Quiet….

I don’t know about you, but the quiet in the morning when everyone is in bed is just heavenly.  Of course I’m not talking about  the 5 a.m. morning, but 9:30 a.m. during Easter Break.  The cats are running around, the TV is off, hot tea is at hand– ahhh…..

I have lots of catching up to do- and I will!  I think I will even try to schedule posts for publishing on subsequent days—ooooh!

First up- those Christmas gifts I said forever ago I was going to post.

For the kids I made Christmas quilts and matching pillowcases. The quilts are just a simple checkerboard of 2 fabrics. Flannel on the backs.

 girl quilt

 boy quilt

Sorry for the bad photos!  Bad lighting and all…

For the grandparents I made silhouettes of the kids. Easy-peasy, looks fancy- just takes time.   I photographed the kids’ shadows (or you could photograph a side view of their heads on a light background) and then printed them on regular paper in black and white.  [Mind you, I don’t have Photoshop or such, or this could be a LOT easier] I outlined the heads in pen, cut them out, and then scanned that into the computer again.  I did this so I could print the silhouettes directly onto nice paper in the future.  I printed these onto blue paper in this case, cut them out, and mounted them on scrapbook paper in frames (all cheap, from Michaels).

Lastly I made a doll for my daughter!  I used the Mimi Kirschner pattern on purl bee.  “Virginia,” as she was named on Christmas day, was not hard to make- just time consuming.  It took me probably 6 hours to do the doll itself. (I’m sorta guessing- I started after the kids left for school and finished right before they got home. I DID have lunch and all in there too…) The dress and embellishments took a few more hours.

I used a combination of purchased wool felt and wool I felted myself.  I really like her hair- it’s plaid! I thought that was cool to infer highlights and shades and all instead of plain monotone brown.

I have 2 more partially done- well, one started and one planned in my head!!

And lastly I decorated these houses (for ME!)- bought at Michaels. I wanted them to look vintage, and they came out more Mary Englebreit. Still very cute!  I used those crazy cheap Christmas picks for decoration- I thought I was smart to use them for trees and bushes.  The only problem was that they melted easily in the hot glue- made it tricky.  The other decorations were tiny tree ornaments and pipe cleaners.

That’s it for now!