30 Days of Christmas – Day 1

The Christmas projects are going full bore in our house.

I’ve hauled out all of the totes of decorations and put most of out.  We still need a tree but with T working this weekend, I must be patient for another week.

In the meantime, I have all sorts of Pinspiration to keep me busy.

My grandmother has been cleaning out her attic and gave me a stack of vintage Christmas light packages – never been opened.  I don’t dare use them as is because I really don’t know if the wiring is safe.

I thought this was pretty cute, but I already have a wreath in mind for the front door – so not for me.

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This is more along the lines of what I was thinking, but I don’t use a lot of candles in my decor because of the kids (A- dangerous B- Monkey likes to scrape them with her fingernails and make a mess)

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Ah.  Here we go.

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I gathered my supplies:

I used the toilet paper roll in the center to act as a filler.  The gallon jar I first grabbed just was not working for me so I exchanged it for an old quart sized canning jar.

Voila.

I also found some pine cones.

Total cost: $0.  I had everything on hand and got two cute little displays out of it.

I still have another two packages of lights. 

I have another idea brewing for them…  maybe I’ll get to it tomorrow.

Who’s in the spirit of the season?  I sure am!

Thanksgiving

On this day of thanks, this is what I am most thankful for.

Everything I do – everything I am – is for these two independent creative free spirits.  (They don’t let me even make them sandwiches anymore.  *sigh*  They grow too quickly.)

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Wood for Winter

Half of our supply to keep of warm this winter.

It took the 4 of us about 10 hours total to get it here, in and stacked.

We were lucky to have a fantastic weekend weather-wise to deal with this.

It’s November.

Now we’re ready.

My Busy Weekend

Remember this wonderfully inspiring mess I showed you this weekend?

Oh yeah.  Messy mess.

I was barely able to function in here.  My work and client stuff were the only things I had organized in any manner – just barely.  There were craft supplies, my personal paperwork, miscellaneous decor I haven’t found new homes for, etc etc etc. 

Oh, something for Jodi to deal with?  Toss it in the office. 

Literally.

Tossed.

Into the office.

The kids and I spent much of our weekend in here.  Just cleaning, organizing and unpacking.

(Excuse the bad lighting.  The lighting in this room is terrible.)

Organized work space, all set up for work.

This desk deserves it’s own post.  Soon.

Home of my future sewing space.

 

I need a second desk for my sewing machine and a very large table for workspace in the center of the room.

Children’s Creative Corner.

 

I always like to keep it real.  Check out the last lonely box.  It’s almost empty but I ran out of steam – and time.

 

I have plans for this room. 

Big plans.

The layout is basically what I want – plus the two new furniture pieces I still need.

I’m contemplating pulling down the paneling.  This is the one thing that will hold up my painting in here – to pull it down or not to pull it down?  That is the question.

But for now, it functions.  Which I very very badly needed for my sanity.

I actually feel like I can be creative now.  It feels good!

Happy Halloween!

From Cold Weather Dora and Hunter Man.

I used Handmade Mommy’s 15-minute jammy pants tutorial for the Dora pants (I had a ton of orange fleece leftover from the goldfish I did NOT turn T into for Halloween last year.  I needed to use it.  ;-).  I bought a witches wig at Wal-Mart and gave it a bad haircut - just like Dora.  (PS – those pants were so easy.  I’m going to buy a bunch of fleece and flannel to make us all a huge stack of “comfy pants” for winter).

Little Man was supposed to be Boots the Monkey (Dora’s sidekick) but had a change of heart two days ago.  He decided he wanted to be a hunter.  Pretty easy, what with everything already in his closet - but I didn’t have a vest for him.  Enter more of the orange fleece and I threw this vest together this morning flying by the seat of my pants.  We borrowed the toy gun and he was complete.

Dora isn’t complete without Backpack, of course.  I made Backpack loosely following At Second Street’s tutorial. (I drew out my own pattern, own dimensions, added a pocket for Map and didn’t make the straps adjustable – I wasn’t joking when I said loosely followed).  Map is just a piece of rolled cardstock I quickly drew a face on with Sharpies.

Notice the animal in Backpack?  Yeah – that would be our back up Boots the Monkey.  I took a stuffed animal and quickly made some red felt booties for him – but he rode in Backpack all night.

My kids both loved their costumes – and helping make them!

Hope you had a Happy Halloween!

 

BOO!