[a bit psycho]

A friend of mine had to put her dog down today. It's always so sad to miss our pets so I made her a little ornament to remember him by. I printed Chewie's photo on cardstock, cut it out and glued three layers of cardstock together to make it stiff. Added a wooden bead to the string. Simple.

Here's the back:

Chewie was sometimes "not very accepting" of my friend's husband so I thought this was perfect. :)

A simple way to make Christmas tree ornaments.

[fall leaves]

Today was Thanksgiving here in Canada. I printed fall leaves on cardstock paper and we decorated them with markers (opaque markers work the best for dark leaves). It's kind of crazy to be decorating fall leaves because we actually have SNOW on the ground. I so wasn't ready for snow yet! Last year we had a barbecue for Thanksgiving. Those were the days... :)

[dreaming of dreamcatchers]

What do you do when you're sick? I pin stuff. Today I figured out I'd like to start collecting dreamcatchers. Love the doily ones. Who knew I was such a hippie?

S T U F F

[stitchin' time!]

Check out this cute needle-craft kit gift I'm working on for our daughter. So far: embroidery hoop, fabric, embroidery needles, stitch ripper, cute buttons, pins and super cute dachshund embroidery floss holders.

The plain dachshund ones are from SMALL GOOD THINGS. The real looking ones I made myself using a photo I found via Google image search. I printed both on cardstock, then glued scrapbook paper on the back. I wrote the floss number at the back as sometimes you need a particular color for a certain pattern.

Still need to figure out a cute container for the kit. I might add more things to the kit too: cute sewing scissors, felt...

I hope she'll get excited about making things.

Here are some ideas what to make with this kind of kit:

A felt pincushion - pattern and instructions.

A felt owl - pattern from Typing With Tea/Etsy

More ideas: my E M B R O I D E R Y Pinterest board.

[twinkle, twinkle little star]

Made some origami stars this morning. The little one was made with origami paper. For the larger one I copied scrapbook paper. Christmas music sheets and vintage book pages would look lovely too.

origami star instruction videos

Might as well make this into a free Christmas gift tag or card printable, right? Just copy and paste into Microsoft Word (whatever size you'd like) and print on cardstock paper.

For personal use only.

[almost DONE!]

This year, I'm determined to be done early with Christmas shopping. I want to enjoy Christmas time with family and friends instead of spending my time at the mall. I want to have time to do service as a family too. Teach our daughter the joy that comes from helping someone else or doing fun surprises for someone.

So far so good - I'm done shopping for our daughter. A task made easier this year as she has discovered Ever After High. We watched many episodes together last night and I must say that it was enjoyable even for me. :)

If we can get some of her friends excited about Ever After High as well, then maybe the girls can form a Club together. Take photos of their dolls doing stuff, drawing the various characters, etc. Something fun to do when it's too cold to go outside.

 Ever After High Pinterest Board

Stitched another polar bear card (pattern by Mr Printables). Making it reminded me how much I enjoy stitching. That gave me an idea for another Christmas gift for our daughter. I have been trying to come up with non-toy gift ideas. I'm making her a stitchery kit by putting together some fabric, needles, an embroidery hoop, patterns and these cute dachshund thread holders. I also printed actual photos of dachshunds and made them into thread holders too. I'll try to remember to post photos later.

Only 50 more sleeps until Christmas. :)

[not quite dead yet]

My poor blog! I should probably quit blogging all together as this blog doesn't make any sense anymore and my motivation to keep it is non existent. But, for some reason here I am again sharing a bit of this & that.

These dinosaur cupcake toppers were fun to make. Printed some dinosaur photos, added little party hats, glued it on scrapbook paper, inserted toothpicks.

My poor attempt at nature art while our daughter was playing with friends after school. 

My favorite season! Love the colors out there. I so wish fall would last longer! Yesterday was +23C and sunny! Love how little it rains here in Alberta in the fall (most rain comes with summer thunderstorms). I'm sure we'll get snow soon so gotta enjoy these gorgeous fall days.

Haven't cross-stitched for ages so this little project was fun to make. You can find the link to this printable in my Christmas Pinterest file.

Diddo for this one. The pattern is in my Halloween Pinterest file. 

I think Pinterest is one of the reasons why I don't blog anymore. You can find everything there so why blog?

[future worth living for]

I had to make many baby cards recently and thought I'd share them with you. 

I just printed the image on the right side of a landscape oriented Microsoft Word document, then cut it and folded it. To make the thought circle, I made two 3.5" columns in a Microsoft Word document, inserted the image (six per page), and then cut them with a 3" circle cutter. I attached mine with a foam square. Super simple. Like I said, I had to make many cards.

You can also use these images in your scrapbooking. Perfect for Project Life albums.

[cute]

Kirsty Elson

[easy to make wreath]

My hands were itching to make something. I just cut up some leaves from black, gray and metallic silver/gray card stock, made a fold in the middle of each leaf and then taped and stapled them to a cardboard circle. Super easy!

I first made it with Marimekko’s Unikko pattern but later decided to change it to plain paper.

[St. Patrick's Day banner]

We used to host St. Patrick’s Day parties every year but haven’t done that for a while. Even though our home is still not done, we decided it’s time for some Irish fun. Ireland of course is special for us because we met and fell in love there.

I love this shamrock banner I made this morning. Simple is always the best! Shamrocks always remind me of eating wild shamrocks in a forest in (London)derry. 

[sneak peek]

I’m supposed to be unpacking and organizing but today I yield into temptation to make a miniature Valentine’s Day banner.

This will be available in my Etsy shop soon.

Happy Friday everyone! J

ps. I haven't decided which other color I'll make this. Feel free to leave a comment if you'd like to see it in another color. Maybe I'll pick the color that was requested the most.

[garlands for kids]

My mom asked me to make some garlands for some special kids for Christmas. This is what I came up with.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas (or Hanukkah or whatever you might have celebrated). Sienna was so excited about everything that it made our Christmas super fun. Children make it all memorable and enjoyable!

I'm not going anywhere near the stores no matter what kind of sales they have. But I did get a Kobo gift certificate and they have a great sale online this week. Please let me know of any books you have enjoyed lately. I would really, really appreciate it! I especially love historical novels but will read almost anything as long as the story is great and there's no garbage in it (bad language, detailed sex scenes, disturbing things, etc.). 

Wishing you all wonderful things in 2013!