After Christmas Backlog

I have some wonderful Christmas presents and ideas to share with everyone, but I've been super busy, especially since we just had our family Christmas gathering yesterday!
So, since I don't have time to write out a post for that just yet, I thought I'd share a couple pics of my Christmas Bostons. 
Trust me when I say Santa Paws was very good to these two lil terrors...errr...terriers.

Here's Jovi, our youngest wearing her new Christmas pajamas that she plain hates, but she knew she was not getting a dingo without posing for at least one pic with them on:

And then of course we have Princess Blair who is twelve, cranky and doesn't let that missing eye slow her down even a little.  She hates this Santa suit, but we still make her wear it for 5 mins every Christmas.  We did compromise and not put the booties on her this year:

I'll be back soon with more actual crafty stuff, I promise!!
Always,
K

Good Wreath, Bad Wreath

Who knew there could be such a thing, right?  I thought all wreaths were happy, pretty decorative love.  Not so.  Not so at all, my friends.

Let's start with the good wreaths because they make me quite happy.  These matching little darlings are going to hang on either side of the steps leading up to my front door.  These were so easy it literally took me 10 minutes. 

Believe it or not, they are just dollar store wreaths.  I hot glued mini ornaments from Target and tied and bow and viola'!  The thing that took the longest was making dollar store wreaths look like wreaths and not like a piece of wire with green spokes sticking out.  I'm really in love with them!

Now, on to bad wreaths.  You know all those gorgeous wreaths you see on Pinterest and Flickr that say things like "this was so easy to do"  and "OMG, this just came together naturally".  Well, they're lying.  Or maybe not lying...maybe it's like childbirth, a few hours after the baby is born and is healthy and swaddled up cooing at you, you forget that you just ejected that living being from your body.  Perhaps these wreaths look so darn cute afterwards that you suddenly forget all the burnt fingers from hot glue, the way the bulbs will not and do not just settle into place and no part of making it was fun.  Not a dang part.

I will never forget.  I will never make another one.  Maybe I'm a little bitter because mine does not look darn cute.  It's more oblong than circular and the stupid coat hanger shows through.  I knew about 1/4 of the way through that I was going to hate it, but I was committed to finishing.  I've been working on it for two weeks now, just so you know.  And I cheated and had J cut the stupid clothes hanger down today so I could stop adding balls and just finish it. 

So fair warning...don't expect cute.  Expect done....and maybe passable from a distance:

I'm almost embarrassed to show it.  Can you see the white coat hanger showing in places.  No one said that would happen.  No one.  I am going to fix that because it's driving me crazy, but I'll be hot gluing a couple of baby ornaments on there, not feeding them onto some stupid dumb coat hanger that would probably be happier still hanging in my closet unused.

So anyway, that was my crafty day, how about yours??

Always,

K

More Pink Christmas

Yes, I'm still obsessed with my styrofoam trees.  This one was actually made last year, but not finished in time for Christmas. 

I simply took the idea of the fabric Christmas ornaments that I had been making for gifts for a few years and adapted it to the cone. 

Here is a few of the ornaments I couldn't seem to part with.  I keep them out year round in a big cookie jar.

Today we're decorating the house and watching a marathon of Harry Potter movies that we DVR'd.  I hope to get some baking and Christmas crafting in also.  Looks like another late night for me!

And better late than never I'm linking to Thrifty Thursday's on Quilted Cupcake!

Always,

K

Christmas Flag

I'm not sure If I ever got around to posting my Christmas Flag last year, so as I just dragged it out from the cave of my basement I decided to post it.  I just used sturdy canvas and machine appliqued the trees on.  The first pic is before it was exposed to the elements:

The next pic is after it had been outside for awhile.  The rain and snow caused the fusible adhesive I used to crinkle the trees and border a bit, but I liken it to a nice crinkly quilt after free motion quilting and washing.  **Note that the flag is situated under a covered porch and only indirectly gets wet**

Hope you like it!

Always,

K

Homespun Holidays

I am a huge fan of Allison over at Cluck Cluck Sew.  She does amazing work and has awesome ideas.  Two years ago she had a tutorial for a Copy Cat Scarf based on one she saw at The Gap.  My sister made me one for Christmas that year and it's still one of my favorites.

I decided to make the scarf for some quick gifts this year and am so glad I did.  The hardest (and by hardest I mean most time intensive) part is the fringing.  I sewed one up yesterday to make sure it turned out right after washing before doing the other 6 I have planned to make.

Here it is fringed but not yet washed:

After a quick wash and tumble in the dryer, here it is all fringy:

And a close up of the fringing:

I'm so happy how it turned out and am off to make the other 6.  I hope to have them all sewn and ready for fringing before the Ravens game today so I can do all that tedious fringing while watching the Ravens stomp the Browns!

Think I can do it, the game is in 3 hours?  (I wouldn't place money on it, I'm horrible at time management!)

Always,
K

Thrift Store Score

As I mentioned yesterday, my sister's and I were getting together on Black Friday to craft.  We had a great time, even if we barely got anything done!  We decided we needed to go shopping, which threw off most of our crafty time, but I got a bunch of goodies from the thrift store so that made me happy. (And of course the bonus was that even though we didn't craft much, we did spend time together and that was what was most important!)

One of my favorite finds was this Candy Cane Softy.  As a lover of anything polka dots this was right up my alley.  It was in great condition, but I wasn't loving the lace.

After a bit of pretty white rick rack and 5 minutes of my time, it looks much better and is all ready to hang....somewhere!

I also scored a free 6' bookshelf compliments of my sister.  It was headed to the thrift store and her wonderful hubby (Mr. Cupcake) and my nephew finagled it into the back of my Rodeo so that I have more fabric storage in my studio!
Today I'm going to attempt to make the Tulle Tutu Tree from the tutuorial on Quilted Cupcake.  I got the prettiest vase to use as the base!  We'll see how that goes, I've never worked with Tulle before!
Always,
K

My Not-Quite-Martha Mat

When I first saw this awesome door mat a la Martha Stewart over at Say Yes to Hoboken, I was immediately in love.  I was going to make that mat! 

I ran to Home Depot the next day and had the nicest boy cut my wood for me.  Hmmm, the sizes Martha suggests for the length would cover my whole tiny porch!  No problem, I'll improvise and lay my slats length-wise.  Spray paint?  Those are some pretty cool colors, I'm going to get each of them.  Check.

Then, I left all of those pretty colors at my sister's house for, oh say about 6 months?

Not being known as a big improviser (or being known for improvising or coloring outside of the lines EVER) I took this opportunity to give it a try.   I'm not completely pleased with the results, but I am very happy that I did at least complete the project.  I ended up using it indoors by my basement door since I didn't get as far as weather proofing it..

I still have another set of 8 slats that I'm going to do another mat with...maybe go for all the same color or one or two colors instead. If I get the motivation up I may do a blue/gray combo for winter.

Tomorrow I'm off to craft with my sisters for the day....I can't wait!

Always,

K