Did you know?....

That there is only 168 days until christmas? Well for the rest of the world anyway. For my family its about a month shy of that. We plan on celebrating a bit early so that we can include Keith before he leaves for deployment. It will be just a little celebration probably between my parents and Keith and I.

Never the less.. I have been having issues to get motivated to do or make anything so I guess the time would be to start working on things now so that some of my projects will be ready before he leaves. I assume that he and I will do some celebrating when he comes back from cruise as well because we will have missed Valentines, his birthday, Easter and my birthday as well as Christmas and New Years. Not exactly sure what I am going to do for them but I have almost a year to figure some of it out.. Smiles.

So I guess I'm here to figure out where to start. My projects for this year need to be kind of simple so that I can get them done. Not to mention he will be gone alot between now ans when he actually deploys so I can work on them while he's gone and it will be a suprise. So what should I make? I'm thinking about making a valance from car/ nascar fabric to put above the garage window... What do you think? Last year I gave him some craftsman chairs and a craftsman table that looked like this...

I think that making a valance for that window would sort of complete his man cave out in the garage what do you guys think? There are some of the old metal signs that we have picked up various places for the walls and I am going to look into a nice clock for the wall.

Holiday Helpers!!

Are you looking for some creative gifts to give to people? Maybe a creative something to take to the guilds secret santa exchange?

This Link has ideas for making gift baskets not just for your favorite sewer but for others in the family as well.


How about a wine gift basket? That is what I am going to put together for my brother and sister-in-law. Here is a pattern for a bottle cover/ bag could be used for wine or apple cider. I myself am going to modify the pattern a bit and make the bags smaller and use them to wrap some Marinades to put in my husbands stocking because he loves to grill.

Do you have some one that is going to be at your house for the holidays and doesn't have a stocking to hang up for Christmas morning? Here is a quick and easy stocking pattern that could be used for unexpected guests or maybe an exchange that you could fill with sewing goodies and notions.

Here is a few quick ornaments that you can make to give to neighbors, attach to packages, give as teachers gifts or maybe use as a project to spend time with your kids.

Stocking Ornament

Star Ornament
Yo Yo Wreath Ornament.. I personally would use a darker green fabric that has the hollyberrys printed on it but if you don't mind sewing on the beads I'm sure it will look awesome.

Well that concludes this segment of Holiday Helpers we'll see what I can find through out today and this after noon. If I find some good things to share with everyone I might get some thing posted this evening but that all depends on what couple time Keith and I decide to do. Yesterday we go home had a fish tank emergency and then after dinner I was pretty much done. Fell asleep on the couch and Keith woke me up to tell me the new Kitty unrolled the toilet paper and then to tell me that it was time to go to bed.

Time out..

Well yesterday was quite productive. I wanted to sit down and blog but just couldn't get my thoughts together to get something out here. The onsite manager here left me a note yesterday to say that she would be through for a walk through... I thought that it was for my initial inspection .. So I of course was in a panic to try to get things all cleaned up before they came through. No it turns out that it was so that she could check the smoke detector and the general care of the apartment but, she did her walk through at the same time. Now I can relax a little but I still need to get the rest of this stuff packed... I'm almost at the point where I'm just going to throw it in a box and label it CRAP.




Anyway I was looking at some things online and I came across a neat idea. We have all done BOM's and some of us are probably in a BOM right now. There are so many out there it's unbelievable. I was looking for a couple specific ones because I think they are absolutely adorable and found something that I had never thought of before. I know its not any where close to Christmas yet but if you are like me if you don't do little by little now it will never get done. So here it is a BOM treeskirt... Have you seen one of these?

It was listed under the BOMs. I thought it was a neat idea. One that I will have to file away until I have the time to think about it and decide if that is what I want to with my christmas tree. I thought I would pass it along.. I know that this one is applique but I had some other ideas in mind.

I don't think I ever told you about Thimbleberries club last week. I think we have all decided to do a round/row robin as a group only you don't give your quilt to some one else to add a row/round. We are all going to start off with a Medallion or Block that we pick and then at the meeting we are going to pick a block out of a hat. lets say that the block picked was a friendship star.. then I would have to decide how I wanted to add a friendship star block to my quilt weither it be in a corner stone or as some sort of a border. I won't be able to participate like the others but think that I will try to follow along the best I can even if its just in EQ.

Well I am off to get back to cleaning this stuff up .. I'm so wiped out and need a nap.. LOL