Trees and gifts ...

We are still having unseasonably cold and icy weather and we are bracing for a hell of a winter storm. The weather guys say it's suppose to snow from tonight (Saturday) until Monday. This should be interesting! I do have a couple of gifts still get, but if I can't get out, I'll order them online, print out the picture and they can have the item when it arrives :)

My father in law gives us all money for Christmas. This year some of the money went towards new tires for my car, but I splurged and got myself something I've always wanted, but never found the perfect one ... may I introduce y0u to my RED tree! lol It looks crooked in the picture, but it really isn't. I hung all my stitched ornaments on my new tree. I just love being able to see all the ornaments .. usually they get kinda lost in my regular Christmas tree. I found the ribbon and fell in love .. it's got santa hats all over it .. not sure I like it in the tree .. but it'll do this year.

Here's a picture of our family Christmas tree. We got a smaller one this year and set it on our coffee table. I really like it, although I couldn't put all our ornaments on it .. we went through our ornament boxes and picked out ones we wanted to see this year .. maybe next year we'll get a bigger tree But I do love it :) Oh and yes, those are stuffed animals in the windows above. I don't know how this started, but over the years we decided to start putting our Christmas stuffed animals in the high windows .. they now cover the windows in the family room (where the tree is) the dining room and the living room! lol

Here's my favorite two trees with snow on them ...

Now on to a couple of lovely surprises that arrived in the mail last week. The first ornament was tucked inside a Christmas card from Wendy. I was soooo surprised when I open it up .. look at the wonderful ornament Wendy stitched for me .. I just adore it! and the finishing is really nice!

and here's the back fabric .. isn't it great :) Thank you again Wendy for your friendship and this lovely Christmas ornament.

This ornament arrived with a few other goodies from my dear friend Karen. I forgot to take pictures of everything .. but I stole these off Karen's blog, this sweet ornament is already hanging on my red tree. Karen coffee dyed the fabric .. it's it cute :)

Here's the other side ...

Karen also sent me some of her coffee dyed fabric .. last night we were watching White Christmas and I stitched this and finished it too. I think it turned out really cute ... Believe is a freebie from Tanya (The Sampler Lady). I stitched the Belle Soie Cranberry.

Here's the back of the ornament. The reindeer is a freebie from a French site that I can't find the link for ... I stitched the reindeer with Belle Soie Espresso .. I really like how this ornament turned out. Thanks for the fabric Karen :) I found the rusted bells on Ebay .. thanks for the tip Vonna :)

Whew .. didn't expect to have so much to show you all at once! Thanks for visiting and for all your lovely comments! Only 5 more days .. are you all ready???

I'm grateful for my red tree ...

brrrrrrr

Wow, seems like it's cold everywhere in the US right now .. well, maybe not Florida! lol .. we are having unusually cold weather for Washington, some of the coldest temps since the early 1990's. Just gotta love global warming! lol .. looks like we are going to get some snow tonight/tomorrow .. 1 to 6 inches in the lowlands .. that's a lot for us .. not for the mountains, down here .. it'll cause havic everywhere. But ya know what .. I just love it! and it's really easy to get in the Christmas spirit when it's cold and snowy outside .. like I need an excuse to be in the Christmas spirit! lol


Lisa and I did our annual Christmas cookie baking on Saturday. This year we were a bit more crazy than usual, we baked 6 different types of cookies and we make 2 double batches of each .. YIKES! lol the least amount of cookies each got was 80 cookies! lol funny thing is they will be all gone by New Years Day. We made 2 cookies that we've made before, the Eggnog Cookies and Peanut Butter Rice Crispy bars. The other 4 cookies are Strawberry Cream Cheese Rounds, Double Chocolate Espresso cookies, Spicy Gumdrop cookies and Chocolate Carmel Wafers. Here's a peek some of the supplies ...


the cookie bakers ...


and some of the goodies ...


Tonight DH and I went Christmas shopping, with the snow coming tonight, we really wanted to get it all done, or close to it. The one thing DH and I do really well is shopping, really we do! I had a good start already, but tonight we finished up everyone but 3 family members .. and we know what we are going to do for them, so they should be easy to finish. This is my last week of work before Christmas break. Boeing gives us about a week off, paid time off between Christmas and New Years. I took 3 extra days of vacation .. so I'll be off from 12/22 - 1/6 *woo hoo* lol

I've been doing a bit of stitching, but most of it's for Christmas presents, so no pictures to share yet.

Speaking of stitching .. A couple of weeks ago Peppermint Twist was released and I mentioned on my blog and to a couple of other stitchers about doing a SAL starting in January. Well, my dear friend Karen took the lead and started a blog for this SAL. Come join us, we'd love to have you .. or just bookmark this link and come watch the progress. I received my chart, fabric and threads over the weekend .. omgosh I just love it in person! Can't wait for January :)

Thanks everyone for your comments .. I really enjoy reading them. Stay safe and warm out there.

I'm grateful for cookies to give as gifts ...

Way behind ..

I've been receiving some lovely exchanges and I've been really bad about showing everyone pictures ... so grab a cup of coffee or tea and enjoy the pictures :)

I received this lovely package from Elza from an exchange on the Christmas Ornament Exchange blog. Now this was much more than a ornament for my tree .. Elza stitched a very sweet design and fastened it on the bottom of a fabric box. Along with this lovely box, Elza sent me a Christmas journal and a string of St. Nicholas'.

KarenSC had my name for the Pals ornament exchange .. look at the box of goodies she sent, along with the cutest reindeer ornament. I love how it's finished .. the buttons on the back are an adorable touch :)

I stole this picture from Karen's blog ... I just couldn't get a nice clear picture ...

and look at this cute reindeer pin she sent me .. he's on my coat for the season.

Today's mail brought my Round 10 Fair and Square squares from Monique. How can you not smile at this cute ladybug!

and look, a little extra from Monique. My very own reindeer floss ring .. matches the threadholder I ordered from her last week! lol way too cute :)


Still with me?? Need a refill yet? lol .. I do .. brb! ok .. I'm back :) Of course I've been stitching for these exchanges too .. here's a couple of things I can show you .. the rest haven't shown up at their new homes yet.

I had Carol's name for the Christmas Ornament Exchange. I had lots of fun stitching this JBW design for her. I was really pleased with how it turned out .. thanks for new techniques I learned from the classes with Jane Timmers.

Don't know if you remember, but Natasha one my 2nd blogiversary. Here's the biscornu I stitched. The design is from Praiseworthy, it was a kit with the greatest glass beads. Loved the colors, but I didn't care much for the fabric, it was a bit too flimsy for me. I also included some floss and some fabric ...

Wow, I do think I'm done for now .. aren't ya glad! lol .. I'll leave you with a picture of the newest addition to my reindeer collection .. DH's birthday was on the 3rd. We went to dinner and a movie with the kids on Saturday night. We went to Starbucks before the movie .. I'm kinda addicted to their pumpkin spice lattes :) anyway, look what came home with me .. aren't they adorable!

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend .. get all those Christmas decorations up yet? Is your shopping all done?? I wish I could say, to both .. hopefully we'll get the tree and it will be all decorated by the weekend.

Oh and thank you to everyone that stops by and leaves a comment .. I really enjoy reading them. Have a great week everyone!

I'm grateful for new reindeer friends ...

The Long Weekend was ...

Fun, productive and exhausting .. but before I get into all that .. I need/want to show off something. A couple of weeks ago I saw on a few blogs the new Moda fabrics, one in particular really caught my eye .. guess which one! lol .. Bistro! Talk about wonderful and perfect for me ... I saw a table runner for my kitchen table, but of course you know that I've very very sewing challenged so making it myself was out of the question. I emailed Kim who I think makes some of the prettiest quilts around ... and aksed if she would be interested in making a table runner for me. She emailed back that she'd love to and sounded really excited .. we talked about size and when I needed it by (anytime next year was what I was thinking!) .. but looked what arrived at my house ....

Isn't it great!! I absolutely love it ... here's a close up ...

and here's the backing fabric .. it's really cute too!

I just love the dark brown fabric she used for the binding and to break up the design. Kim, I know I've already emailed you, but wanted to tell you again how much I love this table runner! I can't wait to use it :) p.s., DH wouldn't let me take pictures until I found a table cloth that complimented it.

Our Thanksgiving was really nice, well it was nice after the stupid football game .. way too much food, but darn it was all sooo good! .. Chris (DS #1) has become the official gravy maker .. it was really tasty! After dinner we played Catch Phrase and Such&Such. If you like fun word games, these are a blast to play. Usually there's 10 or 12 of us playing, from my niece who's 13 all the way up to my Dad's who's 77, and every had a great time :)

Friday Lisa and I went Christmas shopping. We've been doing this for about 15 years now. We don't get up at the crack of dawn .. met for breakfast about 9 .. headed to the mall about 10:30. Other than the traffic getting to the mall, and the parking once we got there, it wasn't bad at all. There wasn't one place we went that we had to stand in line longer than about 5 minutes. I found a couple of Christmas gifts, a couple of must haves for the family, like a can of hot chocolate from Williams-Sonoma :) After shopping all day, we went to see the movie Australia. Wow, it was sooo much better than I expected! Of course 2+hours of watch Hugh Jackman can't be all bad, now can it?! lol

The rest of the weekend was spent getting the house all Christmasy .. hence the exhausting part .. but fun :) I have a little bit more to do, but all in all, it's done .. well except for the tree. We get a real one every year and don't usually put one up until 2 weeks before Christmas. Hate when they dry out too quickly. I put a new picture at the top of my blog, it's my mantle decorated .. didn't realize I took the picture a bit crooked! lol .. guess I'll be redoing that tonight!

Not much stitching has been going on, except I'm stitching on my Round 10 Fair and Square (behind as usual!) .. I do have a finishing picture to share .. last week I was doing finishing on two ornaments for exchanges and while I was waiting for glue to dry (yes, I used a bit) I was looking at a design I had stitched for myself but hadn't finished yet .. I started playing around with wool and pins and well, here's the finished ornament .. I really really like it! I hand stitched the little pillow, put some infacing on the back of the fabric and then just used pins to attached the fabric to the pillow ...

I used the same pins to attach the ribbon to the back .. I thought that was a cute touch :)

I hope the first week of December is being good to all of you :) Thanks for your comments, I always enjoy reading them :)

I'm grateful for long weekends ...

Lots of Wow's ...

Only two more days until Thanksgiving! Now that's a WOW for sure! I know everyone says this, but dammm where did the time go? Seems like just yesterday it was the start of summer! and we are making plans for watching too much football and getting too much turkey.

I've been doing some stitching, unfortunately I can't show any of it because it's all for exchanges or Christmas gifts but I do want to show a new chart that I fell in love with the minute I saw it .. It's Peppermint Twist by Blue Ribbon Designs and talk about WOW! I am definately doing this in 2009, anyone want to join me? On Belinda's website she lists all the supplies need for all the different things you can stitch from this design .. how cool is that :)








Tonight I'm meeting Monica (my dil) for dinner and heading to Barnes and Noble for a book we've both been waiting patiently for ... the last book to the Sign of Seven Trilogy. It's been months between the release of book 2 and 3 .. I'm sooo excited to read this one .. this has been a wonderful trilogy! another WOW and throw in a WOO HOO! lol



And my last WOW is for the fun threadholders and counters that Monique makes ... I've already ordered a couple of her Christmas ones .. I'm sooo addicted to them! functional and fun .. what could be better! Ohhhh and she painted a reindeer on one .. of course I bought it! lol

Hope you are having a wonderful short week!


I'm grateful for new books and new charts ...

Tagged ...

I've been tagged by Terri to share some information about myself. Here are the rules ...

Rule #1 ~ Link to the person that tagged you.
Rule #2 ~ Post the rules on your Blog.
Rule #3 ~ Write 6 random things about yourself.
Rule #4 ~ Tag 6 people at the end of your post.
Rule #5 ~ Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their Blog.
Rule #6 ~ Let the tagger know your entry is up.


Here goes nothing ...

1. You know I LOVE coffee, all the time, except when I'm sick (or when I was pregnant) I can't stand the taste or the smell of coffee .. then it's Tea for me.


2. I love Elton John .. I saw him in concert a few times in the late 70's and early 80's and then again 2 years ago in Vegas. He just gets better with time :)


3. I watch One Tree Hill


4. I'm moody


5. I wake up most mornings with a song worm in my head and don't know why, I don't go to sleep to music or wake up with music. Sometimes it's the same song for days .. last repeated one was Taylor Swift's Love Story and it's been driving me crazy! lol


6. I lust after a 1969 red ragtop gto


Who to tag ...
Carolyn - Carolyn's Stitching Chatter and More
Cindy - Lonestar Stitcher and her Ramblings
Karen - Stitching and Sharing
Natasha - Living in a Palmetto State of Mind
Nicole - Carolina Dreams
Shelleen - Shelleen's Musings
Wanda - WBSTITCHES


I heard that my Christmas Fair and Square squares arrived at their new house, Janice's house ... she doesn't have a blog :( I had a blast stitching this for Janice .. It's from Lizzie*Kates newest Tiny Tidings ... I had a great time exchanging with Janice, hope we can do it again!








I'm grateful for my kids just dropping in ...

We have winner and a turkey ...

Thank you all for visiting my blog and making my 2nd year of blogging a great one! The list randomizer selected Natasha as the winner ... I hope you enjoy what I stitched for this blogiversary giveaway :)

There were 24 items in your list. Here they are in random order:

Natasha
Yuko
Cindy F.
Beth
Kathy A.
Becky K
Mel in Dubai
karen
Nic
mainely stitching
Carol R
Jennifer
Amy
Shelleen
Teresa S
CraftyT
Irishenchantment
monique
Pike
Jean
Teena in Toronto
Karol
stitcherw
Sharon
Timestamp: 2008-11-16 17:49:06 UTC

Here's the squares that I received from Jayne for the Thanksgiving round on the Fair and Square blog .. isn't he the cutest turkey :) Thanks Jayne for stitching him for me .. I love both the squares :)


Hope everyone had a great weekend! Mine was spent stitching some Christmas ornaments most of the weekend. Friday night we watched the original "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "American Graffiti" with Chris and Monica, what a hoot to see those old movies again :) Saturday I had lunch with Lisa and Yvonne and then home to do house stuff. Sunday was laundry day and watching the last Nascar race of the season .. won't be back until February :( and of course watched a bit of the football game .. my poor Seahawks are having a very sucky season :( All in all it was a good weekend .. got lots accomplished :)

I'm grateful for weekends ...

Red reindeer and my blogiversary

Look what came to my house today ... the cutest red reindeer you've ever seen! Janice was my partner for the Christmas round on the Fair and Square exchange blog. I can't wait to finish him .. I think he'll become a pinkeep ornament .. he'll fit right in with all the other reindeer :) I wonder how Janice knew I liked reindeer and red?! lol




I've stitched a few reindeer for myself over the years and I've received lovely stitched reindeer from my friends over the years, but honestly I don't have any duplicates .. never knew there were sooo many reindeer patterns out there :)


My 2nd Blogiverary is this Saturday (15th). In keeping with blogiversary traditions, I have a little something stitched and finished by me (yes you read that right, finished by me! lol), that I would like to give away. Leave a message on this post between now and Sunday, November 16th and I'll drawing a lucky winners name.

Hope everyone has had a great week!

I'm grateful this week is almost over ...

Just checking in ...

Just wanted to pop in and say hi ... I was sitting here at work during my lunch hour, surfing the net and look what I found straight from Drema's (Needlcraft Corner) website ...

11/11/2008
LIZZIE*KATE
The first double-flip series for 2009 will be Halloween themed!!
Linda says: "This Halloween series is one of the MOST FUN things I have ever graphed and stitched!!! From bats to cats, frogs to Frankenstein, monsters to haunted mansions, this series is a lot of creepy fun."

Oh what fun this series will be!

My Blogiversary is in 3 days!!! oh my! There have been a lot of blogiversaries lately and I'm so glad to join in on all the fun! I will be hosting a drawing .. I'm putting the finishing touches on my stitched piece .. so keep watching my blog, I'll be posting soon about the drawing :)

No stitching to show .. but I've been stitching like a mad woman! lol .. all my best plans about starting early for the holidays has done awry, but of course none of you know what I'm taking about .. right? lol

Happy Hump Day and I hope you are all doing well. It's raining like crazy here, the rivers are rising and it's just plain icky out there!

I'm grateful it's Wednesday ...

I love the fair and square exchange ...

I've have had so much fun participating with other stitchers on the fair and square exchange blog. Each round has been a treat, from meeting new stitchers to planning what I was going to stitch for my partner to receiving the squares my partner stitched ... and making friends along the way, what a plus *smile* This round was called Autumn and my partner was Sonda in Oregon. She stitched Elizabeth's Designs "Four Fat Friends". I just love it! I keep wanting to name the birds! lol ... she also make me a lovely scissor fob ... and it's red! lol ... the red is a very deep shade, very autumny looking.

And here's my stitching for Sonda. I chose Lizzie Kate's Fall .. this was a really fun stitch ... I enjoyed all the fall colors ... I'm glad you liked the squares Sonda :)

I hope everyone is having a great week so far and getting lots of stitching done :)

I'm grateful for a new direction ...