Christmas Creations 2016

This year's Christmas card idea came together fairly well thanks to the talents of some good folks.

I wanted to do American Gothic.

Andy found an image for the background and did the photoshopping and my good brother James took the pictures...he's always a good sport about that.

And it's always quite a chore to get everyone to cooperate at the same time :)

Poor Ben was so zonked...it played to our advantage in the long run as long as we were able to get his eyes open for a few seconds.

They turned out great :)!

I always love dropping them all in the mailbox!

A friend gave me the idea of doing gift cards to Swig for all of Ben's many aides and teachers...

Perfect idea!

I found these cute skillet cookies/brownies/cinnamon roll mixes at Wal Mart and stuck bows and cards on those for the rest of the kids' teachers/bus drivers.

For my ornament this year I knew I wanted to do something with felt...

After looking at a bunch of things on Pinterest I decided on a nordic/Scandanavian look.

I made about 75 of these puppies.

I started in October so I wouldn't be scrambling.

They were pleasant to work on while I watched many a Christmas movie :)

They are all a little unique...

Sometimes I did one and really liked the pattern so I tried to copy it a few times, but mostly I would just start one and see where it led.

I downloaded a free scrapbook paper and made a tag in photoshop.

I wish I hadn't decreased the opacity because it makes the red look orange...but I was afraid otherwise you wouldn't be able to read the text.

I'm already starting to think of ideas for next year's ornament :)

I love creating these things each year to give to friends and neighbors.

I know some would rather get treats and some probably just throw them away, but I know there are those that actually appreciate them.  They tell me each year how they look forward to my ornament.  One family tells me they have a special section of their tree for just my ornaments and another family that stores them in the original packaging year after year when they take them off their tree.

I did one quilting project for a Christmas gift this year.

I always struggle knowing what to give my best friend growing up.  We live in the same community but rarely see each other since our lives don't have a lot in common any more...but she's still a dear friend and we always exchange gifts.

I can't believe I hadn't thought to do something like this for her before.

Just a simple table topper...

I had her sister in law help me remember the colors of her home and I dug through my repro fabrics trying to come up with a good combo.

I'm always so lazy and squaring up blocks is one of my least favorite parts of quilting so I sort of skipped that step on my four patches.  I realized the result after I put them each on point in their squares.  So I called my quilting expert mom and she helped me come up with some ideas on how to help it not look so bad.

My points didn't quite match up but I was able to rescue them from being cut off which was my biggest worry.

I struggled knowing how to quilt it.

I haven't done much with overall designs and so I thought it was time I gave that a shot.

My problem with meandering patterns is that I work myself into a corner and have a hard time getting out gracefully.  This was a small enough quilt though that I figured I should be able to keep track of my progress fairly well and plan out my next steps.

Love it!

And I have plenty more little four patches (which I will square up) with which I plan to make another similar one for myself.

I'm actually excited to give my friend her gift this year...

I hope she likes it!