kattitudes

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.

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!

I love this! Here is another way to use the brightly colored handkerchiefs that are left over from Grandma’s stash of hankies (if you are not actually using them as hankies). And if you are lucky enough to actually find real hankies in the store, you can grab the brightly colored visual eye candy to carry out this type of stocking delight.

I love the use of heavy fleece fabric for the stocking body. Nice and simple, but then using the brightly colored pop of a Christmas handkerchief for the POP of the cuff. What a fantastic way to offset the plain color of the rest of the stocking. The combination really makes the whole stocking sing.

Now here is a lovely stocking. With just the judicious use of thread applied in the right places, you create the illusion of a whole heck of a lot more in depth embroidery work than was actually done.

And honestly, as lovely as the floral work is (and it truly is) if you are not up to the additional work, you can leave it off. The main trick is to get the toe and boot trim finished as that is what will offset those sections from the rest of the Christmas stocking.

All in all, really a nice Christmas stocking, particularly for adults who like to hang a Christmas stocking, but do not necessarily want or need the full standard 18 inches to have to fill with all types of silly little stuffers from all around the house.

I really like the smaller Christmas stocking. I was not sure at first, as with my stocking obsession, I usually like to see full sized, but the more I see these, the more they have grown on me.

I also love the idea of making a number of stockings in this size to keep around and on the tree. They would be perfect to keep on the tree and near the kitchen to pack with warm cookies and quick kitchen presents for people that stop without a lot of advanced warning.

Plus, they are just darned cute.