Ornaments: Peace and Love

What more can you ask for than peace and love?!  Not much in my book.  As I listen to Scarlett saying "mamamama" in her crib to try and get out of her one nap of the day, I feel amazingly blessed to have plenty of both in my life, even while there needs to be more of both in the rest of the world.  The last ornaments on my list are now complete, and I feel it's pretty appropriate to have doves for Wes' grandmas and a heart with "paperdoll" children for my mom.

The doves, one with flower wings and the other with gentle snowflakes, seems very apt for two women who are pretty peaceful beings.  I almost wish I made these first, because if I had, everyone may have gotten them.  So simple, and so great in the end.

My mom does most everything with a good intention (and even of her ornery things).  Her heart is huge and in the center of it are her grandkids.  So here they are, 2 little girls and 1 little boy!  I suppose I could have rearranged them to be her children, also 2 girls and 1 boy, but I'll let her say they are whatever she wants them to be, maybe they just represent both.

Ah, I'm feeling mighty proud of myself for getting these all done before December 1.  Yes, I'm one of those crazy people who are usually done shopping in general now.  More than avoiding the stress, I prefer to shop early so that I choose gifts for people that really make me think of them, perhaps that they will even find useful and not just end up on a shelf or in a drawer.  That's my deal, and now I get to relax and enjoy the month!

Have a great winter!

Announcement: Garden Fever! Winter Arts Festival

 

I've been busy getting hairclips and necklaces ready for the craft sale at Garden Fever!  Saturday, December 4 from 5-8 pm, my favorite retail garden nursery will be having a fundraiser to benefit The Hardy Plant Society of Oregon.  10% of the proceeds from this event will go to this great organization to bring speakers and provide scholarships to horticultural students.  Crafts will also be available 9 - 5 the next day.  These are some examples, I am hoping to get plenty more ready this week!  I love asymmetry, and I love original crafts.  Each one is unique.  They are made individually!

I hope to see you there!

Getting Crafty for a Birthday

Yep, it's been just about a year since my little Red was born!  Modern Domestic Sewing Studio was offering a holiday banner workshop for something very similar to this.  I couldn't make it any of the days, and after I kept trying to figure out how to rearrange my schedule, I looked at it and thought to myself "why am I overthinking that" it's easy, so I just did it myself.  Thanks in part to my fabulous husband who took a file to work that I made and cut out some stencils on his shop's fancy I-cut.  It's very simple, I used interweave to attach fabric to felt, and then used the stencils to cut out the shapes, and simply ironed the layers together, cut some holes and strung it together with some fancy cord.  I love this, and look forward to pulling it out every year as long as she lets me!  I would really like to take a class at Modern Domestic, and would highly recommend them to anyone who is interested, so I will have to keep my eyes on their website!

Ornaments: for the sisters

My sister: amazing momma and woman.  She has 2 kiddos (see kiddo vehicles), a full time job and now is also a full time student.  Seriously.  Amazing.  For her, I made a book.  It represents several things: home (kinda looks like a scrapbook), studies, what is written and what is still to be writ.  Inside is a little surprise just for her, especially since she follows this blog (hehe).

For my sister-in-law: a house.  She has traveled the world with the peace corp (twice) to help people.  Now she works as a retention worker to help people who were recently homeless be successful.  Soon, she may have her very own house.  So a house, in all of connotations of home and love, is perfect for her.

Ornaments: water fun!

Kayaks!  My brother is a HUGE whitewater kayaking fan, and my father-in-law has recently decided to build the strip-built kayak (flat water) that he has wanted to put together for years.  I must say, these were really fun!  I can't wait for them to see these ornaments!

Arrangements: Moss

On Saturday we had some pictures taken.  Our intention was to reflect Red's (aka my daughter Scarlett) first birthday, but they are more accurately for the 11 month mark.  We live in Portland, where winters are pretty mild, but in the last few years we have gotten some pretty dramatic cold fronts that snap everything into winter.  This year is a great example, with lows expected in the high teens and the highs in the high 20's this week, we are experiencing a crazy snap that is getting some of the local old timers talking about the '50's.  To put it in perspective, there are a great many plants that haven't even gotten their Fall color.  Last year in this very week, I was installing (with the help of the amazing wonderful Jaylene Walter and co) a front yard design for a client (somewhere around 36 weeks pregnant, yes) in short sleeves and rain boots.  All of this weather history has a purpose, I was thinking that we were going to be taking pictures outside.

Luckily Emily of Emily G Photography thinks we have plenty of light in our 1914 Craftsman house.  That creates a whole other thought, "oh boy, that means I really need to get the house ready!"  Like many, even in rooms that no one really pays that much attention to, I look at and see things that I'd rather not share.  Such is the case with some paint in the bathroom of all places.  Last year we did some renovating in baby preparation, and we used zero VOC paint, which was good but bad.  It's soft, just in case you didn't know that.  It doesn't harden, so you can damage it easily.  My remedy for that, plants.  It's the landscape designer in me, or the visual artist, or the crafty sewist, or maybe just the matron of the house, whatever!

I had gathered some moss together on a recent outing and have been thinking that I should make a terrarium with it.  That hadn't really happened yet, so I gathered together some Japanese pots that I have, put a gravel filled bowl in the bottom with some water (to create humidity) and covered them with rocks (which I love - love, love, love ROCKS) and arranged the moss.  Together with a Staghorn Fern that lives in the bathroom, I created an arrangement that hides what I don't like to look at.  I'll be very honest, I don't mind talking about it, but I don't like looking at it!  In fact, if I had put some thought into it, I would have held off on cutting the fern back so it was bigger, but again, I thought we'd be shooting outside, remember!

A few other things to get ready: if it's going to feel like Christmas outside, bring on Christmas inside!  Our house is a whopping 780 sq. ft.  Yep, not even exaggerating.  We have 2 larger dogs to top it off, so we usually try to have a small living Christmas tree if a tree at all.  Instead we really like bringing in garland and using it for window valances.  This is usually where the ornaments go too!  This year we are leaving for the East Coast right after Scarlett's birthday, so we are just doing lights and a few select decorations.

Ornaments: snowflakes and stars

I mentioned before that I rarely hunt down patterns when I make crafty things.  It's true.  When I am making something that really needs some kind of pattern, I may quickly draw one up, loosely, or like here, I just find something that I can work with.  In this case you may have already guessed it - cookie cutters!  I just selected some shapes that I liked, traced them onto the back of the felt, did the embroidery freehand, cut them out and stitched them together.  See how the same shape can give different results?  And this is just 2 examples of 2 shapes.  The possibilities are absolutely endless!

Ornaments: food

 Ah, sweet bacon, apples and pear!  Food is a big deal in my family.  My husband and I both love to cook, and our daughter seems to becoming quite the eater.  Her palette is definitely not mild.  To celebrate her first foods, I made her an apple.  Sure, I could have made something she can't get enough of: grilled marinated portabello mushrooms, spinach hummus, or something like that, but let's face it, that wouldn't be very interesting as an ornament.  An apple signifies something about firsts, maybe it's the crispness of the first bite of one, or the shiny red apple on your teacher's desk, regardless of your personal association, an apple seems appropriate and makes a great finished product!

La, la, la... and a partridge in a pear tree!  My Mother-in Law has a classically trained singing voice and this song is one that she references a lot during the holidays.  What better subject for a felt ornament just for her!

As for bacon, there are a few people that "love" is not a strong enough word for this food.  With that in mind, I made an ornament for my brother's girlfriend that honors this food.  She also happens to have a great sense of humor, and will most certainly find this really funny.

Ornaments: kiddo vehicles

My niece and nephew are 2 and 3 years old and are going to have a great time with these.  Last year I made them gingerbread people, and when we visited them in September, they had kept them out to play with.  I'm sure these will make great additions to their collections.  The truck has an open topped bed so that he can put little things in it, sticks and gravel, or maybe just organic O's.  My niece is quite a princess, so she can pretend play with this little bug that she is zipping around town!

It's that time of year again: ornaments

Every year, I set a goal to make my family ornaments.  Last year, I made very few pieces because I had my daughter on December 18, so as you can imagine, I didn't get far.  This time around, I think I'm actually going to get them made for everyone!  I've decided to make them all from felt; the medium I wanted to use for everyone last year, and that very few people received!  My husband's was the first, and when I asked him what kind of ornament he wanted, he replied "a plane" so I got to work.  I don't typically hunt down patterns for crafty things that I sew.  That was the case with this plane too.  I started with some basic shapes and built on that.  My husband is very interested in planes, and what I refer to as hoppty planes (short take off and landing) are his favorite.  I personally like the look of old tail draggers, so I guess this little guy is a hybrid of the two.  The buttons are upcycled from my button jar.  I'm fairly pleased with this one!  I was worried that this year's ornaments might turn out looking a little on the grandma side, I'm pleased that this one doesn't!

In the next entries, I'll be showing multiple pieces, because a single post per ornament would take forever!  This one is pretty great though, and I think it deserves a little spotlight!