kattitudes

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.

This is absolutely not a handmade item, nor is it an inexpensive gift, but it is an adorable gift and an oh so comfortable gift. Yes, we own them. And yes, every time they are worn and seen around our house, someone inevitably asks where they were found. As a result, I have learned to keep the information close at hand.

There is just something about recapturing the comfort of your childhood by wearing the warmth and fuzziness of a footed sleeper. It is fantastic. Yes, hot as the dickens, but wonderful nonetheless. I bought one as a Christmas present for my Mister when we lived in London. He complained nonstop about freezing to death at night. I thought it was a right hilarious joke. He thought his throat would have to be cut before he wore it. However, on nights when the thermometer dipped below freezing literally, I noticed it was pulled out of hiding to keep warm.

If you have a prankster in the family that might appreciate the return to childhood, this would make an incredible Christmas present. Yes, the price tag can get hefty, particularly when you add up the cost of multiple outfits to make an entire family match.

Around my house, I started a tradition long ago. Everyone that stays the night on Christmas Eve gets new Christmas pajamas for good looking pictures on Christmas morning. However, you have to open them Christmas Eve and wear them. I was thinking about getting everyone footed pajamas this year for those that will wake up in our house on Christmas morning. My problem is that I wonder how much I would have to pay my Mister to actually go through with it. We are still in the midst of a drought here in hot Georgia state, so I cannot exactly count on the cold weather to get him to cooperate this time around. I might have to start spiking the egg nog early. Early and strong. It could be my only hope.

via Pajama City

This handy clip, made from a clothes pin, is one of those all inclusive handy dandy household helpers. At Christmastime, there is so much that needs clipped and put up around the house that it makes sense to have some lovely ways to suspend decorations, cards and more all around the place.

This just needs a clothespin and some bells. Both can be purchased at your local crafts store or even your local grocery store as long as your local grocery store is an all inclusive type.

Another nice thing about this particular craft is that it can span the seasons. It is easy to change the ribbon and the season focus. This would also be a neat way to attach a card or what have you to a Christmas gift as a tag holder - as an embellishment to hold the to/from tag.

Lots of possibilities with this particular little clip. There is just so much you could do with it. I think that I might just find myself making a number of these Saturday night in preparation for Sunday’s party! If for nothing else, I can use them to decorate and embellish gifts.

Isn’t this lovely? And such a simple construction, but it ends looking so complex. The bracelet is just a single strand of beadalon, with the main focus of large beads of rose quartz capped with antiqued silver bead caps. These are set off with alternating garnet and moonstone rondelles. The smaller size really serves to contrast against the bulk of the rose quartz stones.

The beadalon is finished with a few silver beads to tidy up and a simple crimp bead to keep everything in place. And with the size and weight of the rose quartz stones, the heft of the bracelet is certainly enough to safely support a toggle clasp.

This would make a fantastic Christmas present (but the focus on Christmas is because we are quickly walking up to the holiday here). In reality, this bracelet would make a lovely reminder of how much you love someone for any number of occasions. Birthdays, anniversaries, christenings, really - any type of celebration. I need pretty much no excuse to make a piece of jewelry.

Having said that, I will admit that this week is wearing me thin. I am going to a Christmas party this upcoming weekend and I am trying to finish about twelve handmade gifts before Sunday. For the most part, I have a handle on them (most are jewelry, of course), but still… nothing like pressure to get things done, you know?

I just cannot wait for Christmas to get here to post this. I love this movie too much. It is one of my absolute favorite Christmas moments. I watch this over and over.

Now you can watch it too.

There have been a number of requests, both here and via email, for the marshmallow fluff fudge recipes that I use. Honestly, they are nothing special. I use the recipes from the back of the Fluff bottle, but rather than use the plastic Fluff, I use my homemade Fluff recipe instead.

Remember that the homemade marshmallow creme (fluff) does not have the preservatives that the canned Fluff has plus it has egg whites, which means that it must be stored in the refrigerator.

Regular Fudge

1 1/3 cup sugar
1 jar (7 1/2 ounces or 1 cup) marshmallow fluff
2/3 cup evaporated milk
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup coffee liqueur
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate bits
1 cup milk chocolate bits
2/3 cup walnuts (if desired)
1 teaspoon vanilla

In a 2-quart pot, combine sugar, Fluff, evaporated milk, butter, salt and coffee liqueur. Over low heat, stir until mixed. Bring to full boil over medium heat and boil for 5 minutes stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in chocolate, nuts and vanilla until mixed. Pour into buttered 8 x 8-inch pan. Makes about 2 1/4 lbs.

“Never Fail” Fudge

2 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick butter or margarine
1 can (5.33 ounce or 3/4 cup) evaporated milk
1 jar (7 1/2 ounces or 1 cup) Marshmallow Fluff
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 12 ounces package semisweet-chocolate pieces
1 /2 cup chopped walnuts

Grease a 9-inch square baking pan; set aside. In large saucepan combine first 5 ingredients. Stir over low heat until blended. Heat to a full-rolling boil being careful not to mistake escaping air bubbles for boiling. Boil slowly, stirring constantly, 5 minutes. Remove from heat, stir in vanilla and chocolate until chocolate is melted. Add nuts. Turn into greased pan and cool. Makes 2 1/2 pounds.

Peanut Butter Fudge

2 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 stick butter or margarine
1 can (5.33 ounce or 3/4 cup) evaporated milk
1 Jar (7 1/2 ounces or 1 cup) Marshmallow Fluff
3/4 teaspoon salt
9 ounces peanut butter (creamy or chunky)

Grease a 9-inch square baking pan; set aside. In large saucepan combine first 5 ingredients. Stir over low heat until blended. Over medium heat, bring to a full-rolling boil being careful not to mistake escaping air bubbles for boiling. Boil slowly, stirring constantly, 5 minutes. Remove from heat, stir in peanut butter until blended. Turn into greased pan and cool.
Makes 2 1/2 pounds.

For those that are looking for how to wrap a briolette stone, consider using something like this instead. Rather than a briolette, a top drilled pearl has been used in place.

Top drilled pearls are becoming quite easy to find, particularly in my favorite supply place: eBay. Yes, I have much better supply places as a bench jeweler, but for the most part, I do pick up so many of my supplies there.

The more expensive pieces and the higher quality pieces I generally purchase at my jewelers supply houses, but for the most part, so many of the parts that I buy, I can purchase cheaper in bulk on eBay. Keep that in mind if you are making jewelry as gifts this Christmas. I am and I just stocked up on new bits and bobs, parts and pieces for all my planned pieces. Now I have little bits of jewelry parts spread all through the different parts of the house as I walk around working on my Christmas gifts.

Anyway, back to this piece. Briolettes are slowly getting played out. Not to say they are not still beautiful, because they are definitely still that. It is just that it is time to expand beyond just a briolette.

This pearl is a great beginning. It is the same style as the gorgeous single briolette pendant, down to the wire wrap and everything. But instead of the briolette, the pearl has been drilled in the style of a briolette (top drilled) and hung as if it were a briolette stone. Nicely done.

If you cannot find a top drilled pearl, you can actually purchase an undrilled pearl and take it to your local jeweler and ask the bench jeweler to top drill the pearl. Make sure to specify to top drill so that they know not to center drill. If you feel like you might not explain it well, simply print out this picture and take that in to show the jeweler. The drilling is an extremely simple thing, and should cost you next to nothing. There should only be a minimal charge for time. And most jewelry stores will sell single pearls too, so if you want to get your hands on a nice quality single pearl to make a pendant necklace like this, you could make it a single stop shopping trip.

The wire that you use to wrap and create the loops (making basic rosary loops) is always available in different diameters, in addition to different metals (gold, silver, copper, all types of base metals and even platinum if you have the chump change for that at almost $1,500 an ounce these days) so you can easily find the right wire to fit the drilled hole. If you feel like it, there are even different color base metal wires available at the craft stores now. You could have a lot of fun mixing and matching colors pearls and colored wires for some amazingly different pendants.

Oh what a wonderful and simple handmade Christmas ornament. Yes, if you wanted, you could go to the store and pay the silly amount that is being requested for this, but why? Seriously. Why on earth.

This is white paint on a plain, solid color Christmas ball ornament. There are so many zillions of snowflake shapes available online that you do not even need to worry about remembering how to paint snowflake shapes. You can just look them up online and copy what you see. How much easier can it get?

And if you absolutely hate the paint that is out there, you can get out the old whiteout that you used to use with typewriters. Man, that stuff worked like a charm! It even has a built in paint brush. I still have a couple of bottles of that stuff knocking around the house somewhere. It would make a perfect paint for these.

These hand painted ornaments are just so easy to make that you can take a few minutes and dress up some of the plain ornaments that are on your tree. And we still have Secret Santa gifts and hostess gifts throughout the season, so you might keep these in mind as a simple yet elegant gift to pass along.

Fridays. Frightdays. Oh, I just love them.

If you have been to Kattitudes before on Fridays, you know the sole purpose Fridays serve.

Frightday night. Movie night. Blah blah, dogs, Mister, sofa, takeout, Boogyman du Jour. Creepy bad movies. Illegal in 17 states. If you haven’t heard the shpiel, search Frightday Night and you can read the extended explanation.

With Will Smith’s movie “I am Legend” on the way, I thought it might be very interesting to see the original. Well, that is not quite accurate. Let’s see:

The original was Richard Matheson’s science fiction classic “I am Legend”, later remade as “The Omega Man” starring Charlton Heston. “The Last Man on Earth” starring Vincent Price was in there somewhere, so that makes Will Smith’s upcoming movie …. a remake of a remake of a remake of a scifi story.

Phew. That ought to be interesting. Oh well, I plan on seeing it anyway. It is science fiction, it is Will Smith, and it is a classic story. Sounds good to me.

If this is not my very favorite embroidery pillow yet, it is right up there. I love the variety of different symbols used to represent each different letter in the word Christmas.

And so that you can see the detail better, you can click on the picture to see it up close.

Honestly, this is the type of thing that I would not waste on just a simple pillow. I would put this all over lots of things, but my preference is on clothing. I would love to put this right across a favorite sweater so that I can wear it over and over through the holiday season.

I suppose I could make it on warm comfortable sweatshirts so that my friends that brave the masses during the Black Friday shopping madness would have something adorable to wear.

This is just a perfect example of something wonderful on one craft that can be expanded to a zillion other places and a million other ideas. Have fun with it. Run with it. Take it and make it yours.