~The merriest of Christmas to you and your's~

Mark and Angela

Winter storms are hitting so many areas, I thought this postcard covered it all! The girl has snow falling but is carrying an umbrella. :o) Hope everyone is safe and warm. We are having sunshine most days and I so appreciate it. Tuesday was the worst day this week and of course the day I was mucking about. I have been working on gifties hit and miss. Completed 3 today. One more very important one to complete, it is started though. Also finishing up a short chemo round. Last treatment is next week, so Merry Christmas to me! Is it too early to be making cookies for Christmas? I thought maybe so, but hear of others doing it now. We have many tins to put them in, but didnt want them to go stale and yucky. My goal this weekend is to make some candy for Mark to share at work and us to take about with us. I know the candy will be fine, but still wondering about the cookies. If anything is to be made, it must be by Monday night. Tuesday is "yucky day". And the rest of the week will be pretty much shot. Appreciate any thoughts on this. My Christmas card supplies are sitting here looking at me. I honestly think I will set them aside for next year. Had high hopes of making some cute scrapbooky looking ones, but just didnt make it. At this late date, I am thinking a hug and kiss to all those in the family and an email to everyone else! :o)

No peeking allowed! LOL All of my friends and family are "peekers". I cannot post my current projects since I am wearing an elf hat these days. They are all smart girlies and would start talking amongest themselves. I can only imagine the chatter. :o So I am taking pics to post after the holidays! Do you have "peekers" in your lives too? How do you hide your projects and keep your secrets? I am always hiding things when we think we hear car doors slam. I always want to give the gift as sooooon as it is completed. Just cannot wait til the occassion! Good thing I am being last minute this year or I would probably have nothing to give. Even Mark is making presents this year. If you had looked at my blog yesterday or today, well it had been hacked or something! I have no idea what that was on it. And it made my page all wonky to boot! Changed my passwords and reported it. Sheesh!

I love buttons. And sure hope the person receiving this pillow does also. The center is a ecru wool star. I stitched it down with pearl cotton and then overlapped the offwhite buttons all around. Sewed them on with the same pearl cotton, knotting every other button "just in case". I worked out of my scrap stash for the scrappy block. The finished pillow is 10-inches. I was asked how I painted the snowman spoons. First I bent them. If they are going to break, I want to know BEFORE I paint them! Using acrylic paints I basecoated 2 light coats. Gave them a mist of acrylic sealer to hold the paint on. Then completed the painting. Gave them a nice full coat of acrylic sealer to finish them. You can purchase spoons of all sizes, singly at dollar stores. The ones I used were mismatched, antique silver ones. But the new ones paint up nice also. I have painted folkart scenes on these also and they come out pretty cute. Here is a closeup of the snowmen.

Here is the quilted scrappy square in square mini.

Holiday photographs of the house. The grapevine tree is ususally in my playhouse aka studio. We opted this year to bring it as our Christmas tree in leu of a "real" tree. Mark said he would decorate it and promised to use only a few favorites. Well, all I can say is he has alot of favorites! The lights barely show on it cause it is so full of ornies! But he did it and well pleased with his handiwork. The tabletop tree has my painted spoons. The little ones are vintage ice cream spoons. Prob a crime to paint them, but I did it anways. The larger ones are mismatched silver spoons I found along the way to paint on. I would like to find a few more and paint St. Nicks on them. The paper mache boxes are my Christmas gift from Michelle last year. It has turned very cold here but no snow. Mark hung lights outside and about froze. I havent sewn or crafted for a few days, but will get into it this week. I finished my square in the square mini and a couple other projects last week. The hand quilted on the wall hanging about did my poor thumb in! It is still and gnarly and swollen. I am getting old it is a fact. We posted new swaps at Backporch Friends. Scrap Bag Swap and a Pincushion Exchange. You must be a member of the yahoo group to play. More swaps are in the works for 2007.