Christmas Time

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6

Here are some images from our handmade Christmas:

Love,

xoxo

The Stockings Were Hung

All of my busy preparations are nearly finished! Here are the stockings that I made for my kids yesterday and today.

I tried to capture each of their personalities but still be Christmas-y.

It sure is a good way to use up some scraps and not very hard at all!

Merry Christmas!
Love,

xoxo

What a Doll!

I'm sorry I haven't blogged in awhile, but Christmas is coming! I have barely turned on my computer in the last few days. My little Anna decided in the last two weeks that she wants an American Girl doll. The requirement has always been that her room has to be kept clean. Well, it's been spotless for two weeks now. I didn't want to buy an expensive doll, so I looked on ebay. I finally won an auction at the last second, and for only $50! I think God was looking out for me. Some of the naked ones were going in the $90s and higher. Anyway, Anna loves dressing up and sparkles, so I took this Olympic doll and transformed her into the doll in the top picture. Do you like her? Emilie hates to be left out, so we bought her a Gotz doll (very similar looking, way less money) and I made the same dress for her and then one for each of the girls. Oh what a happy Christmas morning we will have! Lots of pictures of all the girls in their dresses coming soon.

And here are five more reusable grocery bags. I'm kind of sick of making those. I'm still hoping to make three stockings and bind my quilt. Then I'm taking a big break. Except for a dress I'm making myself for New Years. But then definitely a break. Maybe I'll feature the people in Creations Gallery on here for a little while.

Bless you all! Merry Christmas!

Love,

xoxo

All Wrapped Up

Yes~ at last I have finished my children's Christmas presents! Oh, don't get me wrong. I have lots of projects to go here in my last week, but this is done. Oh so beautifully done. I hope they fit. Anna has requested over and over again a pink robe. I made these from flannel and minky. How I hate working with minky. Fuzz everywhere, even up my nose. Anyway, I hope they fit and I love them. They are so soft. I'd love one myself but I am not willing to deal with any more minky!!! I couldn't find a lined robe pattern, so I bought an unlined one and sort of improvised. Hope you like them. When will they develop Feel-o-vision? I wish you could feel their incredible softness.

Take care!

Love,

xoxo

Tote It!

So, do you have a few extra friends you need to make Christmas gifts for? Why not make reusable grocery bags? While you're at it, make five and then register at Sew Mama Sew to win products from Fiskars. The link is right at the side of this post and several patterns are posted on their site. I'm not the most environmental girl, but this makes sense to me. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Love,

xoxo

All Dolled Up

And they made upon the skirts of the robe pomegranates of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and twined linen. Exodus 39:24

My niece has one of those American Girl dolls, but hardly any clothes. So here is her Christmas present. I went a little crazy. Pajamas, capris, sweats, jeans, and some cotton pants. Plus matching shirts. I hope she'll love them!

Isn't this the most precious Nativity? My little Nathan is the donkey on the left side of the front row. They also dressed up to sing. See him below in his daddy's old suit?

My handsome young man!

Love,

xoxo

Snowed In

Live in peace with each other. 1 Thessalonians 5:13

My best girlfriend asked me to make a stocking for her darling baby girl. All her stockings are made from an old quilt that her great-grandmother made. Isn't that wonderful? I think this is just the best idea. I didn't make up the pattern or anything, just copied one of her others. I don't think my great-grandmother made quilts, but if yours did, and you have one that's not really useable anymore, you should do this. What a beautiful keepsake!

Around here, it's been snow, snow and more snow. It's our fourth storm of the year so far. And when it snows, we get stuck here for days. (Isn't it beautiful?) It's been three days since I've seen anyone but a child or my husband. He has a big pickup, so he can get out.

What do you do when you are cooped up? Here's what we've been doing:

Decorating another tree (I told you I buy lots of Christmas decorations after Christmas!)

Learning to weave.

Stringing beads for necklaces and bracelets.

Here are the products of their labor.

Love,

xoxo

A Great Day and Giveaway Results

Let's just start with some pictures of Creations Gallery's Christmas Open House. It was such a fun day. We had four guest vendors for the day: a seamstress, a beader, a baker, and a rope artist. You can see a couple of them below.

And now, for what you've all been waiting for, them winners! First place goes to:

Wrongtree 09 said, Thanks for the super giveaway. As a former Kansan, I really appreciate the beautiful photo in your blog's header! This is the Moda Bake Shop ensemble I designed and includes the chef's hat, apron and two play oven mitts (not pictured.) Child not included.

Erica said, What beautiful children you have <3 Erica gets to choose a matching child's and doll's apron. It doesn't have to be one of this, but can be.

inertiaflux wins third prize for being a follower. I couldn't find a comment, but thanks so much for following! This is a goody assortment from Creations Gallery. It includes three ornaments (star, peace, and spool), two fabric gift bags, a picture frame, apple soap, and 1/2 pound of toffee.

Tonya said, congrats on being a moda designer, that's awesome and even better 100 post. great job. And Tonya wins fabric from my stash.

Congrats to everyone! Thanks for following to all of you who do. And thank you all for your kind comments. I promise I read them all. I responded to many but could not get to all of them. Merry Christmas!
Love,

xoxo

Prize Day is Coming

Just wanted to take a second and show you better pictures of my new second prize! You could choose the child/doll apron combo like this. Yummy! Anna Maria Horner Drawing Room. Or any of these:

Scroll down to enter the drawings -- but hurry! Contest ends Sunday night!

Do you not know that in a race, all the runners run but only one gets the prize? Run then in such a way as to get the prize. 1 Corinthians 9:24

Love,

xoxo

One Hand, One Heart

In honor of Sew, Mama, Sew's Giveaway Day, I am including my current giveaway! But to sweeten the deal, I am now adding another prize. Second place is now a child's apron with a matching doll-sized apron in your choice of color! First place is still the Moda Bake Shop ensemble. Third is now a gift box of goodies from Creations Gallery, my mortar and bricks store in Colby, Kansas. And fourth place is a good chunk of fabric from my personal stash. Whoo hoo! Merry Christmas to you! The winners will be chosen at random from random.org. I am extending the giveaway to midnight on Sunday, December 6 and will draw on Monday the 7th. Just leave me a comment on this post. Don't leave it on today's or you won't be entered! Just click the link, or scroll down two posts to the one with all the comments already. Good luck! I'm having so much fun hearing from everybody.

Here is my new matching child and doll apron:

Although a bit big for my sweet little Anna, isn't this so cute? It's completely reversible and has two pockets. So is the doll's.

So, today is my 9th Anniversary! (well, almost today as it is the 1st when I'm writing this) I can't believe how fast the time has flown by. Three completely horrible pregnancies with wonderful outcomes and a six year house building project later, here we are. It hasn't been ALL good, but most of it has.

I was thinking of the funniest thing that's happened in our marriage. It sure didn't seem funny at the time, but now it does. Well, we had just moved in to this house, which means we had been working on it for a little over a year. We were worn out. Worse, Todd hates spiders. Earlier that day, he called me over because I don't get too worked up over spiders and showed me on in our window well the size of his hand.

This is not the spider, but a similar one I found at http://www.arachnology.be/pages/wolf

Anyhoo, he was already worked up. Then this awful smell started emanating from our basement. It was the first of many times this happened. I went down to investigate. (It turned out our plumber -- one of the few people hired to work on our house besides us -- had forgotten to glue the pipes together and sewer gas was leaking from the vent pipes. This is beside the point and took many years to figure out. We had to tear down finished walls to fix this. Auggg!) So, Todd was worn out. I had just gotten six-month-old Nathan to sleep. I tiptoed down to the basement in my bare feet and pajamas. And in this dimly lit room, I see something HUGE and furry moving. It's not six feet away from me, the HUGEST centipede I have ever seen. I am barefoot. In my quiet not to wake the baby but fully terrified voice, I scream-whisper for Todd. He is irritated but comes down and is nearly as freaked out as I am, but does manage to kill the beast.

Again, not us. It's from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/4201634.stm

I actually think ours was bigger. No joke.

Did I mention that our dog Ralphie was sprayed by a skunk that week and came streaking through the house. Anyway, Todd, overcome with emotion, says, "Let's get out of this Jurassic Park!" Oh, I still laugh thinking about it. And we did get out. For three days we lived with my in-laws while getting the courage to go back to Jurassic Park. Or possibly because of the smells. We sort of disagree on that. I've never seen anything like it before or since.

I love you, honey. Thanks for putting up with me all these years. Especially all the sewing. And the store. And when I can't get pictures to work and stay up late working on them. You are truly the best thing that's ever happened to me and my best friend as well.

Love,

xoxo