do it at church. (It was not a popular class...but I loved it). I came home and made more.
Using a protractor mark 60 degree angles on a paper and line the sticks up with this angle. The link above gives some basic instructions but 'divide the circle into 6 equal parts' is not one of them. The protractor does this for you.

I think it turned out great! People walk in my house and say WOW!
I did it with hot glue and a few with Elmer's glue. Admittedly the kitchen table was NOT used for meals for a week but I didn't have anyplace else to work.

I begged some paint sticks from Lowes and from Home Depot. I also purchased Popsicle sticks, coffee stirrers and a variety of different shapes like wooden nickles from Hobby Lobby. I dug out the toothpicks that we had purchased for Jeffrey's bridge building in High school. I also used a lot of clothespins and sewing clips when I used Elmers glue. That was a slow process but did not take a lot of time just glue, clamp and work on the Christmas tree....glue, clamp and work on dinner. One of my hot glue ones fell apart so I decided to wet glue them, then I went back to hot glue....I think the one that fell apart was one that glue wasn't very hot when put together.

 After gluing I spray painted them white...then wait for the paint to dry.

 (The first one I hung to paint...a mistake, it wasted a lot of paint and I only needed one side painted.)
Then I added 2 sizes of glitter; WalMart's super-size iridescent and ultra fine. I like the ones with less of the large glitter better than the ones with a ton of it. (I figure it will fall off and then they will all have less.)

Here's my wall! I left it large so if you click on it it will fill your screen. It is supposed to look kind of like the door was opened and a flurry of snow swept in....

A friend came over and took pictures of each one. Her plan is to make these with her grandkids and then hang them in the living room from their vaulted ceiling. That will be FABULOUS!

12 Craft night

I have gathered 12 crafts and 8 teachers to do a fabulous Friday night Craft night at my church; y'all are welcome to come. It is November 14th at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Friendswood, TX. 505 Deseret Dr. 5:30 -11:00 Pot luck soup and bread.
Please call me if you want to come, we need payment before hand so we can buy the supplies.
832 217 4038
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1. Board of Photos; found here in blogland. Our Sample. Easy; once all the materials are gathered.
$3.00

2. Set of blocks that say Happy Thanksgiving on one side and Merry Christmas on the other. I figure that the price will be $6.00.

3. I spy toy. Mayra is guiding in making this great toy. Her baby loves the one she made. You can bring trinkets to add to the ones Mayra brings. Cost; $4.00 I've found directions and samples on the web here and here. 

 4. Temple bracelet Elizabeth Stillion is teaching us to make a bracelet with a clip for wearing in the temple. $6.00

 5. Joy wall decoration Tiffany Theobold is helping us make this. $5.00

6. Cookie mix in a Jar will be led by Kileen Smith; what a great teacher or neighbor gift. $4.00

7. Ornament Paula Agidious will lead us in making a paper crafted ornament...or 2 that can feature a photo of your choice; ancestor or descendent. She is keeping the cost low but even paper costs money. $1.00

 8. Potholders. I will bring my never ending bucket of scraps and will teach you a simple quilting technique. I had my children and my cub scouts make these, so I'm sure you can too. Most of my relatives have received several of these over the years. $3 will buy one package of double fold bias tape that will make 3. You can give me money and tell me what color you want or buy your own. If you have worn out towels bring them, that is what is in the inside. Here is a tutorial I wrote to describe my process.

9.Giant Snowflakes Made out of popsicle sticks; I think they look great. You can see some here and here. So far the cost has varied from 1.05 for the small one to 1.70 for the largest. I am looking for cheaper Popsicle sticks-sure to find them.  Wow, I found cheaper Popsicle sticks...brought the price down! 3 for $1.00. So knock yourself out making these. We will not be buying spray paint and painting these at the church. You can leave them 'au natural' or paint them at home.

10. Bell Garland Old style bells on a jute cord. If you want fabric on it you need to bring your own. $3.50

11. Days until Christmas blocks Easy, Simple $2.00 
12. Stars..are still in the works.

Craft Night

Our congregation's women met last month for a craft night. I had prepared 2 crafts for them to do and we brought yummy pumpkin dishes to share. First the crafts;
So easy since I have Pinterest to find something we could do without spending a lot of money. I saw this on Pinterest. And this is what we did;

Most of the candy canes (plastic ones) were covered in batting and then the most popular bow was the jute. The little rusted star was a garland I found at Hobby Lobby.
The other craft we did was simply to decoupage a clipboard, or paint it with chalkboard paint. Both were popular.

We also had a potluck pumpkin snacks. We has 2 different pumpkin dips, pumpkin cheesecakes, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin cinnamon rolls. Yummy.
I repeated the craft night a week later at home during the day.

Now I'm .planning another evening of crafts for November! It was fun and I"m looking forward to another night of crafting.

Card cont.

I finally made the envelope for my applique 'card' So hard to do. I chose 2 pieces of scrapbook paper-I should get some use out of it, right? Use one that you can write on and the postman can read; I chose a beige on white for the front and a busy one for the back of the envelope. Lay them together and cut them 1/2 " bigger than the card. Mine was just a hair larger than 9 inches.
Since I was using a permanent felt tip pen for the address write the address before inserting the card.



Set your sewing machine on long stitches and sew around it...I know, rocket science, right?

 OOps! Write your message inside the card before sewing it closed or pick out the stitches on one end, pull out the card, write in it, insert, sew back. I did put some frey check each place the thread started and stopped. This is not a heavy envelope but it is over-sized so go to the post office and purchase stamps; this card needed a 65 and a 45 cent stamp.

The post office is fine with sewn envelopes.
I sent my valentines is a similar envelope (using freezer paper)when my daughter got the card, she threw away the envelope; her husband picked it up out of the trash exclaiming; 'this is so cute, you can't throw this away.' yes you can. Sewing around it is easier than gluing and can be thrown away. I mean save the paper and glue it to some clothespins or something.

Christmas

With everyone home I have little time on the computer. We just don't have enough computers. Our computer geek son came to visit with his family; 2 of our grandsons. Roger and Reed spent several hours at Fry's (electronic super-store) yesterday. Then they tore into our 2 'old' computers; 1 was not working at all; 1 we've been using but had a few problems. Both computers are up and have internet service; yeah! no more boys on our computer. Also meant the living room had to be rearranged a bit to make room for another computer AND the tree.


This is one of my favorite ornaments; my Mother gave one to each of my older children so they left when they left home; I got to keep Brian's. I keep thinking I'll make some for myself but haven't managed to fit it in in 20 years.

Sunday I had a 'cool idea' 1 hour before church. I rushed and made 6 of these little ornament memory books for each on my students in my Primary class (similar to Sunday School). During class I had them write in important things that happened to them this year. THEN I decided to make some using felted wool for each of my grandchildren. I hope it will become a cherished ornament.

I decided to have each one have a letter for MERRY CHRISTMAS. Tyler is 4 so I made him 5 books. James is 2 but needed 3. Austin and Carter each got an M. (The books are constructed but I used up all my small jingle bells on the church kids so won't finish until I find some more.)


This is still my favorite crocheted snowflake; I crocheted it for our second Christmas, 1977.
This is my son and grandson on our walk; our effort to get me to walk a mile a day... does it count if it takes an hour to walk that mile?


I missed my stash report this week...I did some sewing but I'll group it together next week.

Have a Merry Christmas.

candy canes

I try to get my children involved in Christmas; one way is to find an ornament or craft they can do. Last week I saw this cute felted candy cane in blogland  and decided to make it my ornament of the year. (I try to make an ornament for our tree every year.....doesn't always happen and sometimes I buy an ornament too.) I managed to get Andrew and Roger to help. There's hope that Jeffrey will see the cuteness and Want to be involved but he has had HOMEWORK to deal with.

The good and the bad:

• That wool roving I bought at a thrift store 3 years ago is getting used.
•  I had to buy some red wool roving that came in a package of 6 different colors....what to do with purple roving?

After making a few I experimented with using red yarn; it worked just fine. Then I did a red cane with white stripe; which worked VERY well; but I have more white than red...

So if you're interested in felting, or cute, unbreakable, lightweight- doesn't weigh the branch down- ornaments; this is the one for you. 

It was difficult for an 11 year old to wrap the pipe cleaner but the felting process evens it out alot and his turned out great. 56 year olds are more precise and Roger's has a very precise evenly spaced stripe.

(The snowman in the background I made in 1984- I know because I date each ornament- just to make me feel old. Haven't figured out how to date the candy canes yet.)

lost braclet

Last year I had an idea; a bracelet for Christmas that I could wear with blue jeans. I made a beautiful bracelet and wore it often. I've worn it once this season and then lost it. I have hunted it (in between folding fabric of course) and have not found it.


SSSSSSSoooooo I decided I couldn't make another one but I could make a similar one (I certainly don't need 2 snowflake bracelets and I'm sure I'll find it.) so here's the angel bracelet I made this week. Luckily all the Christmas jewelry is already 50-60 % off.  Notice the white beads. THIS I can wear with ANYTHING!

grandson's

These are my grandsons. Simple project. Andrew needed something to do; he was driving his brother nuts. So I called him to the computer and we chose a font and size; 500, and printed these in reverse onto cardstock. I chopped them out of the cardstock and Andrew and I glued them to pretty paper. He did most of the glueing; I did most of the cutting. 



Notice the blue Y; it got ripped so I patched it in a couple of places and like it better.

I did buy some green ribbon and the cowboy paper... but it was cheap and fun and done.

Hope you like them!

new project

A few weeks ago I saw a paper garland in a blog; good+happy days and thought it would be fun to do. I also read about a woman's mobil in her play room; circle cut out of children's books and I've been thinking about that for months; looking for just the right book to cut up. Tuesday I found 4 of these golden books of Christmas stories and the 2 ideas jelled.
You can see that I got to use some of my red and white string and some of my scrapbooking paper. I used 36 circles cut from my least favorite of the books. It's a cute story though and I enjoy the illustrations. The littles elf is a misfit until he finds what he does best, then he's happy.
I think this would look great in a child's room at Christmas; playing 'I spy' with mom at bed time; adding a cheerful note up by the ceiling. (The center row appears upside down because I zigzagged the garland to photgraph it.)

It turned out 15 ft. 4 inches long... that's a long garland!

scout camp

We are going crazy over here trying to pack for Scout camp. The living room is trashed with piles of scout stuff all over.
I made cool duffel bags for the 3 scouter's' dirty clothes including their names. About 2 weeks ago I was called by a friend who had some boxes of fabric that she did not want. Guess who got them? She moved them from their rubbermaid boxes into 4 kitchen trash bags, full. I have been walking around them since I was a bit overwhelmed. I finally pulled them out and did not find much I could use so put them in the trunk of the car to take to Goodwill.
So when I had the idea for the duffel bags we went to the trunk and found 3 solid green fabrics that would work and I used 2 of them up; with these bags:


Andrew had a big grin on his face under the duffel bag; I promise you he did!
The little white bits are tags I made with their names rubber stamped on.



Now I have an idea for kerchiefs for the boys to wear with their uniforms to dinner each night. I'm so glad I was slow in delivering the bags to Goodwill.

some hearts

My little sister and I exchange a hand crafted valentine each year. I posted about my 'offering' this year here.

You can tell from these photos of some of her 'offerings' that I got the better deal. She really overdid it with this old heart shaped candy box that she mosaiced with pearls and other found beads and earrings. I keep it out all year with a glass pie plate upside down over it. I don't think I ever want to clean it and the pie plate isn't elegant but I haven't found anything better.