Tile Trivets

Well I had a blast spending basically a whole week with my mom. The added bonus was that my baby sister (360 days younger) took off 3 days and we all crafted until we couldn't craft anymore. I watched her make gorgeous flower arrangements that she is putting up for sale and also giving as gifts. I continued to stamp a few muslin bag orders and tile coasters while I was there too. We made tags and cards and wall hangings and all kinds of things. One thing I did that I really like is stamping trivets. These are 6X6 stone trivets and they have more area to work with than a set of coasters. Looking forward to giving some as gifts. I also bottled my homemade vanilla. Will take pics soon. It smells wonderful! I also ordered more alpaca and silk yarn to make a few more fear of commitment cowls.

And now the tree

Well I finished the tree and sort of hung the banner up (it needs to be glued shut and in place on the string) on the picture so you could get the idea. I just found the paper tree tutorial over at Little Birdie Secrets after I wondered why they didn't have a tut for the sweet little tree in the picture with the subway art. They also have tutorials for fabric and ruffled ribbon trees. Check them out. Oh well, I think mine needs a bigger star on top, but otherwise it is pretty cute. I used a Fiskars circle puch and just cut a bunch of them out of different Christmas papers. I used straight pins, but I think I may stick some red glitter brads in every so often. Pretty simple, but I think they would make neat mantle decorations.

Some borrowed subway art

Little Birdie Secrets had the cutest downloadable Christmas subway art the other day so I bought a couple of discounted frames, some red and silver paint and here you go. I decoupaged the one to the backing because it was missing the glass. I used the silver glitter all over the thinner frame, but just along an edge on the larger one. I still have to make the cute pendant banners for them, but so far so good. These will make lovely gifts for some extra special family members who just love to decorate for Christmas.

Felt wreaths

The ladies of our church met last night to make Christmas crafts. We worked on felt wreaths and one of the ladies made one that was cute as a buttom and used gingham red and white ribbon to hang it from. It is made like this one from Better Homes and Gardens, except we added some cute beads in between the felt aquares every so often. They have a great slide show of felt ornaments which range from simple to not so simple to make. I love the tree garland above.
One lady also made cute scrapbook paper snowflakes and then glued them to a felt back. They were adorable. I played around with several projects and came home with nothing but unfinished ideas. I hope to finish them this weekend. I had co-op all day yesterday, so my brain must have been tired. I also bought a frame and red paint to work on the subway art picture from Little Birdie Secrets. I am excited about that! My other project is trying to recreate the tree in the subway art picture. I bought a foam cone and started cutting circles out last night. We shall see how that goes. Have a great weekend. I have to go stamp some more bags.

Fabric envy

No I am not talking about all of the fabric I drool over on the internet! This is a new shop that I heard about on Little Birdie Secrets. She has gorgeous fabric and gives discounts to people who use fabric for an etsy or ebay store. I was drooling by the time I had looked through all of her collections. Check out her store.

Bookmarks

You know bookmarks are fun to make and they can be any size or shape and made from a variety of materials. I sent off 3 to a lady uesterday who ordered Christmas bags for teacher's gift. I used some beautiful paper, twill ribbon in teal and a lovely bird stamp and ended up with 3 gorgeous personalized bookmark gifts. I also used some manilla tags that are 2 1/4 X 5 1/4 inch and hand stamped them with a cute umbrella man and a quote. Top them off with some black satin ribbon and Voila! These are really inexpensive ways to say thanks or even Merry Christmas!

The bag lady

That is what I feel like lately, but it is a good thing. I have been stamping muslin bags like crazy here for the last couple of weeks. It is very fun and neat to meet (only through conversations of course) new people online. I am enjoying finding out what they like and getting to create one of a kind projects for them. I was under the weather this weekend and missed our cookie exchange at church. I made Andes mint bark and red velvet mini cupcake bites with cream cheese frosting. My youngest daughter made a double chocolate mint chip cookie and my oldest made buttermilk sugar cookies. My son made candied bacon chocolate chip cookies. They brought home several kinds, but I haven't felt like eating any yet. Probably a good thing-I really don't need all those cookies anyway. I have been machine quilting some UK coasters for a friend and got those finished, but I sent them and forgot to take a picture. I am working on a sleep mask but have only cut it out so far. I think it would be nice to fill it with flax and lavender. Anyone ever try this before? How about good cookie recipes? Have a lovely week.