kattitudes

Oh my, it was LOVELY!

I have not seen my only uncle and his wife, my dear aunt, for almost ten years. And my only remaining Grandmother - my precious, dear Grandmother - whom I absolutely adore and I do believe that the sun rises and sets upon her - visited also.

And yes, my Mister and I were able to wreak amazing transformations upon our home (now it is a home, no longer a house). Amazing. In fact, we are currently most of the way through a most unique infection that oh so many of you will recognize.

We have been calling it the “as long as we are here fever”. And that is truly the best description. I admit I suffer from a significantly higher degree fever than poor Mister, who simply has to keep up with the ever increasing list of “do you think we can get this done by tomorrow/this weekend/Thursday/March?”

“As-long-as-we-are-here fever” symptoms are varied from case to case, but all involve an invocation of differing varieties of the namesake phrase. Victims fall sick most commonly during a flurry of home improvement activities, and if proper precautions are not taken, inevitably, one or more of the participants will be heard to say, “you know, as long as we are here, we might as well (fill in the blank, which could include anything. Literally anything, including something innocent like changing the curtains in the room, or, in our case, painting the entire three floor house, steam cleaning the floors of all three levels of our home, changing all the window treatments, getting new furniture and rearranging through the house the furniture we did already own, and creating an entire new in-law suite for my wheelchair bound father on the first level of our home).

Yes, I believe that in retrospect I actually did achieve all my goals. I even recovered said ottoman I originally mentioned.

Lest I believe for one moment that I let crafting and creative pursuits slip by the wayside, I am proud to say that I finally (and I do mean finally) re-opened my eBay store. Tonight I am in the process of listing a number of the jewelry pieces that I have been making over the years. But I admit, I am having a new and unusual problem.

Does anyone else suffer from this problem? Having used so much of our budget to update the house, it is definitely time to contribute to the household budget as much as possible by selling some of my larger budget creations. But I am finding that as I prepare to list these on eBay, I just do not want to let them go. I have easily sold the smaller pieces without issues, but some of these pieces I just adore myself. There is the problem with making things that you love. It is hard to let them go!

On the flip side, if we do not let our creations go out into the world, then we would never have room for the next creation and the next, or the next challenge. So I guess it is just as well that I bid these pieces farewell and hope they go to a home where they will be as loved as they were with me. Oh, but I hate to see them go. Anyway, there are only so many pieces of jewelry one human being can logically (or tastefully) wear anyway (or so I keep reminding myself).

Now that the house has been internally remodeled, there is a new sewing place, so I hope to start listing some of my sewn creations along with the jewelry. My baby sister-in-law is preparing for her wedding in July, so we are still working on making so many of the things for that event. She has asked me to make the jewelry for all the bridesmaids and the groomsmen, along with her jewelry and whatever her groom will wear, so that is a combined total of jewelry for 22 people. I will have a lot of pictures to post for jewelry suggestions!

I hope you all had a fantastic Easter and the Spring season has sprung for you and yours in a wonderful way. There is a lot to do this time of year. Are you keeping your head above water?

And of course, as required by Universal Law, I had to get my yearly ick-fest- must- spend- a- few- days- under- the- weather- right- before- the- holiday out of the way before I could actually celebrate Christmas itself.

In fact, I think it is a Christmas tradition as much as Christmas itself. I am required by Universal Law to get sick. There is just not enough eyerolls around to deal with that.

But thank goodness that I get obsessive enough in advance that plenty enough gets done early that by the time we get to this point, I am well into the “meh, if it isn’t done by now, it didn’t really need to get done anyway”.

I am into my cruising into the holidays and loving it stretch. I love this part. The build up. My sister will be here early tomorrow morning. We spend the day cruising around getting the last few little diddle things - just enjoying the crazed atmosphere of the neighborhood. We always save Christmas Eve to get our stocking stuffers together. We will make one last run to the grocery store for the diddley snacky things we think we might want, but the big run gets done this afternoon (should have been finished Friday, but there was that whole sicky thing to deal with).

I will look through my arsenal and see if there are a few treats left to post or a few movies left to enjoy. There might be a quick gift or two to pump out if you are in need, but at this point, it is all about the enjoyment.

Sit back (or lean forward if you are that type of personality) and just breathe in the vapors. This is the good part. Enjoy the ride. Christmas is upon us. Savor it for all you are worth. These are the moments upon which memories are made. Make them good ones.

I just love the simplicity of a gift like this. And when I say simplicity, I mean wow. Wow, this takes a few minutes and the ability to install a snap in a ribbon.

This is a watch face that can be purchased at a thousand different craft or jewelry supply stores online or at your local malls or shopping areas. You can find the watch face findings literally in every craft supply store under the sun. Every one, bar none. And the same with the eyelet snap (and for the record, if you like the jeweled part, you will be looking for a rhinestone snap).

That is all this is.

A beautiful velvet ribbon this time.

An eyelet snap.

A watch face.

As an interesting variation, a second piece of velvet ribbon was used to make a bow, and then sewn onto the first ribbon as a permanent decoration. If you liked the idea, you could sew it on using regular thread, or if you were not sure, you could sew it on using a snap which means you could take it off or leave it on according to how you felt that day.

If you decided to use a snap, I would provide a decorative button or something along those lines with an additional snap on it to cover the empty snap on the ribbon, if that makes sense to you. Something so as not to just leave an empty snap sitting on the velvet ribbon all day.

Anyway, it would not take that long to put together some really spectacular watches for gifts for all your girlfriends. You could make a gift of one watch face with multiple ribbon watchbands so that your friend could change the band as her mood changes.

What a neat idea for a friend that changes her clothes as often as she changes her mind! And since you only need enough ribbon to go around a wrist, the cost would be minimal, which is perfect for our budget conscious Christmas plans.

If you are gifting jewelry for Christmas this year, so many searches have happened on my blog for wire wrapping briolettes. I think that the briolettes are starting to get a little dated, and that is perfectly fine. They are still gorgeous stones without a doubt, but I also think that it is time to start expanding a little from the standard single briolette on a strand and hold the catsup, no mustard, if you know what I mean.

Even this minor variation is a nice change. The three briolettes are in the same color family, but vary enough in the size to make the visual punch capture your eye immediately.

One other distinction about this particular piece is that the wire wrap is not obsessively neat. There is an artistic messiness to the wrap job, as if to emphasis that a real live person or artist did this work, rather than a machine in the outbacks of some factory somewhere.

So, do not be afraid of making your jewelry look a little funky and a little off the track unusual. It is that unusual look that makes your pieces memorable and makes people really search through the jewelry box to find that “really neat piece that Cousin Susie made for me that one year”.

This just cracks me up! I used to look for a fireplace in all my apartments. Then I got married and the Mister and I bought a house.

And we bought a house in the deep South where (while some people do have fireplaces) most of us get stuck with gas fireplaces and electric fireplaces. I guess developers steered clear of putting in actual places of burning fire in their houses because it is so danged hot around here, the thought of adding more heat to an already depressingly hot season just seemed impossible.

That leaves us forlorn without the snap, crackle and pop of a real fire come the cold winter nights when you want to gather around the Christmas tree and look at the twinkling of the lights on the tree and watch the magic of the lights in the fireplace.

I miss those things.

And since I missed them …. I went to go find them.

God bless Al Gore and his invention, the internet (yes, my tongue is planted firmly in cheek, peoples). For without Al Gore and his internetual invention, I never could have found this:

The Christmas gathering for one side of the family is this Sunday. That means that by noon on this Sunday, I have some twelve (is it twelve? I have to count now…nope, it is thirteen) handmade gifts done and ready.

Amazingly, as of tonight, I think I am about ready. This is an extraordinary year. This year, I made my choice that I was going to make everything. And I pushed my envelope with a number of items. I worked into the jewelry arena in areas I had not explored previously and I am honestly just thrilled how they turned out.

Come Monday, I will post the photos of what I did and the final result, since by that time the gifts will have already been gifted. At that point, I have to work on my other mother in law (very important to make her a wonderful piece of jewelry as she has been through a lot and I want her to have something very nice) and I get to work on gifts for my sister and my husband. Those are always my favorite gifts to work on, as they can be as outlandish as we want. The two of them are always wonderful sports and are willing to put up with wild craziness all in the name of creativity.

Oh, I love Christmas! I love getting to be creative and getting to share that creativity with others! I cannot wait to post photos of the gifts I made on Monday. I want to share what I have done and hopefully inspire some of you to do the same.

Best wishes. I am off to finish some of the detail work on a few of the gifts. Lots of detail work yet to go, so busy busy work tonight!

This is a great way to enjoy the anticipation and buildup to Christmas (particularly if you do not already have an advent calendar).

Easy to make, this is just a nicely decorated word document printed out and then hand decorated with tinsel and glitter and ribbon. Then each day, the appropriate card is hung on the bedroom or front door knob so that the kids know how many days are actually left before Santa actually pays them a visit.

Like I said, many homes already have an advent calendar in play, but I guess I am of the old school that says that you can never have too many countdowns for the moment when Santa comes to visit.

And besides, this gives the kids something fun that they can keep track of on their bedroom door. You can even have them help decorate the cards so they know what to expect.

If you are looking for a fantastic (and free) way to decorate your home for Christmas (or for the winter season) I saw these at some online store (I think it was Target, but I cannot remember now). I remember being absolutely captivated by the idea! These are hand drawn snowflakes. What an amazing idea! And more importantly for my purposes, what an easily reproduceable idea. This is definitely something that I could do to decorate my house.

Remember learning as a child how each snowflake is unique? Well here, the artist took the time to draw individual snowflakes and pop them into a frame to really make them stand out.

That is something that we can do to dress up the house ourselves (if you have the smallest amount of artistic talent). If you do not have any artistic talent, do what I do. Find the nearest three year old and ask them for their interpretation of the drawing. For some reason, no matter what drawing I am looking for, when a three year old does it - it always ends up looking absolutely perfect.

Have you seen all the empty glass ball ornaments available absolutely everywhere? Every time I look at them, I actually freeze up and get stuck for ideas with which to fill them.

BHG had a nice series of how to use up old and tired ornaments and this idea was included in there. I love the idea of using the focus of snow quite literally, from the fake snow filling the ornament to the silvery snowflake adorning the sides of the ornament. Oh, such a beautiful idea!

And again, as I have said in the past, do not forget that there are still a number of Secret Santa opportunities and hostess gift and small thank you gifts ahead of us this season yet. This would be a fantastic way to fill that need.

Every time I see these, I want to experiment with them. I think that the fleece might not be quite as forgiving as the felt that I have gotten so into the habit of working with, but I think that might just be a good thing actually. It is nice to branch out.

And branching out in the midst of my Christmas stocking collection is always appropriate; particularly when that branching out takes me away from the ever onward march of the ubiquitous felt fabric. Love it as I do, even I am getting weary of it.

This is just a basic stocking to duplicate. Nothing particularly fancy. The shape is pretty stocking standard (with a little kicky difference in the heels which makes the personality in this particular design). You can always enlarge the photo significantly and use that to cut out your fabric if you felt like you needed a hand with the basic shape.

Also, the cuff is getting easier to find in the trim section of the fabric store. The nice thing about these is that they are being sold just as is by the yard. All you need do is purchase and sew it right on to the stocking. This goes for so many of the big cuff trims that are out there now a days. Goodness it makes stocking sewing so much easier!