New Resolutions for the New Year!

I think 2010 is going to be a big year and if not I am going to try to make it that way!

I hate to make resolutions for the new year because I feel like I might never actually achieve them! I DO love to make lists and so maybe I will look at these new resolutions as just a list instead of a resolution.

Ok so onto the list of resolutions:

Non-blog centered:

• Spend more time at home working on home projects (and cooking and cleaning)
• Spend more time with family, especially our parents
• Try to save some money for basement project
• Have a baby (still a work in progress)

Blog/business centered:

• Try to post more often
• Finally go public with the blog
• Spend more time making projects
• Post prices with new items to sell
• Make sure my business is set up and launch it!
• Possibly start an etsy site...not sure about this yet.

Much love to all of you and see you next year. Cheers to 2010!

Advent Ornaments Part II

We started this tradition our first year of marriage (or was it last year...I can't remember) to put up the Christmas Tree on Thanksgiving and not put ornaments on it until the week of Christmas.

Instead we decided to celebrate Advent and put up a "Jesse Tree" well we really just use our regular tree for the Jesse Tree but it still works. Last year all I had were pieces of paper that I printed to put on the tree and boy did it look sad, you couldn't even tell what they were so this year I decided to make the ornaments. I was already planning to make ornaments out of light bulbs and was collecting them from everyone so I decided to use all of the standard size bulbs for the Jesse Tree ornaments.

I luckily had some images to work from and started last week while I was home sick and managed to get all of them finished (28 in all) on Monday.

Here is a picture of all of them on the "Jessee Tree" and I am so excited to use them next year the way we intend to use them, one on the tree at a time.



For those of you who do not know about the Jesse Tree, it is an Advent devotional that helps you prepare for the coming of Christ before the Christmas season. The Jesse tree represents the genealogy of Jesus and it tells about God's salvation plan from creation to the coming of Christ using readings from both the Old and New Testaments. Each day you put a different ornament on the tree that has a symbol on it corresponding to passage you read from the Bible, it starts in Genesis and continues though the Gospels to the Birth of Christ.

These are a few of them close up, notice the stump of Jesse, the apple and the serpent, Noah's Ark, a shell, a candle, and at the bottom Joseph's amazingly colored coat!

Some ones you might know...the ten commandments and baby Jesus at the top! Not only do we think that these are fun but we can not wait to share this tradition with our kids one day. Who wouldn't love to put one of these on the tree each day!

A Throwback to High School

Do you remember when you turned 16 all of the great things that you were looking forward to? Driving for the first time alone, having a sweet 16 party, and for some of us getting a needle pointed key chain from a friend.

Well I have had mine for 12 years and it is starting to get thread barren so I thought it was time for a new one...plus my name has changed so time to update as well.

Here at top is my old one...love all of the colors but you can see the white backing showing through. Below it is the new one. I am going to wait until Spring to pull it out.



I love Spring and the warmer weather, man is it cold outside! This little purse below is one of my favorites. It has gone through many spring seasons and I hope I can hold onto it a little longer so I can use the purse and key chain together.

It was the inspiration behind the design for my new key chain. I just love the punch of neon yellow/green and pink on the navy blue. I had some help from a friend who painted my new initials on it for me and then I went away sewing the new design. I hope to have someone to make one for in the future. LOVE IT!

Advent Ornaments in progress....

Well it must be Christmas because I am posting three posts in one day!!! Amazing!

I was sick last week so I had a chance to get a few things done that have been on my list. I really wanted to get these ornaments done before the Advent season started 4 weeks ago but instead I was working on my Christmas Cards and those took longer than expected so I am now catching up.

Well thanks to my handyman husband who changes many a light bulb during the day I have finally collected enough to get started. Thanks to all of those who after reading this offered some bulbs....I am still accepting. :) Here they are in my "light bulb box."

Here they are with the first step of just painting the base coat. I have finished this on all of them and now just need to print the scene on the last 10.

I hope to have pictures of them close up and on the tree in the next couple of days. In that post I will explain what I am painting on them and the Jessie Tree concept. Until next time!

Christmas Cards 2009

I have been wanting to post about this for a long time but I wanted to send them out first so they were a surprise.

I started working on these Christmas cards back in November or earlier, getting magazine ads pulled, cutting them up and folding them to make my little Christmas trees on the front of the card. It was a labor of love but I was so excited to do it after having received one of these cards in the mail at work years ago. The time has finally come for me to send them out.

Here is my workspace (dining table) covered with 100+ Christmas cards in progress.
Here are different ones...there were way too many different ones to take pictures of all of them but I loved how different they were, some all green, some all red, and some had more than one color.

When sending them I tried to match the person with the card sending someone who loves pink a pink one etc. It might not be as obvious to them why they got the one they did but to me I was thinking of each person as I sent it to them.

Here is a profile of the tree and the inside stamp. I did not take a picture of it but I had a stamp finally made with this blog address on it that I am excited to use on more of my notecards in the future.

The only problem I ran into was that my computer printer did NOT like me while I was printing and so some of the addresses were not that perfect. Sorry! Something to improve upon.

Merry Christmas!

Bjorn Bib

A friend of mine had a baby last month and asked me back in the summer to make a bib for her Bjorn. So I accepted the challenge I made two of them two different ways and I am sort of happy with them. I hope she likes them. ;)

Here is a picture of what you can buy from them. It is made from terrycloth.
We choose to go with a really soft white fabric that she can bleach when there are icky stains. here is the cover from the inside of the carrier.

Here is a picture of the cover from the front of the carrier.

Here is the cover when the carrier top is folded over like the picture above. The baby can now drool all over this and it can be washed.

First Birthday Updated

Here she is....the one year old! I talked about this cute shirt I helped make here and I just wanted to show you how cute the shirt was with the tutu! She looked SO cute that evening and seemed to love every minute of it.


I asked the mama to give me the link for the tutu in case you NEED to get one for someone you love. I think it is so cute! http://hannahstutus.com/item_396/Pink-Harvest-Tutu.htm