Day Eighteen - Party Favors

 It's almost time for my doll club to meet again and this month we're having a Christmas party complete with luncheon fun, good friends, hot coffee, dessert sweetness, holiday dolls, a gift swap, and party favors! Could be up to twenty in attendance this year so that means each of us might have a windfall of twenty surprises at our place setting....yippee!!!
On the other hand that also means I need to get busy!

 Now making up twenty favor goodies could be a bit stressful in the midst of the all the other holiday preparations going on but I had a secret weapon by the name of Susan Branch. She posted this great tutorial last year for a holiday banner which I thought was just the cutest.
Oh...and ever so easy too!!!
 

I added some red backing and a wee jingle bell but other than that

stuck to her delightful "you can do it" directions.

You should try one too! 

 

All that's left now is to tuck them in some nifty gifty envelopes and I'm good to go...

 



Day Five - In the Workshop

 Today I hung up my "Christmas Workshop" sign and set to work adding some

holiday sparkle to the crafting nook.

 

 The doors have since been closed up tight for the night but I'll give you a quick peak

at some of today's progress. 

 

 My flock was cut in a variety of prints and colors...

 

 ...including of course the flower and gingham one promised for tomorrow's giveaway! Don't forget to leave your comment to be entered into the drawing...you can click HERE for all the gifty details. Once you do I'll make up a little tag with your name on it and keep my fingers crossed that you are the lucky winner!!!
 

Day Two - Homemade Ornament

 More often than not I buy a book based on it's cover which is exactly how I came to add Joelle Hoverson's delightful book Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts. Although filled with oodles of inspiration in the homemade department it was the two patchy birds on the cover that sold me. For years now I've intended to make up a flock of them but somehow time just flew away from me. Not this year however! A new cut of red fabric and a package of sweet lavender from one of my favorite places inspired me to give it a go.

 

 Being that it only required four cut pieces and an estimated completion time of 45 minutes I figured I could sneak one in between morning errands and afternoon pick ups.

And guess what?

I did!

 

 A few quick seams, a bit of pokey work turning it right side out, and before you know it, it was time to stuff the bird!

 

To be honest I wasn't totally happy until I added the ribbon around the neck...ribbons just make everything so much more gifty don't you think?



Day One - Tree Nite

 We decided to welcome  December with our annual Tree Nite celebration. First things first, the tree is retrieved from the wee corners of the basement, assembled, lit with twinkle lights, and adorned with trinkets.

 

 "Elf" became a family favorite years ago and ever since has been set to play in the

background during the festivities.

 

 By the time the New Yorkers in the movie start singing Christmas carols to keep Santa's sleigh afloat most of the decorating has been completed and a round of winter Oreos is enjoyed by all. Well, almost all. Our wee Bichon never seems to get his fair share in this department and he can't quite seem to figure out why...

 

.....especially since he always does his part to decorate the tree!



Patchwork Plans

 Up in the sewing nook earlier this week a very scary realization came upon me...

it's beginning to look

like the holidays

will be here

SOON!!!

 

 I'm hosting Thanksgiving this year and goodness knows there are a lot of rough patches all throughout the house that need to be put into an order of one sort or another.

 

 Now by no means do I expect complete perfection.

Realistically, if I can stitch up the rough edges I do believe I'll have a solid enough surface

upon which to stage not only that feast of thanks....

 

 ...but oodles of Christmas festivities as well!!!

 

 If someone had asked me last summer what I expected to be blogging about during the holidays I'd have optimistically said "Christmas in a Summer Cottage." Now such a thought has me laughing all the way to Savers every week as I continue dashing around in my declutter and donate phase. I've actually accepted the fact that the underling aesthetic of the house will be lacking when it comes time to deck the halls and trim the tree.

It won't be the end of the world.

 

 I'll simply bind things up as best as I can...

 

and make the best I can out of a very

Patchwork Christmas!

 



Made It Home

We had what turned out to be a wonderful white Christmas up in New Hampshire. It was just white enough to make it snow globe pretty but not drastic enough to cause complications. Such is, however, not the case with the storm currently creeping towards us. We are home now in time to avoid the foot or so expected just over the border from us but our local prediction for freezing rain and high winds has me fearing the worst.....power outage! Far more often than I care to remember, the loss of power has frequented our neck of the woods. Each "off the grid adventure" adds a lesson learned to our repertoire so that by now we've become expert power outage preppers! Candles and flashlights at hand....this one's easy. Charge cell phones....fairly obvious. Stock up on dry goods.....we're lucky to have a gas stove so soups and pastas are a breeze. DON'T stock the fridge.....this was a very expensive learning curve! Fill your car with gas.....I'd always heard this one but never really knew why until the time I didn't fill up and was embarrassingly surprised to realize stations without power could not pump gas into your car. Clothes washed and more importantly DRIED.....a washed load left in the washer is far from clean or fresh smelling several days later! Needless to say I'll be spending a portion of my evening washing, drying, folding, and keeping my fingers crossed it will all be for naught come tomorrow morning.....

 



Made By Our Very Own Elf

 Look what fell in our house today.....

 

 An abundance of snowflakes compliments of  child #3!

 

Yes, our youngest has what I do not.....an inexhaustible ability to engage in Christmas preparations round the clock! After donning his Santa hat, making these snowflakes, creating a family of snowmen sock puppets, and baking 6 dozen cookies he then wanted to shop for a few more presents to wrap! I on the other hand just wanted to take a nap.
 

Made My Bedtime

I truly don't know how Santa does it.....Christmas preparations are exhausting!

Off for an early meeting with the sandman and hoping for a fresh start tomorrow.....

 



Made Some Purchases

Shhhhh...don't tell but I've got a secret stash of goodies hidden in my trunk!

 

Made A Start

 Look ma, no tape!

 

I kid you not.....I have decided to go "tapeless" this year in the wrapping department and thus far I have to say I love it! My inspiration came from this post over Dottie Angel way. I too have oodles and oodles of magazines hanging about and thought how lovely it would be to put their pages to use as gift bags just like she did.  

 

 Unlike Dottie Angel, however, I am not a big fan of tape. It's either too shiny or too drab, it often sticks to itself and creates havoc with my patience, and sometimes it even smells. One of my least favorite parts of wrapping presents is in fact the balancing act of attempting to rip off a length of tape while folding and  holding the paper in place. And yet, for all the sticky malevolence it displays during this process, it's inability to hold bows and tags in place three days down the road is incomprehensible.

 

Thread, on the other hand, is my friend. We work and play well together and so it seemed quite logical to team up this year and try stitching the gifts into their wrappings.

 

 The magazine pages recycled quite nicely into gift bags by simply zipping up some zig zag stitches along the edges.

 

 Even more exciting was the discovery that I could go "tagless" as well by writing my messages here, there, and everywhere directly on the packages.

 

 For those gifts a bit too large for the standard magazine page I turned to some postal paper I had on hand, "appliqued" it with a few clippings appropriate to the gift, and zipped it up tidy. The bigger one here is for dear hubby and you can bet it has something to do with Paris inside!

 

 Again, no tags required.

 

While I'm sure there will be some challenges ahead I was heartened to discover a great length of burlap leftover from one of the kids long ago school projects. That stuff can cover just about everything, all you need is a bit of string to hold it in place.

Oh what fun!

 



Made a Wrapping Rescue Plan

One week to go.

Round about this time panic usually begins to set in and yet this year I find myself quite calm. I do believe it has something to do with the "genius" plan I have concocted for my wrapping adventures. It's something quite zippy and familiar and has me filled with high hopes for it's success once put to the test tomorrow.

Wish me luck !!!

 

 



Made a Playdate

It's not until the Christmas Dollhouse has been retrieved from the deep, dark corner of the basement that it truly feels as if the season is upon us. Once upon a time I was solely in charge of it's yearly interior decoration and let me tell you what a fuss pot I was about it. Not only were all the scale relationships in order and the colors coordinated but everything had to be placed just so. A place for everything and everything in it's place....year after year after year.

And then we had kids.

Tonight when the lids were lifted from the storage boxes I noticed how varied the contents had become over time. A fair share of official Dollhouse miniatures still remain.....on Etsy they would be considered "vintage" in age which is a really nice way to say they've definitely seen better days. The Fisher Price pieces that have wormed their way in, however, remain perpetually perky...boy does that plastic hold up over time! Dig a little deeper and you'll find a Calico Critter or two, an odd assortment of Playmobils, and a few Lego's to boot.

It wasn't until Child #3 came along that the real interesting additions occurred.....matchbox cars, plastic dinosaurs, pencil erasers, and stickers galore. And now this year the Luke Skywalker and Boba Fett figurines showed up looking to rent a room for the holidays!
 

Our favorite part is peeking in the windows to see how cozy it looks from outside. Child #3 took care of the kiddie rooms upstairs.

 



.....while I got to decorate the kitchen.

 



Now it's finally beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

 

Made Santa Cozy

It turned out to be a very good thing that my mom shared a bit of her holly with me the other day because when I went out to clip the boxwood branches I discovered dear hubby had trimmed them quite tidy (like within an inch of their lives tidy!) Worried the poor things will freeze out their without any extra layers I only dared snip the tiniest of sprigs. No matter, it was more than enough to make good ole St. Nick snug and cozy in his sleigh.

 

I was able to snag a few minutes after the dinner dishes for one more cuppa and a sliver of Dundee which proved the perfect ending to this St. Nicholas Day! The best thing about sitting there with my goodies was that I remembered something I saw earlier today and wanted to share with you....or at least those of you that might be interested in a turkey red antique tablecloth! One such cloth is being offered in a giveaway over yonder at Rookery Ramblings. I've already entered but if you've a hankering to do the same look no further than the top of my sidebar up there on the right. They offered a handy little button you could post and so I just did!

Good Luck!!!

 

 

 

 

Made In New Hampshire

Look what my mom gifted to me from the bush in her yard! Looks like my St. Nicholas table will be decorated with boxwood and holly come Thursaday. I can't wait!!!

 



Made Up The Tree

Yup we've got our tree all decked out. Unfortunately when we finally averted our eyes from it's glorious shimmer and glimmer it was only to discover we had somehow totally trashed the rest of the house in the process. Guess I know what's on the agenda for tomorrow!

 

 

Made An Announcement

One of my very favorite days is right around the corner. Can you guess what it is?

St. Nicholas Day!!!

 

In honor of this jolly old gift giver's special day we indulge ourselves in a few fun traditions. First of all we gather up some boxwood clippings to decorate the table with and bring this little fellow out of the china cupboard as our welcome guest for the month of December. After a meal by candle lite we share a pot of tea, slice into some Dundee cake, and help the kids set out their shoes by the door in hopes of finding a few trinkets dropped in by morning. Great Fun!

 

This year I'm going to add something else to the day. I had planned to participate in the whole Cyber Monday extravaganza by hosting a sale in the shop. Somewhere along the way, however, I got sidetracked and missed the event. I felt terrible but not for long because I realized I could still host a sale on another day of MY choice. And so I will come December 6th!!! I'll actually let it run for several days so everyone has a chance to peek through and perchance have a go at playing like St. Nick and stock up for some gift giving (even if it's to yourself!)

 



Made a Proclamation

 Goodbye Thanksgiving, Hello Christmas Countdown!

In preparation for the upcoming holiday hoopla I thought a workshop might come in handy. 

 

 The perfect location was no further away than our southern facing sun room.

 

 My co-Christmas elf extraordinaire even gets his own spot known from this point on as "Dear Hubby's Cubby!" While he may be lacking the instinct to feather his nest with seasonal bric-a-brac.....

 

.....his artistic talent was certainly out in full force!

 I on the other hand frittered away the afternoon with some serious doll play!

 

 And once I did finally settle down to work.....

 

.....it was only with an eye to clipping snippets.