tag blanket, Easy beginner sewing project

 a gift for my sister-in-law.  I made this with fleece and fun ribbon.  This was a super easy project and would be a great starter sewing project.  Find a shape you love, make a pattern of it by blowing it up on your printer or free handing it, make eyes, beak, and wing sew the wing, eyes and beak on the front piece,  cut lots of fun ribbon, fold ribbon in half and hold in place with a pin, place the bird wrong sides facing (the way you want it to look when you are done) and sew around entire bird about 1/8th of an inch).  I left one ribbon tag in a loop for a hook to be hung.  I love the bright colors and the bird shape :)  Hope baby lillie loves it :)

Christmas pictures

Christmas went better than i had expected without my father.  I know everyone was thinking of him constantly, I sure did.  My dad wasn't much for spending money or having a bunch of things he didn't need..he lived by "less is more" which i guess my mother helped to balance him out some:)  Years ago we started calling him The Grinch, even the grand kids.  Throughout the years he started to receive Grinch gifts, ornaments, stuffed animals, underware,ect.  It was super hard to see these things as they were unpacked and placed where they would have been if he were still here, but i am glad they were.  Anyways i could go on and on but I will stop here to explain the pictures. 

 Check out Khloe's Christmas leggings, I just love how these turned out.  I think she wore them every other day:)

Yes i scaled down from last year

Check out those eyelashes

 Mason wont just smile, it's always a funny face.  He is such a character!

Kissing cousin Leah

My youngest brother

 My younger brother and Leah

 Another one of his faces

mom and bub

Winter Onederland

 For Khloe's First birthday in December we had a Winter Onederland!  It was a lot of fun, but as always I didn't get a lot of pictures of the decorations ect.  I did however get some good pictures of Khloe.  I had the party at my mom's so when Santa made his annual stop by all of the kids would be there.  There were snowflakes hanging from the ceiling, pizza, ice cream sundaes, lots of laughing and hot chocolate bags and an ornament for thank you gifts.  The kids had a blast enjoy the pictures below.

the gift of giving

I know it isn't about the amount of money you spend when you give a gift, it's more about the meaning of gift giving. But what do you give your mother for the first christmas her husband ,your father, isn't here any longer that means anything. You know the one thing she longs for and thinks about endlessly is absolutely impossible. When the pain is written across her face and there isn't anything you can do for it. What do you get that person, what gift would mean anything to them?
As if shopping for my mother isn't hard enough, this year I had to try every harder! I asked her for a few pictures she really liked of my dad. When their wedding picture was in the stack, inspiration wasn't hard to find. My mother has always had a love for anything victorian. A trip to the scrapbook store for a few odds and ends, a raid of my mothers button stash (which I cut the plastic backs off of) and a little lace from my great grandmothers sewing stuff (dipped in tea for color) and a blank canvas, well this is what you get:

Handmade ornaments

A girlfriend and myself had a great idea of making ornaments every year for our family members. We had a good time doing this but over the years we stopped. I stumbled on a blog of a lady who made family ornaments and i thought, what an awesome tradition of making an ornament every year for each family member with a picture on it. How neat to see how everyone changes over the years and how neat it will be to pass on to my children when they have their own tree someday. So this year a new tradition was started. I have always used the photo frames from michaels to give each set of grandparents a pictured ornament of the kids but this is sooo much nicer! So each side got a gish family ornament. And of course i couldn't do all this work without making one with my dad on it. This was such a hard christmas without him but we got through it. He sure did make us a strong family. FAMILY was everything to him and i am grateful he showed us what that meant!!

Tutorial for this can be found at The crafting chick blog

ORDERS YAY!!!

So I have been selling my letters through work and off of my facebook page. I just love how these turn out and what a wonderful addition to any room!! I sold all but 1 of my Christmas ones and one that said FAMILY. These are a few orders i have done recently and have two more to finish. I also want to do a few more every day ones for the shop:) I need to do one for my mantel but i am having a hard time choosing a word....dream, hope, live...oh i just cant decide! Anyways tried to include a few close ups sorry they are so randomly listed.