Christmas Snapshots

Here are a few snaphots from our Christmas celebration this year.

Sophia feeling festive

Sophia giving Grammy & Grampy the gift she picked out for them.

The new Star Wars Pajama pants and Lego Shirt from Santa

Sophia & her daddy

The cousins with their new baby cousin(who wasn't in the mood for a group photo)

The Red Velvet cake we made to celebrate Jesus' Birthday. This is the cake that Steve grew up with and is the recipe that his mom made when he was little.

Coffee Please!

I embroidered this towel for a friend of mine who never seems to be seen without a 2 go cup in his hand.

I sort of traced a medium sized cup that I had on hand and then traced the bottom of a cup to make the circle in a size that seemed to work. I had to put the American Red Cross in the middle as a joke because it seems to be his lifeline! haha
He did get a kick out of it and said it now has many uses around the house which is good to hear.

Snowy Trees Towel

We had one side of our family's Christmas celebration yesterday and I wanted to give something to my grandma who just turned 86. She has been cleaning out some of the extra stuff around her house so I wanted to give her something she could actually use and that I made for her.

I came up with this winter tree scene from a vintage pattern I found online. I copied the trees that I liked and moved the deer up to run between them. It just felt cozy to me.
I think she liked it, she said she would put it on display anyway.

Waechtersbach Pattern

My crafty sister-in-law Alyson, has a mother who has commented varies times on my towels recently. I have the feeling that she really wants one, but doesn't know what to get.

I asked Alyson and she thought that a towel made with the tree from the Waechtersbach Dishes she has would look cool. So we found the dishes online, printed one out and then I pinned it to the back of the towel, held it up to a window and traced it. That made my pattern! Really you could do this with anything that you wanted to try to embroider.

The whole point of those dishes are a solid red background with a solid green tree and all of the bulbs, candles and stars are solid white, but this is how I could improvise on a white dish towel. I thought about doing the candles and stars in yellow, but just didn't think that would be true to the pattern.

I like how it turned out & hope it will be a great surprise for Mrs. Bev!

ps. if you know her, don't tell

Here it is up close.

Towels for Aunt Laura

My dad's Aunt Laura was in town this fall and requested that I embroider some towels for her daughters for Christmas. These are a few of them.

She gave me ideas for patterns and colors that would work in their kitchens.
I tried using different stitching techniques for different areas. Mostly I used the Back Stitch, but also tried the Chain Stitch and some Stem Stitching.

Hopefully she will be happy with how they turned out. I went to the post office today and the line was super long, so I tried the automated machine and then the parcel collector was full! I hope they make it there :)

Holiday Botique

These are some of the items I had at the Holiday Boutique I was in last weekend.

My version of Rodolph's Spare noses, I got this idea from Kerry over at Pete and Kerry She has so many great paper crafting ideas and she does a lot of craft sales too.
This year's version of Snowman Soup. I like these much better than last years that I made.
My husband really wanted to make those "Frustration Pencils!" Do you remember them as a kid? I had forgotten all about them until he told my daughter about them. We couldn't find the "fur" at any of our local stores, but when we were in Omaha for Thanksgiving we went to a smaller hobby type shop & bought some there.

This sweet girl around 8 years old(or so) bought most of them to give to her friends for Christmas. My husband was thrilled that he sold so many of them!

A few of the gift card holders that I made this year... More to come...

I have embroidered a bunch of towels for gifts and the holidays so as soon as I get some good photos of them I will get them posted.

Homemade Vanilla Experiment

I have found some recipes online to make your own Homemade Vanilla Extract and decided to try to make my own as holiday gifts.
You need Vodka and Vanilla Beans. I bought Vodka that wasn't too expensive in case it didn't work out! A friend recommended this Vodka and said it didn't leave that bad after taste. I bought a 2 pack of Vanilla Beans as Costco, it was 10 beans for $12 which I thought was a great deal.

You need to split them down the middle for the flavor to come out, but leave the top still attached.

Then I tossed them all in my jug of Vodka. Then I needed to leave them sit for 8-10 weeks and hope for the best.

Now that it has been a few weeks I have put them in individual bottles to "brew" better. I think I will need to add another bean to each bottle to really make it work. I read that you should have 3 beans per 1 cup of Vodka, but I may try it with 2 beans and see how it works. This is something that you should be able to just add more Vodka to your bean bottle when you are getting low and will last for a long time.

Holiday Candy Jars

These are some of the candy jars that I did for the craft sales that I am doing this fall.

I added the little Rhinestones this year & people seemed to like the extra bling!