the season of giving

rainbow gnome clipped to the mirror in the women's bathroom of our local discount grocery.

today we made our first toy society toy drop. two drops actually, as part of the annual christmas drop. this project is so much fun! people all over the world make handmade toys and then drop them in secret locations for some unknowing person to happen upon.

my kids and i had so much fun playing secret elves! we *dropped* two gnomes. one in the post office lobby and one in the bathroom of our discount grocery. we will definitely be doing this again. i love random gifting, especially handmade love.

the gnomes were knit using tonya's gnome pattern. she generously offers the pattern for free on her blog, plain and joyful living. i have made so many of these while learning to knit. so fun!

i made a *special edition* of my bird ornament. i used a white sweater to symbolize the peace i wish for kelly
and strung quartz and mother of pearl beads to hang below.

the first round of ornaments at the wellness tree is being sent off to kelly. as mentioned here before, nicole of gardenmama has so graciously set up this special project to support kelly, a beautiful mom diagnosed with cancer and with a heartwrenching story. women all over the blog world have reached out to kelly by making her a handmade ornament and sending a wish to her. nicole has gathered them together and posted each and every ornament that she has received on the wellness tree blog. please visit the wellness tree. browse all the handmade beauty and do take time to read kelly's *letter to my breastfed baby*. have a box of tissues handy, too.

if this story touches you and you would like to make an ornament for kelly, it's not too late! nicole is still receiving ornaments and will send another package out in january. please join us in surrounding kelly with love and well wishes.

amazing collection of fiber goodness being given away at natural suburbia!

lastly, linda at natural suburbia is having a very generous giveaway! all the goodies pictured above as well as an adorable fairy mushroom house! do browse linda's etsy shop while you are there. she is an extremely talented knitter and makes the most adorable knit animals! she has been knitting since she was a wee girl and it shows in her work.

good night my friends!

a visit from king winter

this weekend has seen the accumulation of much more snow than we normally see in these parts. sienna was born in colorado, but we left when she was 18 months old. this is the most snow that she can remember ever seeing. it has been truly magical! much time outside with daddy throwing snowballs and building a snowman. much time indoors with mommy working on crafts and baking for neighbors.

this is my effort to get back into this space. we are having some difficult times in our personal lives....even if it were appropriate to talk about it here, i would not want to bring it to this space. just know that i am still here, sometimes i just can't find the words to share the things i would like to share.

gearing up for our solstice celebration tomorrow. off to get some rest......

my first WIP wednesday

as my dear friend renee pointed out, my blog thus far is mostly of my *crafty life*. so, i might as well embrace it by getting in on wip (work in progress) wednesdays!

gift making is going slowly, but i have made a few other things the past few days. i made two of the long thread's thrifted trees. so fun and simple! just circles of green wool sweaters. close to instant gratification. the best part is that the circles can be a bit rough around the edges....gives the trees texture! you can whip these beauties out pretty quickly.

this one i made for the seasonal table in class. pictured here with a handmade st lucia scored at goodwill.

this one i made for our home. the sweater i used was the perfect texture for trees! this one turned out VERY tall. we love it. pictured are many other precious treasures including another recently thrifted st lucia.

matt and i made the advent calendar above. constructed out of matchboxes. covered in scrapbook papers and magazine images by matt. i glued wooden beads for knobs and numbered the drawers. this is our first year with an advent calendar. we are focusing on activities and family time. each tiny drawer has enough space for a little slip of paper, about fortune cookie size. on one side a write the activity of the day and on the back i draw a little picture clue. they love to try and guess from my crude drawings (not in my skill set!).

this was one of the activities of the calendar. we used our trimmings from our tree and some holly and made a wreath. the grapevine wreath hangs horizontally above our seasonal table all year. from time to time we wrap seasonal vegetation around it for a bit of festive flair. the little angel i made last year following instructions in all year round. i may never make another one.....working with tissue paper is challenging!

truly a work in progress ( but nearing completion at this point), a special bird ornament for kelly. if you have not heard of the wellness tree, do go and visit. gardenmama has set up this special blog to uplift a beautiful mama weathering some very tough times. this ornament is one of many that are being sent to her with warm hearts and well wishes from women all over the blogging world. many thanks to tracy for scoring the white sweater for me!!

before i go, i want to share something special with you...nicole at frontierdreams was one of the mega talented women that i participated in the living crafts ornament exchange with. her fruit basket is absolutely adorable!! we happen to be the very happy owners of one of these beauties as a result of the exchange. her stitching is impeccable. the intricate design of the basket weaving and the tiny perfect fruits are all so finely crafted. nicole is generously giving away one of her baskets filled with the most adorable little fruits to one lucky reader!! get over there and enter...you have until st lucia's day (sun, dec 13). nicole's pattern is now available for download here. all of the ornaments will be available soon....more coming every few days.

off to bed i run! hope to see you again in this space real soon!

news bits

my delayed announcement of the giveaway winner.......tonya of natural earth farm! tonya has such a wonderful and creative family that makes beautiful handcrafted natural fiber toys and goods. she generously shares an adorable gnome pattern on her blog. this is one of the things i learned to knit on! i have made so many of these little cuties. now i get to give back to tonya! yay!

you should also know that heather and bernadette have started a beautiful new online magazine, rhythm of the home, featuring many amazing contributors. you really ought to check it out! truly beautiful and inspiring and they will have a new offering every quarter.

also, today marks the kickoff of giveaway day over at sewmamasew! whew! so many incredible giveaways in one place. warning: you could get lost for hours. you are sure to find many treasures being offered. have fun!

giveaway news

just checking in briefly here to let you know two things...

i will be closing my giveaway tonight. thanks for all the comments so far! your support and kind words are so greatly appreciated.

i also want to alert you to another, very special giveaway over at gardenmama. her featured sponsor, imagine childhood is offering a very generous prize of one of their handmade flower fairies and one flower fairy house. this is an incredible offer! these fairies and their houses are so detailed and impeccably crafted, i have been eyeing them for some time now. so trot on over and get your name in the hat. contest closes wed night, dec 2.

i'll be back tomorrow with the winner of the bird ornament!

gratitude and a giveaway!!

this past summer i was given the opportunity to participate in an ornament exchange for my most favorite magazine, living crafts (if you haven't checked this magazine out, you should!). to be a part of this amazing group of talented and experienced women was terribly daunting to me initially! something i struggled with at first. after all, i had never created a pattern for anyone other than myself and i only started hand sewing a couple of years ago! now here i was creating (virtually) alongside some talent that i knew to be quite skilled in their crafts. alas, i was so excited about my project that i was able to get past the intimidation and so thoroughly enjoyed working with all of these gals!!

i chose the bird as my symbol as it represents joy. my creative and endearing coteacher is named joy so that jumped out at me right away. the color and texture of the sweater that i used is pure joy....amazingly rich, warm, and fuzzy! this experience brought me such great joy! it was such a pleasure to connect with all of these women and to bring that joy to each and every stitch.

there were many of us and i never thought for an instant that my project would be chosen for the magazine. seriously. my partner had his mind made up that he was going to see me in print though. ;) we knew that just five of the projects would be featured in the article (the rest are soon to be featured on the forthcoming living crafts blog!). there were so many amazing ornaments these gals came up with, i just never imagined that mine would be selected for print.

my days were filled with anticipation waiting for the postlady to deliver my issue of the mag! it was just so thrilling that i was a part of this project, i couldn't wait to read the article. when i opened the pages to find my ornament staring back at me, i was over the top giddy with pure delight!! it was such fun to reveal the news to matt when he returned home!

i must say that the crowning moment came about a week later. being the incredibly supportive partner that he is, matt had changed our desktop background to a picture of one of my bird ornaments. when my son saw the screen he got all excited. in his broken and over enunciated two year old dialogue he exclaimed *my mom-ma made dat!*. heart. melt.

i am so thankful to have made these connections with these women and to have had the experience of creating with them.....and for all the ornaments i got in return! we have been inspired to have our tree decorated with all handmade ornaments this year.

anywho, to celebrate and to give back to the incredible community of creative and inspiring folks out there who have given so much to me, i would like to give one of my birds to one of you (that one up there on the blue silk)!! all you have to do is leave a comment. i'm not up on any of those random number generator gizmos, so we will be doing the old fashioned pull the name out of the hat!

also, the very talented chris of mamaroots made her second appearance in the magazine and is holding a giveaway for one of her gorgeous rabbit moon ornaments!! go enter quick! contest closes tomorrow night. then head over to her etsy shop and score some goodness for your kiddos stockings!

as for me, i will leave this one open until monday night, nov 30. so go on, leave me a comment! ;)
you do not need to have a blog to enter, just make sure i have a way to contact you!

ornamental fun

sweet little handmade straw angel we found at the thrift store the other day for 50 cents!!

it seems sienna has decided we can start to officially prepare for the holiday season. christmas trees began to pop up in neighborhood houses (seriously) and wreaths on downtown light posts nearly as soon as halloween was over this year. every time we would pass some sign of that *distant* time to come, she would proclaim her frustration with the premature nature of this decor. the other day she exclaimed *i really wish mother earth could talk. then she could tell these people that it's NOT time for christmas decorating!*

since we have the week off from school and we have been making lots of plans for what we will be creating for gifts this year, she must finally be in the spirit! the past couple of days she has been wanting to make lots of ornaments.

last christmas, grandma debbie and grandpa charlie brought the kids a box of unpainted wooden ornaments in all sorts of festive shapes. we pulled them out last night and started painting them using our beloved stockmar watercolor paints. we love using the watercolors on the wood because you can see the grain through the colors.

jasper's ornament

showing off her work in progress...love those little toes peeking out!

we have done this sort of project before several times with simple wooden figures purchased from michael's craft store for $1. this dinosaur is loved as much as the expensive wooden figures in their collection!

edited to add: we seal these up with beeswax finish. we have mamakopp's wood creme. there are a few tutorials on the web to make your own, too.

sienna has joined her first swap! she has been watching mom create, send, and receive packages this past year and she is so thrilled to have the opportunity to do one herself. she is making ornaments for crafty crow's kid's ornament swap. the theme is fairy tales so she wanted to make some pretty elaborate felt princesses (where do you think she got that idea from?), which i'm sure she could pull off, but not 5 or 6 of them before the deadline. we compromised and she is using fabric markers (a first) to draw princesses and unicorns then she will back them with felt and stitch around the edges. she started drawing them today.

wet felted acorn she made last week in class.

we also continued our beeswax ornament making today. we got some incredibly adorable new molds from the spunky bake it pretty online shop. if you do not know this shop, you must go check it out! make sure you see these and these. we are lucky enough to live in the same town as amanda and could not wait to pick up our order today to start making these fun shapes!!

seriously, what could be cuter than a beeswax day of the dead skull...with a handlebar mustache, no less?! ;)

i'll be back tomorrow with some exciting ornament news (lots of you know already) and my very first giveaway!! stay tuned......