christmas a week away!

It's starting to get a little crazy around here! Sound familiar?

The cookies are baked and sitting in the fridge waiting to be iced.

At least the Christmas cards have all been sent. But the Christmas rush is far from through.

The house will soon smell of pumpkin bread and all the "Handmade Holiday" Christmas projects are still very much underway. Those meant to be sent off need to be completed by tomorrow - my second big deadline following the teacher gifts we handed out yesterday. (fabric covered calenders which were sewn up just in the nick of time, so no time to photograph) Here are some nice wood and fabric blocks just completed. Meant to do up a bunch of these for the Etsy shop... and... well... that just didn't happen. But I did manage a set for one of my favorite little boys in the whole wide world. Who?... I won't say... Don't open until X-mas!

(AND... I've gotten what is probably the TWENTIETH e-mail in response to my monkey birthday party pinatas... SO, a full, sketched up tutorial on how to make the little buggers is soon to come!)

cutting + pasting

This is my holiday card basket:

Lots of cutting + pasting to do before cards go out in the mail. Sometimes I wonder why I can't just order cards like everyone else. Scribble on the addresses and slap on a stamp. Why do I always insist on cutting + pasting? Everything I do is cut + paste! Does anyone really care?

(I do)

deck them halls, y'all!

I love this ornament. We picked it up in Oklahoma last year. Yee ha!

We put a 4-foot tree up high on my old drafting table. (see how our angel is smooshed up against the ceiling? barely fit!) This has turned out to be the perfect solution for saving fragile ornaments from the little hands of the shortest member of our family.

Finally sewed the family some matching stockings last year. Every year I hope to embellish them a bit. Found some cute handpainted wood buttons that I want to tack on and maybe some bright cuffs.

For days I tried to figure out where I'd put the little ceramic village I've been painting for years. (still so many buildings to go) After watching Martha, the perfect solution: clear out a section of books and nestle this snowy little village into the bookshelf with a lovely backdrop of snowflake scrapbook paper!

vote for me!

One of my fabric designs is up for the Favorite Fabric of the Week over at Spoonflower ! If it is chosen as the favorite, it will be available for sale in the Spoonflower Etsy Shop next week. So exciting! So if you have a chance this week, go over there and VOTE! I would love to see my fabric available for others to buy (without my having to orchestrate it all) so I could see what others make and do with it.

If you haven't visited the Spoonflower site recently, it's gotten really interesting and inspiring now that they're out of invitation-only mode and accepting orders from everyone. I love how you can set up a profile (see mine: Outofthebox) and select favorite designs that have been submitted by other artists. I haven't spent as much time as I'd like exploring the fantastic prints, but I have a few favorites selected. Check it out.

Vote for ME!

finally... accomplishments!

They're in the Etsy shop!

find that balance

It's taken me awhile to stop feeling so pooped from all the party planning for the 5-year old's big day a couple weekends ago. And now that I finally have a chance to sit down and think about the things I've been neglecting, I feel slightly overwhelmed by the stacks of projects that surround me. I haven't been dedicating myself to the creative process like I should... I've been allowing my mood and temperament to be guided by floors that need cleaning and laundry that stacked up when I was fighting a cold. So, while I struggle to find that balance, again, I might just resort to a picture or two now and then on this little blog. The original point of this blog was for me to justify where my days were going. It was a way for me to force myself to do something other than housework and mommy-duties at least once a day so I'd have something to report on. I need to get back to that.

Notice the personalized cookies? I LOVE this cookie cutter.

Grown-ups got dino cookies on their cupcakes.

It was a dino-rific day!