Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS !

The kids made it to 6:30am!! I think they were up before 5:30am. I heard a lot of giggling going on before I got myself out of bed.

Boy, Santa sure was good this year. I think he went overboard but my kids sure enjoyed themselves.

What's not to enjoy ? ... An Xbox 360 !


... and a 'Just Like Me' American Girl doll !


I tried to make a handmade item for everyone. My theme this year was to make everyone some type of blanket. The blanket with sleeves (aka 'Slanket' , 'Snuggie', 'Snuglet', 'Slankie', etc.) was well received...

Slankie ....


I'm sure you all saw the Snuggie commercials that have been playing over and over again on the TV. My son SOOOOOOooo wanted a Snuggie but I couldn't get myself to buy one from the TV. So I searched around and found this Snuglet PDF How-To over at Welmoed's Sewing Room. JoAnn Fabrics had fleece 50% off so I ran down on Christmas Eve morning and purchased fleece for 2 'Slankies' and made them for my kids while they hung out at Grammies house. They are so easy to make and can be made in less than an hour.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and are ready for the New Year!

Cookie Exchange

Tonight I hosted our Taste Tempters Annual Cookie & Ornament Exchange at my house. Taste Tempters is a cooking club that I belong to. There are 13 of us that are in the group. Each month one of us will pick a theme (such as cookie swap, fall harvest, March madness, cooking light, mardi gras, etc.) and host a dinner at our house. The host provides a drinks and a place to eat (we do casual dining, backyard dining, formal dinging - whatever meets our needs or whatever we have time to setup). Each of us will prepare a dish to go along with the theme.

For our appetizers tonight I made: Swedish meatballs, BBQ Kielbasa bites, marinated mushrooms, winter grape salad, Fresh Mozzarella tomato basil panini.


The girls brought so many wonderful cookies ... Chocolate Chunk, Oatmeal, M&M, Lemon Stars, Peanut Blossoms, Fudgy BonBons, Kolache, Swirled Surprise Cookies, Butter Cookie, and Thumbprints.


Head over to our blog for recipes and more about our group.

Paper Cake ...

I made this Paper Cake for the take home treat. The cake is made from 12 slices of paper cake treat boxes. To make the cake slices I used the cake-slice template from the Better Homes and Gardens website. I enlarged the template and then printed each cake slice on Christmas theme scrap booking paper and tied a ribbon around each slice.

Here are samples of the scrap booking paper I used:

Covered Button Bookmarks ....

Inside each cake-slice the ladies received a hershey kiss and a fabric covered button bookmark / jumbo clip. My daughter and I made these bookmarks together.

I purchased the jumbo paperclips and my daughter and I made the fabric buttons using various Christmas fabrics and a Dritz Cover Button Kit Size 45. We attached the fabric covered buttons onto the jumbo paperclips using Evercoat Epoxy Glue (I'm sure you could using something else, such as, Gorilla glue, etc.).

Happy Holidays to All!

Is it Almost Christmas already???

I can't believe it's been over a month since my last post! Time has gone by way too fast the last few weeks. I've been busy making and selling my aprons online at Etsy as well as a good number of sales offline just through the word of mouth!I've been having a great time making them. I've also made and sold quite a few Glammie Gloves. So Thank You everyone for your purchases and I hope you enjoy your aprons and/or Glammies as much as I enjoy making them.

I made this Christmas apron with the movie, Elf, in mind. My family so enjoys this movie. I have no idea why, but we all crack up every time we watch it. The decoration above the towel loop is made from a yo-yo and a fabric covered button (it reminds me of a piece of Christmas candy). I always thought of yo-yo making something "grandma-ish" (is that a word?). Anywy, I picked up this yo-yo maker by Clover and I've been having so much fun making them. Here is a tutorial at Lazy Girls Designs on how to make a perfect yo-yo every time.

I have few ideas up my sleeve for some Valentine day aprons and other sewn crafts using the yo-yo's. Once the Christmas holidays are over, I plan to get right on my Valentine's day projects!

Enjoy the holidays!