Wow it's been busy around here, and this blog has taken a back seat to other more important issues....but I still plan to be back on a more regular basis soon! 

Happy Holidays from our home to yours!

 

Quiet

Are you enjoying the quiet of this holiday season?  Or are you overwhelmed by the noise? 

I am taking time away from the "have-to's" of the season and just enjoying the "want-to's" and spending quality time where it counts. 

With family.

With whatever feels fun.

With the things that do absolutely need to be done (we all need clean underwear)

With taking an early pickup from school today to travel to see Ghee-ghee (what my son calls my mom)

With not being stressed that my effort to make him a pair of pajama pants failed, but being happy that he will instead have a new fun pillowcase for his bed

That the decorations that didn't make it down from the attic will also not need to be put back up in the attic, and yet we still have the fun of the season in our hearts

That we can still get down and play Twister, although it is harder to get up

Quiet.

We have all had terribly tragic and sad reminders of how fragile life is. 

Take time for what's important.  Don't have the perfect gift? Give them a coupon for your time. 

If you don't hear from me for a bit, I'm in the floor playing Twister.  It's the most important thing I just have to do right now.

Seasons greetings, blessings, prayers and hugs.

Yup, I think I'm losing it....

First, my prayers are with the children and families connected to the school in Connecticut where the shooting has occurred.  This is unbelievable, and those families need our thoughts and prayers today and in the weeks and months to come.  Everything else is just, well, stuff. 


I used to be a big planner.  Then I met my husband, and he brought me from way-planner to more in the middle: go with the flow.  Yeah, I have a looonggg way to go, but I'm a lot better than I used to be!

I haven't planned a lot for this holiday season, but have made progress in a few areas: the quilt is done (with the exception of one correction I may make if I have time), cookie supplies are bought if not made, school volunteer activities and visits to family are on the calendar.  That's all good.

 Then I decided to make my mom a scarf for Christmas. I had a three hour volunteer stint at church last night while we keep the building open for students to study. I almost completed it!  So I got home at 11:30, watched the meteor shower for a bit, and then started on the second (both above). 

 I have one of three pairs of new pajama pants made...isn't this fabric cute?  For a few dollars (literally, $2-3 per pair) I can pick the fabric and make the pants for Carter....and the first pair only took me about 30 minutes.  I used an old pair and cut them up for the pattern, and used a current pair to make sure they fit him.  One down....two to go!

 

 

 And then, since the scarf making went so quickly last night, I made this mistake:

Don't ask...I'm not sure how many scarves are in the making in this pile!  I just keep thinking of one more person that would love a scarf, so hopefully the momentum will keep up. 

Yes, this is my desk.  I've had quite a few jewelry orders to get out this week (and a few more to go), and this is just a hint of how the rest of my house is faring in this last minute "oh-that's-a-great-idea" push before the holidays. 

So, what's on your list?

Quilt update: more Orioles magic

If you're new here, you might be wondering if we live in Baltimore for all the Orioles talk. No, we lived in Virginia, but the Baltimore/Maryland roots go deep on both my and my husband's sides of the family.  So of our son's three favorite teams, one is local (Go 'Hoos!), and the other two reside in Baltimore.

I asked him awhile back, if he were to ever have a quilt of one of his favorite teams, which would he want?  I'm glad I asked, because I would have been wrong!  Now I just hope he forgot that conversation, and I'm bubbling over with excitement to give him this gift.   It's getting there.  At one point I thought I might be up to the wee hours of Christmas morning finishing up, but I'm doing a lot better than that. 

 

That's a long way from here, right? 

And yes, puppy Nichole was asleep on it again today as I hand stitched the binding.  Only two more sides to go, and this puppy can be wrapped.  Well, the quilt. Not the puppy.  Although we have talked about a Christmas gift that was equipped with breathing holes in it, I don't think that will happen.  We do think the kitties would overthrow the current household if puppy #2 were to happen.

I am so happy I settled on the baseball trim for the binding...I wasn't sure when I bought it, but I love it!

Orioles-after-tastic!

Wow...life has been moving fast, and I just realized I was featured by Lindsay on Better After!  I just love her blog: every day is new motivation to create something new out of something old....and make it so much better!

Speaking of which, I am really behind in sharing this free-redo.  I stopped by our church one day, and this table needed a new home.  I loved it!  But it needed some love, and it was a great new addition to our basement "fan cave" type man cave. 

Sherwin Williams was a huge help, yet again, on helping me pick out a paint color.  This time I asked for "Orioles Orange", and the salesman and I picked out a few colors, but couldn't agree on one.  So he did the next best thing: he called the Baltimore SW store, and asked them what they sold for the Orioles orange...and voila!  It's perfect! 





 

Here we were after the first few coats (can you can see my first attempts at the "O" underneath which I then hid)

 

Then I laid out cardstock, and hand drew the "O" the size I wanted.   As is normal for the method to my madness, I was winging it at this point, and didn't have a great overall plan.  The great thing with paint is that it can be repainted and restarted at any point, so I just jumped in!  I cut out the inside part, and started filling that in with painter's tape.  My goal was to fill it in completely, so the O would stay orange, and I could paint around it with color #2.

 



the "O" cut out.....

filled in with painters tape

 

The I painted over the entire table top again.  This is a great tip for painting any time you use tape and want a perfect crisp edge: by painting over the tape, you seal the edges with the base color.  Any color that goes on top of this will not seep through the edge.  I know I know, good painter's tape shouldn't run, but I like to make extra sure.

 

The next color had to be black, both for the Orioles color and for Car's favorite all time favorite color.   I thought all black would be too much, so I settled for trying stripes.

 

When it was all striped with tape, I started in with the black paint.  At this point it was ....disheartening.

 

And then it got worse.

I let it sit for a while, and then started peeling off the tape to see the magic below.....

 

Here it comes!

.....keep watching....

Once all the stripes were removed, I started peeling back the original taped out "O's"

And Voila....A one of a kind fit-for-a-fancave O's table!

Christmas Ornaments Crafts

I love seeing people's Christmas trees that are decorated in themes, especially those in certain colors, my favorites being blue and silver. 

But that will never be our Tree!

We have too many sentimental and handmade ornaments, and I like to add to those each year.  One tradition we started for Carter was an ornament for each year that symbolized something from that year: a frog (preschool mascot one year), a baseball (first year of sports), a guitar (his latest passion) and so on.  We also have the normal "baby's first Christmas" and "our new house" ornaments.  I can't imagine having a tree without all of these memories!

I'm headed to the craft store to finally get some ideas going for some new ones this year, and also plan a craft for the MOPS meeting this week.  This is the idea I want to do, if I can find the spheres:

7layersstudio.typepad.com




....or this from leftover buttons....




And I know I have plenty of scrap beads and ribbon for these! 

Now off for shopping!