allsorts

Easter sweeties

It was a happy happy Easter!

Were these the sweetest things at our house today?

Nope. It was this...

And this...

I hope you all had a lovely day!

Cheers,

Jenny

Almost there... (just bearly)

Quick post to remind anyone who is interested that the deadline for submitting your bear story is tomorrow!

My email has been weird lately and I'm a bit concerned that I might not have received everything that's been sent. Here's a list of the people from whom I have submissions so far:

S Ansell-Casillas
L P Boynton
J Braun
S Brownrobie
D Cross
S Dalka-Prysby
B Devries
S Ferguson
T J Foster
N Fraser
K Hinderaker
E Kelley
A Kokalj
J Lane
L Lockridge & B Casey
M McCracken
K Natale
J Olson
A Pillow
A Prince-Bex
H Ramer
D Robertson
A Siemsen

If you have sent me something but your name is not on the list, please resend it and make sure you put Bear Story in the subject line so I can tell it isn't spam.

The stories that have come in are all fantastic, it is going to be really tough to choose one! They are each special and wonderful in their own way. Thank you all so much for your efforts. It will take a bit to determine which one to pick, probably not until after April 1st or possibly later. Katy will be home all next week for Spring Break!

If I don't manage to post before Sunday, have a lovely Easter! And so this isn't a completely pictureless post, here's one of the dollhouse a couple of years ago when the bunnies invaded:

Cheers,

Jenny

Happy Valentines Day to me... and you!

When I saw this little face on Vintage Magpie this morning, I was powerless to resist, she had to come and live with me. Look at that fantastic cord fabric! And that sweater just melts my heart. Too darn cute, she had to be mine!

A lovely Valentines Day to all!

Cheers,

Jenny

Alicia's Lucias

Finally took some photos of the Santa Lucia dolls I made with the sweet little kit from Alicia at Posie Gets Cozy. Actually they never made it to the Santa Lucia stage, I stopped just short of adding the candles and such. But they are making me so happy. The kit didn't call for collars, but I wasn't able to make the tops of the dresses tidy enough so I improvised with circles of fabric. Happily,that allowed me to avoid gluing the heads on as the circles made for a tight enough fit to do without! Plus it added a further splash of color, which as you can gather, I like to do.

There were five dolls, one to be St. Lucia, with the others as her attendants. Since I never got around to giving them candles, I gave them each a tiny bouquet to hold.

For awhile they hung out in this shabby candelabra but eventually ended up under the "swatch and spool" tree, posing prettily.

More pics of the girls can be seen over on flickr, as well as a pool of others' doll pics. Kudos to Alicia for creating the most fun project ever! I might have to order some doll pins and supplies for crafting some of my own peg dolls.

My last post of 2007... see you next year! Cheers!

Jenny

New toys

Just fooling around with the new camera today, along with a spiffy new photo box thingie. So I thought I'd bore you with close-ups of Christmas ornaments... (I feel like one of those people who force you to look at their vacation pictures! Ha!)

Above is the topper I made for the white feather tree (which I'll try to remember to snap, too) Its made from three pipe cleaner candy canes with a yoyo covering the center. I made so many candy canes for the white feather tree, I had enough left over to hang a bunch on the tree in the den as well as one for each place setting and I even give away quite a few!

I also made dangly yoyo ornaments...

And Swedish hearts from red and white paper (actually that was a couple of years ago)...

I didn't make this one, its a new but vintage-looking chenille star with cool beads...

These mittens are definitely vintage, right down to the play money inside! I love the embellishment with sequins, pearls and fancy buttons.

And these are my favorites! Tiny vintage stockings, probably also meant for crisp dollar bills.

Okay, the photo viewing is over for today. Hopefully you won't avoid me now so you won't be subjected to looking at more!

Cheerio,

Jenny

Wrapping up a bit of Christmas

Sigh... Christmas is behind us now. Don't you wish you could capture that sparkly magic to enjoy the rest of the year? How about this... take one lantern from Ikea, add a soft tree, suspend a few snowflakes ala Martha, and voila...

A little Christmas magic!

Here's wishing everyone a safe and cheery New Years Eve!

Big hugs to all my bloggie buddies,

Jenny

Blink

And just like that... we're teetering on the brink of... Oops, never mind, I blinked again and Christmas had come and gone. Thought I'd fling up a quickie post to say hi, wish all my sweet, generous bloggie friends a wonderful Christmas, and share my excitement over our new plaything. Ro and I decided to treat ourselves to a Nikon D40X camera, so here is a sampling of pics taken by the family over the last couple of days, despite not having a clue how to work the thing. Um... point and click, right? Pretty much!

Merry Christmas!!!!!

Cheers,

Jenny

New holiday dangles!

Edit... Huzzah! I found out how to make a pdf you can download that will allow you to print at the correct size. To download the pdf, click here.

Flipping through my December issue of Home Companion earlier today, I had an idea for a new set of dangles! I was inspired by a photo of some vintage wrapping paper, and this is the result. As with last years' set, you just click on the image and wait for the huge version to open, then right-click and save to your computer for printing. And I apologize, I couldn't figure out how to get it to download at the right size to fit on an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper, so make sure you set "size to fit paper" or whatever option your printer gives you. Now all you have to do is click here to download a pdf.

Mine are printed on index weight paper with the ink setting rather saturated, and I poked little holes with a needle in the tops before cutting them out. I'm hanging mine with teensy vintage wire ornament hooks, but baker's twine or embroidery floss would probably be cuter. Have fun!

These are destined for the family room tree, which seems heading towards a more vintage, fun vibe than in previous years.

Sorry I don't have pics to show yet of how anything looks around here, I seem to be avoiding both my cameras lately out of annoyance. Hey Santa, maybe you can help me out in that department???

Cheers,

Jenny

Advent calendars on Flickr... a new group!

1. Adventkalender, 2. advent day 1, 3. advento, 4. Advent Calendar - Ornament Close Up, 5. Advent calendar idea, 6. Cullen's Advent Calendar, 7. Matchbox Advent Calendar - sent, 8. Stocking advent calendar in progress, 9. pug and kitty advent calendar, 10. Around the World Christmas Greeting Advent Calendar, 11. Gwen's Advent Calendar, 12. counting days....

Some of the many images of Advent Calendars on Flickr. I was surprised to find no group there for photos of Advent Calendars, so I made one! Called Creative Advent Calendars, its for sharing pics of homemade, handmade, or even vintage ones. Please hop over and add your photos if you like.

I hung ours on the bedroom mantle like last year, and filled the pockets with the Ghirardelli peppermint bark squares again (yum). Seems like a Christmas tradition now. I like that.

Hugs and happy December!

Cheers,

Jenny

Home (really) Sweet Home

How to indulge your sweet tooth without all those pesky cavities? Hop on over to my latest activity and decorate a gingerbread house! Its a lot less messy than making the real thing, and almost as tasty. Easy peasy clean-up, too... just hit refresh to reset the candies and start over!

Hope you like it, I drew it up and wrote the code last Sunday, before Katy arrived and the craziness of Thanksgiving set in. So how was your Turkey Day? Mine was fantastic! We drove down to Lake Charles and feasted with my dad's side of the family. Wonderful food and truly excellent company, there was so much to be thankful for.

Anyhoo, back to work now (me that is). Have fun decorating! Oh, I added a linky button to my sidebar or you can click here to play with the candy cottage. And I warn you, I probably will add more candies to the page at some point... its almost irresistible!

Cheers,

Jenny

Somewhere an elf is looking for his shoe

If you see an elf who is looking for his shoe, tell him I needed it for a photo shoot.

Last night I broke down and made my own bitsy elf clog. You knew I couldn't resist playing, didn't you? To speed things along, I reduced the pattern by about sixty percent, and I think it probably works better this size.

It is a beautiful day today, so I snapped these out in the courtyard. I had three lovely candy canes for props, but unwrapping them yielded only this...

So I pulled out these child sized clogs...

So you could see how bitsy the elf clog really is.

I should make another one now I suppose. Or that elf is going to be really cranky.

Cheers,

Jenny

Ears to your elf!

Another elf clog pic, these are by my pal Vicki of Turkey Feathers. Her stitching skills always blow me away!

As promised, I created an Elf Clog group on flickr, so you can share photos of your creations, too. I'll add a button to my sidebar linking to it as soon as there are some images in the gallery. The hilarious thing about this is that in truth, I haven't actually made any of these little shoes, I just designed the pattern and tested it by making paper models. But based on Vicki's and others' creations, it looks like it works okay. They seem to lend themselves to creative embellishment. Hopefully things will ease up here soon and I can try my hand at making some.

Here's the pattern again. Click image for larger version.

By the way, these are not "sized" for people to wear (being for elves, you know) so if you want to use them for people feet, you'll have to make your best guess as to how to adjust the pattern. Also, no seam allowance is included.

So lets see what you come up with! Or, if you've already made some, add them to the group!

Cheers,

Jenny

Snowy day

Well, before the pixels had dried on yesterday's post, Ro emailed pics to remind me that we did indeed have some snow in 2004. Valentines Day if both our memories serve. Not a lot ended up on the ground as you can see in this pic of our gate, most of it clung magically to every leaf and tiny branch.

I'm happy to be reminded, it was one of those weird and wonderful days. We woke early, shivering as the snow had knocked the power out for our neighborhood. While it was still dark, we pulled the two big comfy chairs from the living room into the dining room, moving the table aside to pull up close to the fireplace. We layered on wool blankets, and Ro read the newspaper to me by firelight. Eventually we heard that the power was working in other parts of the city, so we hopped into the car and found our favorite breakfast spot was open! We watched the snow continue to fall as we ate. Afterwards we drove around the neighborhood, enraptured by how different everything looked when covered in delicate lacings of white. We stopped to take this picture on a street near us.

So, I stand corrected, though technically it wasn't a really decent snowfall since there wasn't much snow actually on the ground. But it certainly was lovely... and memorable.

Thanks, Ro.

Cheers,

Jenny

Change of seasons for Zoe

Halloween is over, so its time to change from Halloween Zoe to Christmas Zoe! But first, I couldn't resist adding a few new pieces to her winter wardrobe. So click here to dress Miss Zoe for Christmas, or click the button in the sidebar. Have fun!

Cheers,

Jenny

Before you know it...

Remember this? Its the Advent Calendar I made last year, consisting of numbered felt "pockets" each holding a square of Ghirardelli peppermint bark chocolate and a paper dangle. Each day you would eat the chocolate and hang the dangle from the button, so you could see how close you were getting to the big day!

After a flurry of requests for a pattern, I am happy to oblige. This required pulling out the first of the boxes of Christmas decorations a bit early, but since I'm already in that frame of mind, so be it. Anyhoo, here ya go...

And a quickie tutorial...

The numbers were freehand sketched first with a disappearing pen. I strung mine on a long strip of red homespun with shorter lengths tied between each pocket. It wasn't even necessary to sew them on, I just loaded them up, closed the flap around the homespun and looped the thread around the button and voila!

The file to print out the dangles is here. Pattern for the felt peppermint star is here.

Have fun kiddies!

Cheers,

Jenny

ps - I almost forgot, my mother-in-law fell Sunday morning and broke her wrist in two places. Her surgery was today, and I'd appreciate any good thoughts you could send her way!

Decorative Country Living

I found the most wonderful site this morning via Modern Country. Be prepared, the photos are total eye candy. Its called Decorative Country Living, and they have a bricks and mortar shop as well...

The shop is in a converted 19th Century chapel in the picturesque village of Caythorpe, in the UK. I have half a mind to jump on a plane! Check out the cute things they have there...

I got snagged on the kids things, but they have lots of stuff for grownups, too. Those mice crack me up. Too cute!

No time to craft today, its been work work work. But hopefully soon!

I'm not sure if I've ever done posts four days in a row. I'm liking this posting every day challenge, it's forcing me to be more impulsive and less of a perfectionist. I thought it would feel like pressure, but it is actually the opposite. I've got tons of ideas for posts! See you tomorrow!

Cheers,

Jenny

Victoria Redux

Apparently I wasn't the only person who missed Victoria. The first new issue arrived yesterday, and it's still way over the top with the lace and brocade stuff but is still a nice relaxing read. It kind of takes you to another era... sort of a mini-vacation.

One of the pictorials is of Tasha Tudor's collection of antique dresses. Ironically I recently did a post of a story about her I found in an old issue. Isn't this fan amazing?

But what really got me were the recipes, which they have nicely posted on their site. All of them really cried out to my taste buds, especially:

Buttermilk Grand Marnier Panna Cotta...

Chocolate, Cherry and Hazelnut Terrine...

And Pumpkin Chai Pots De Créme...

Now is really not the time to fall off my diet... but please!

Cheers,

Jenny

Pumpkins and punkpins

A nice softie pumpkin... I think maybe it needs eyes.

Here we go... wait...

Aaaaagh!!!

I punk pinned my pumpkin!!! With shrinky dink eyeballs on tiny black insect pins.

My family thinks I am a little weird... I wonder why.

Cheers,

Jenny

Hallo Halloween!

Its getting to be that spooky time of year. Thought maybe I'd revive a couple of the ghosts of Halloween past...

She's ba-ack... Time to bring back little Zoe and the Thirteen Nights of Halloween. I made some teensy tweaks of the song lyrics and you can get to all thirteen pages now instead of waiting for me to upload a new one each day. More fun I think... who wants to wait anyway? Especially for slow-poky me. For those who visited in prior years, welcome back! And to those who haven't yet helped Zoe decide which costume to wear for Halloween... I hope you enjoy this silly little activity. I had so much fun putting it together.

And don't forget about the freebie Halloween discs I posted last year for you to print out. You can find those here. (Sorry I had to close comments on that particular post, someone kept posting these strange long rambling rants there and I had to shut it down - sheesh)

Hope you are all having fun getting ready for Halloween!

Cheers,

Jenny

World's Best Dad!

And here's wishing all you great Dads out there a very Happy Father's Day!

...especially you, Mister Harris!

Cheers,

Jenny

I heart Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!  The day is almost done here, I had a little trouble finding enough light to snap a pic of this wreath I barely finished in time. You might recognize it as a wreath Ikea carried for Christmas. I bought one for half off after the holidays, and spent some time brainstorming what to do with it. Finally decided to make a version of this wreath using fabric strips. Pretty simple really, just cut the fabric with a rotary cutter and start tying!

Note - to minimize any sort of fire hazard, treat the fabric first with a homemade spray consisting of 5 parts boric acid (some drugstores carry this), 6 parts Borax and 100-150 parts warm water. Spray liberally and let dry.

I'm quite happy with how this turned out, it looks cute either lit or not. I used good old red gingham and added a yellow homespun here and there to brighten up the palette. It is now hanging happily over the mantle in my bedroom.

Hope your Valentine's Day is a happy one!

Cheers,

Jenny

ps to Ro..... SMOOCHIES!!!

Christmas 2006 redux

Hello and Happy 2007! Christmas came and went in a blur of red and green. All that's left are the decorations that still aren't put away, and the extra pounds that snuck up on me and attached themselves to my thighs. Ugh...

But back to Christmas... it all went very well, I had my Katy here for a whole week, and we were visited by my Dad and Carolyn, and my Aunt Virginia and Uncle Mark came in from California. There were several excellent parties, but not too many, and with no time conflicts. We had the BIG celebration on Sunday (Italian feast and all), because Katy, Mark and Ginny were all flying out on Christmas Day (sniffle). The presents were all wrapped in the "Nick" of time, and after it was all over, a Silent Night was enjoyed by one and all.

So... you wanna see pics?  Okay, here we go. The Tree... obviously taken after Christmas since it is devoid of presents...

The snowmen's domain - the living room mantle, with the needlepoint stockings I made when the kids were little. I tried hanging my Claire Murray hooked rug up on the wall, and I have to say I love it a lot!

Vintage Santa postcards, not real ones, but cut from wrapping paper then mounted on card stock...

In the dining room, we set up the Snow Village in the "dresser" as it would be called in Britain. The fleece "snow" is this years' addition.

And finally, the dining room mantle, with another hooked rug on the wall...

I put a few more pictures up on Flickr, but I really didn't take all that many snaps this year. Or should I say last year, because now it is 2007! I have lots of plans and ideas for the coming year, but I'll leave those for another post.

Christmas 2006 is history now... so onward and upward into the new year!

Cheers!

Jenny

Sorry to Elf and Run

Well, as they say... the best laid plans, etc. etc. I am as unprepared for Christmas as I am to create this post, but it is now or never. I see some amazing bloggers have it all under control, and are now enjoying the holiday activities with what appears to be a relaxed and contented mood. Oh my, that's not the case here. I'm totally scattered... happy... but scattered!

Anyways, I created a pattern for a little pair of elf-sized clogs but I haven't had time to sew one up. I based it on these darling little things, which appeared in a photo in last years' Marie Claire Idees:

Aren't they cute? I zeroed in on them immediately, but unfortunately there was no pattern, so I noodled around until I came up with a reasonable facsimile. It works in paper but I haven't tried it out in felt. But I knew somebody out there could use a last-minute Christmas project, and next week would be too little, too late. So here is the pattern, and you get to use your imagination in coming up with the embellishment!

As usual, click on the image to open the larger version, then right-click to save to your computer and print out at whatever scale you wish. Have fun with it, and please share pics of your creations! I wish I had time to make some, every year I plan to be better organized but it always gets away from me. As soon as Katy hit town, all I wanted to do was hang out with her, so my level of productivity dropped. Oh well, we're having a blast!

I'll see you on the other side of Monday, hope you all have the merriest of Christmases, and the happiest of holidays! Love to you all! Smoochies! ...that's for you, Ro... ;o)

Cheers,

Jenny

Criss-Cross Coasters revisited

The coaster factory has been humming along this week, I swear making these is downright addictive. These sets are a mere fraction of the output thus far. And there are more to come, I can't seem to stop myself... "just one more set, those fabrics would look perfect in _____'s sun room"... that sort of conversation keeps burbling inside my head.

Anyhoo... now that I've made more than a few of these... some revisions to the tutorial are definitely needed. I'll be making changes to the original post to reflect this new information: 

First, 5 inch squares of fabrics are just too darn big. 4.5 inch squares work much better, it makes for a more coaster-y finished size, and you can use fat quarters with much less fabric waste since they are 18" wide. Then the fusible web size should go down to 4 inch square, and you could even make it a bit less. By the way, this is not necessarily the kind of fusible that has the paper backing, just plain old Pella works great and is less hassle.

Also, if you lay the folded fabrics on in a counter-clockwise order, the sewing goes easier since you're not feeding the lead edge of a fold under the presser foot.

And one more bonus tip - if you choose a nice coordinating fabric for the back piece, you can cut a strip of it at the same time you're cutting the squares and it makes a nice little tie for the set!

So... on to the next adventure. Katy arrives tomorrow! Woohoo!!! I can't believe Christmas is almost here! Ack!

Cheers,

Jenny

The stockings were hung on the clothesline with care...

Despite the long list of things still left to do, I was powerless to resist my longtime muse. The dollhouse stared at me until I broke down and spiffed it up for the holidays! It all started with the little white trees, bought at Joanne's, which light up! That led to the idea of a snowy scene, which of course meant white fleece cut in long icycles for the roof and window boxes. The clothesline was employed to hold a couple of teensy stockings, and one of my bottle brush wreaths was perfect on the front door. The garland you will recognize is my little dangles, these made with letters to spell out a holiday greeting.

The dollhouse as it looks in the daytime...

And at night...

I've been setting it on a table by the window at night and it looks so cute from outside! One more close-up, of the little tree in the upstairs window...

Now that I've get that out of my system, I can finally move on to other activities! Just a few things left to do... like everything!

Cheers,

Jenny

This is what!

Thank you for so many great ideas! I realized it was already December 4th and I better do something quick or it wouldn't happen. So I strung the pouches on a length of my favorite red homespun and draped the whole thing on my bedroom mantle.  It is probably a bit too long since it hangs in really swoopy loops which look kind of foo foo-ey. I was going for Swedish simplicity. Oh well, it's still pretty cute. Special thanks to Michelle at GreetingArts for the idea of threading the fabric under the flaps, I honestly hadn't thought of that! Too easy.

Inside each pouch fits a yummy square of Ghirardelli peppermint bark chocolate and one little Christmas dangle. A special thank you goes to Ro for pointing out that the dangle would be perfect hanging from the little button! So now we can see the progress as each pouch gets opened.

Here is the only pic of the whole garland that turned out. Its actually of my entire bedroom, so you can see how the garland looks on the mantle way over there.

I really like this new arrangement.  I moved the bed from the opposite wall recently and it opened the room up a lot. Oh, and you can see my latest splurge, a 48" white goose feather tree (ordered from Stonewall Kitchen), which I haven't quite figured out how to decorate. I also got this assortment of bottle brush decorations last Friday when Vicky and I stopped by Lisa Luby Ryan after the Lake Highlands Home Tour. The little house is pretty cute, too, but I can tell I'm going to have mica flakes all over my house!

And here is an early Christmas present for you... you can print your own Christmas dangles! I created these using wingdings and dingbats. Just click on the image and once it is completely open in the new window, you can save it to your computer to print out on card stock. (be patient, it is a big file) Enjoy!

They remind me of Pennsylvania Dutch hex signs or quilt blocks. Hmmm... they look pretty cute on that feather tree, too. Oh, or maybe as gift tags!

I am pretty much finished with my huge project. Big whew! So hopefully I will be posting more regularly now. I've been saving up lots of ideas!

Cheers,

Jenny

Now what?

So how was your Thanksgiving?  Ours was so much fun. We spent a few days in Lake Charles with my Dad and Carolyn, and were treated to one of the best Thanksgiving dinners I've ever had. Quite possibly the best! And as usual we ate our way through our time there, so many great meals. My jeans are a tad more snug than last week. Oh well.

During the drive up and back, and off and on while we were watching the parade/football game/dog show, I worked on these little envelope-y things for a new Advent calendar. We enjoyed last year's, but I wanted to make something that would be around for a while. They are white felt, embroidered with red floss, and they close with a long thread that just wraps around a button, easy peasy. I finished the last one and stuffed them with goodies last night, but... now what? I knew what I wanted them to look like, but didn't have a clear idea how to display them. Hang them in a garland? From a tree? Dump them in a bowl?

I am open to any and all suggestions. Jeff came up with the first one: since they look like little pockets, he thought they should be sewn all over a flannel shirt. I thought that was very creative!

Any other ideas????

Cheers,

Jenny

And just like that, 'tis the Season!

I confess I've been in the Christmas mind set for the last couple of weeks, despite that big holiday in October, and that other one coming later this month. Oh well, looking at some of my favorite blogs, it seems that I'm not the only one, so I don't feel so odd. In any case, I've switched out the Halloween Zoe activity with Christmas Zoe in honor of my own personal kick off of the Christmas season! Click the button in the right sidebar, or go here to dress Zoe in some holiday outfits.

And may I introduce to you a very talented new friend, a great gal named Penny McAllister. We've decided we are long lost sisters or something! She creates the cutest things, like this wee pair... this is Elvis and his lady friend Elva Lou. I am in love with these two!

She has some wonderful things happening with her work lately, and hopefully I'll get to meet her when she comes to Dallas for the gift market in January.

And I went to a meeting of the "Inspirations Club" at the Bernina shop yesterday, and although the project they were demonstrating was not my cup of tea, the woman sitting next to me showed us the coolest thing. I've already made my own version, and I decided it will make a perfect tutorial to share. So look for that sometime in the nearish future! This may not be a new idea to those of you who've been sewing for awhile, but it is new to me, and easy as pie for a semi-beginner like myself.

And I need to again thank those of you who gave me such good advice when I was trying to choose which sewing machine to purchase. I chose Bernina based on my local shop and the staff there, and I have never regretted it, I feel like whole new vistas are opening up for me! Well, that's a bit over dramatic, but its pretty cool just the same. I'm having a blast! Maybe I quilted in a past life or something, because I "get" how to do many of the things I've seen.

Anyhoo... bring on Christmas!

Cheers,

Jenny