{Post #77} Upgrade on 2013 Ornament

I am liking this much better...are YOU?  On the first ornament I did a running stitch with white thread to hold the front and back together.  I also had a brown button with a jute hanger.  This ornament called for a little more pizzazz.

Here it is with a braided cotton thread hanger and red stars machine embroidered around the perimeter.

You like?  I do!!

Before, for comparison:

{Post #76} 2013 Ornament?

Saw one of these on Pinterest and made my own.  Very simple.  Sewing the seed beads on was kind of tedious, but only because they are so small.  I am going to take off the brown button and perhaps sew the front to the back with a decorative red sewing machine stitch to add a little color to the front. 

Three strands of brown embroidery floss for the trunk and branches, two strands for the needles.  Various seed beads sewn on all over.  Pearl seed beads for the falling snow and pile of snow at tree base.

Size wise, the felt circles for the front and back are the outside line of a canning jar lid.  I cut a piece of batting using the line that is the center of the lid.

I've been in bed with the flu all day yesterday and most of today.  My married daughter and her husband are here, so the bedriddenness really super stinks.  I'm hoping to be up a little bit today.  

{Post #75} Money Box

It's a wonder I get anything finished!  Every decision I make is monumentous to me.  Just today, my husband and I finally talked through our children's Christmas gift list.  We decided to spend $65 on each child.  We are giving "just" the money to two of our kids.  One of them is getting a tiny something from us, so we will give her a check soon.  The other has a peculiar habit of getting his extra money in one-dollar bills and putting it in his safe.  I asked him why he did that.  He said it looked like more that way.  

So here is what I did for his $65 in cash.  I got 65 one-dollar bills from the bank.  I emptied out a boutique tissue box and saved 3 of the tissues.  Then I taped the bills to a toilet paper roll (which happens to fit perfectly in the box) and rolled the bills up.  I taped the last one to the third tissue and carefully placed the roll then the tissues in the box.  From all appearances, it looks like a regular box of tissues.  I'm going to write "Don't blow it all in one place" and print it on to make a label for the box.  I hope he finds it humorous!

{Post #74} Oops and a Good Chuckle

A pictureless post.  Woe is me!  You can look at the last post for a picture, because that's what THIS post is about.  I have 8 children; my sister has 10.  I'll let that sink in for a moment.  We (my sister and I) often chat and laugh about things that we understand a lot more than others...eternal stacks of dirty dishes and laundry...items broken or lost by "not me"...forgetting things...remembering things!

I thought I was being all stealth, secretive, cunning (you know--a real agent 007...Joan Bond), and mailed my sister a box for her birthday (the 13th) and Christmas without telling her it was coming.  I mailed the Evergreen Pinwheels and a supply of metal stamping stuff (blank circles and a steel pounding block) for making jewelry.

She WAS surprised.  She loved the quilt.  Ten times more than the exact same quilt I made her 10 years ago!!!  Yes--I made her the same pattern 10 years ago.  As she was checking it out (as only a sister and fellow-quilter would do), her 14-year-old daughter asked, "Um, mom?  Didn't Aunt Joan already make you one like that?"  She had to think for a minute (even though it hangs in her kitchen every winter).  She didn't think I had, but her daughter went and got it from her decoration box.  Busted!!  We both had a good laugh about that.  I do have a fall quilt in mind for her.  I better check with my 14-year-old niece to see if I've already made her one!

She said she liked the first one, but she loves this one.  I did a lot of custom quilting on this one.  The first was just large meandering with an invisible thread (which did the trick, but was not as fancy).  So, all's well that ends well.