Tree

This was my favorite ornament on my mom's tree, I think its because I had princess on the brain from my daughter's 1st birthday party.

Makeshift Advent

Being at grammy's meant we had to leave the advent calendar. My boy had a hard time understanding it was getting closer to Christmas so we had to make an ad hoc advent at grandma's. And it true me form, I went over the top. Eight pieces of candy individually wrapped with ribbon, counting down the days to Christmas. The clothespins attach them to a ribbon behind. He loved it and had so much fun opening up all the presents. But I don't think I could do 24 presents in the future, after 8 presents I wanted to run away.

More Stockings

I also ended up making 5 stockings for a sister in law and her family, for the family gift exchange present. She left a comment years ago saying she liked them. You should be careful what you post on my comments. I have been slightly obsessed with tulle since my daughter came into the picture.

I'm always surprised what stocking ends up being my favorite for the year. This ended up being my favorite, I absolutely loved how the prints and the colors look together.

09 Stockings

Here are two stockings I made. One for my brother's girlfriend. He requested green.

And one for my cute nephew. I miss him, it is the first year in at least 5 years if not more, I'm not going to see my brother's family for at least part of Christmas. It is sad, I miss all of them.

I was a little disappointed that I couldn't get any stitching to show up on the stocking top. I also wanted yellow rick rack for the border, but couldn't find the right shade, and I was so tied to the idea of yellow that I bought bias tape to go under some red.

Princess Cake

For some strange reason I decided to make a fancy cake for a one year old. I know the logical thing to do would have been to make easy cupcakes, but yet the castle was calling my name. It knew even though I didn't think I would be good with a daughter, I am having way too much fun making princess cakes, putting my daughter in dresses and buying dolls. Oh don't forget ruffles. Anyway, here it is. I'm hesitant to post it, because it is quite pathetic looking. I got lazy, and didn't feel like spending two hours, covering the cake in green frosting vines, or pipping around the edges, so I put candy on it and called it done. The kids were excited about it, and that's all that matters.

This is one of her favorite toys, a Baby Gund Princes Playset. It has green vines on the sides. So I was going to copy that sort of, except mine was round (I wanted a 6 inch cake pan). I have a bowl of white frosting sitting in the fridge waiting to be turned blue. But she liked it all the same.

Monogram Pillow

I felt like I needed a plain simple monogrammed pillow, so I could fit into the craft blogging community. Clearly I embroidered myself.

Then I figured on the back instead of having it plain, might as well have a fancy H.

Another

Its Christmas again, and we are students again too

Feeling the downsize of an apartment from a house, I didn't set up much Christmas this year. I didn't feel like I had the room to do much more, and keep my sanity.
But finally my Christmas Quilt was ready to be hung up. Our stocking advent didn't seem to fit anywhere other than this wall. I love those little stockings!
We are back to our three foot tall mini Christmas tree hand me down from my grandma. Its a little homely, ie lopsided, but I think that is why my husband likes it. Only a portion of our ornaments fit, and even with a portion there is way too many. It started to fall over as my three and half year old stacked the front, so it is fully loaded in the back for balance too. With my tree nativity on the wall in the back, and a vintage Santa behind the tree. I love tree that are just chalked full of mismatched ornaments that all have a story to tell. I can tell you the origin and story behind every ornament we own. (I guess I should have posted the tree lit up, since the star is all lit up too.)
Our stockings are hung over the bookcase with care.
The small portion of decorations I put up that fit on my one flat space. Trees, nutcrackers, nativities, and a snowwoman.
The only other decorations I pulled out this year. I am oh so excited about my mistletoe ball. I have been looking for fake mistletoe to hang up ever since my husband and I got married, and this year while I was out with some sister in laws at a store I didn't even plan on going to, I found it!
That is it this year. But I love the little bit I did do so I had to take pictures. Oh I also put out the Nativity Pillows, which my baby is convinced is not a decoration but a toy on that belongs on the floor.

Christmas Craft

I only have one christmas craft this year. It is left over from years past, two rental housings ago. I finally finished it with the help of my mom. My Christmas Wall Quilt, it turned out way larger than I was originally planned, but I hate to waste material so this is how large it ended up.

Sewing Night

After I finished the Christmas dress, I was feeling insane from lack of sleep and made this for a little niece who was having a birthday. It turned out way better than I expected, and both my kids were pretty jealous it wasn't theirs.
When I only had 2 minutes left of sewing, I realized it was past midnight and my neighbors probably could hear my sewing machine. I'm sorry neighbors. I know what you look like, but don't know your names!
I also made a doll blanket. I have made a lot of doll blankets which I forgot to take pictures of before I wrapped, and ended all out of cute calicos, so instead I used pink plaid, with batting and ties. The other doll blankets are not so warm.

Christmas Dress

Long story short, I felt the peer pressure, no one meant to place on me and made a Christmas dress for my daughter. I didn't have a pattern and I made in one night with leftover material. Apparently the end result it terrible. She is so sad!

I personally think it turned out phenomenal for only one night of work, and no pattern.

Pieced together

I'm making my daughter a larger than baby sized blanket for her birthday. Here it is all pieced together.

I'm so proud of myself, I actually got some of the squares to perfectly line up in all four corners.

Voting Day Birthday

I made this for my mom for her birthday. Its one of my favorite sayings right now.

Neglected

My son was feeling neglected with all the Christmas present making that wasn't for him, and the birthday quilt making for his sister. He wanted another little pillow, with buttons. I boycotted the 15 buttons he wanted, but I put two on and made a donut pillow for him. He was so happy it was so quick to make, I did it while my husband was reading books to him for bedtime.

He arranged the pictures.

Trendy Star

Here is one of my new necklaces. I felt like I needed my trendy starfish. It was at all the stores, so I ended up buying it.

I love this necklace. Its thin, blendable, but colorful, its glass, metal, and pearls.

Spider Boy

After googling Halloween costumes, my son decided he wanted to be a spider. I thought that's easy, we already have a black sweat suit and everything. Unfortunately he got carried away in his planning. He wanted spider webs on his costume, and eight eyes.

It was a fairly simple costume, the web on the back was just time consuming. The two webs and eyes are hand embroidered.

Halloween Sewing

Yesterday I had fun sewing.
I made a Halloween apron. I think this is the end of the Holiday Aprons. Hooray. I am very excited about this apron, I used my birthday money to buy the material. (Life as a MBA student's wife makes the budget tight.)

I think I'm done with my Holiday Aprons.
I have:

• Valentine's
• St. Patrick's
• Easter
• Birthdays
• Halloween
• Thanksgiving
• Christmas

My son had been asking for me to make his something. And he especially liked this Halloween material he picked it out last year after Halloween on 70% clearance. The last halloween bag I made him is still too huge for him. So I decided to make him one his size.

I'm not sure why I make my child such fancy things. He couldn't care less, he probably would have liked a simpler bag-- ie the straps. Plus its fully lined inside. He asked for his name to be sewn on the bag. (The yellow material makes it look even fancier, but I used that to make it easier to embroider his name, the white would have shown my stitches and it would have taken twice as long to try to hid them.)

I tried to mimic the bag on the print of the material. That's why it has so many handles. When I asked him what he thought of the back, I expected him to say, "Probably good", that is what he usually says. Instead I got an "I don't know" and a look away. Sad, for me and my pride.

Brain Food

I signed up to bring two dozen pieces of desert for our church Halloween Party. I found brain cupcakes at Family Fun, and decided those would be quick and easy.

Mine don't look quite as Brain like as Family Fun, I don't know why? Maybe its because my frosting had too much liquid.

They were easy all things considering.

Punkin

My son was asking to make a pumpkin cake from the front of Family Circle Magazine. I didn't have round pyrex, so we just made a flat cake. I should have looked at the cover before decorating, it would have been easier to figure out the mouth. As you can tell my mouth had issues. After doing the black M&Ms, I realized the cake had plenty of sugar and didn't need the orange M&Ms. If you click to enlarge the photo you will notice my son added orange sprinkles for cheeks, and hair-- his idea. The "punkin" also has an orange M&M stem.

We made one round cake, and 12 cupcakes.

My son decorated all the cupcakes but one, this is my favorite one that he did. He then wanted to have a Halloween Party with his friends, which I was totally willing to oblige. He made the invitations, and I started planning, a Halloween Party for 6 Preschoolers, until I found out they all have swine flu. Does that mean we are next, it is harboring in our immune systems waiting to reek havoc? Only time will tell.

Here is our finished Pumpkin Army.

Dry Erase Cozy

My brother was around when I was making the crayon rolls, and got jealous of said crayon cozies and asked for a dry erase cozy for his business presentations.

He wanted a flap. He was a little picky but my mother was willing to oblige, she did most of the work.

This was WAY more work than four crayon rolls. Warning amateur sewers should not attempt this at home. Only with mothers on hand. Thank goodness I did it at my mom's house, with most of her work. I did make the M.

Crayon Cozies

My mom helped me make quite a few crayon rolls. Four to be exact, one for me, one for her, and two for presents. Did I ever post the colored pencil roll I made for the church bag? I didn't read the directions, it was way easier to do it with directions than otherwise. Even if it takes me longer to read the directions and finally understand the directions than to actually sew and cut something. (I'm bad with reading directions.)

I found them on my sister in law's friend blog, who got them for this blog.

If I would have thought about what I was doing, I would have made them longer and hold 24 crayons, all the boxes these days are 24. I got a box of 24 for $.25, how does that work?!?