The Tinsels and the Trees

The Tinsel family has a tradition every year of going ice skating and then buying a Christmas tree. They always pick a beautiful tree.

They had a great time skating but the kids couldn't wait to go tree shopping.

"Mom, my feet are getting cold! Can we go get the tree now?" asked the youngest daughter, Joy.

"Dad, I'm ready too. Let's go over to the tree farm next door and pick out the family tree," said the only son, Rudy.

Noel, the oldest girl said, "Mom, I want to pick the tree this year."

"That wouldn't be fair, Noel," said Mrs. Tinsel. "We all need to pick together."

The Tinsels had some hot chocolate then went next door to the tree farm.

"Look! Here is a beautiful tree!" said Mrs. Tinsel.

"Blue is my favorite color and it matches my coat! This is the tree!!" yelled Noel.

"Blue is good but I want this blue tree. It will fit in my room!"

Ohhhhh! A pink Barbie tree!! Can I have this one? Can I,  please?

"Can't we get a good, standard tree like this one? You know, green?" asked Mr. Tinsel.

"Nooooo!" replied the rest of the family.

"Which one should we get?" asked the dad.

"This one!!" yelled everyone.

"Right... er... uh...three trees it is!"

They brought the trees home and decided to pose for the annual Christmas card photo in front of the trees.  It was a beautiful photo of everyone, well, except for Noel. She always refuses to look at the camera.

Merry Christmas, everyone!!

Paper dolls and trees were cut, glued and glittered by me but were created by Claudine Hellmuth and they can be purchased in her Etsy store which always has wonderful creative things for big kids like me to play with.

Christmas Tags

I made some tags using the gorgeous images in Dawn Edmonson's Christmas Treasury Tutorial.

You get the images with the purchase of the tutorial and instructions on how to make them. I got the tutorial last year but didn't get around to making these until this year. 

I used my own scrapbook papers to make the backgrounds and some printed backgrounds from the internet.

There are also instructions to make these post card ornaments.

I made mine two sided. I used glossy accents to give some dimension to the berries. I'm not sure if you can tell in the picture.

I used a gelly roll pen and some snowy glitter to make it sparkle.

You can also get the tutorial from her Etsy Store.

It was a fun crafty project!

Here is a beautiful tag I won in a giveaway from Jewels at just Just Tickety-Boo.

I hung it in the tree! I love it!!! 

Thanks, Jewels!

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Quilt Top

This is my completed quilt top for the Craftsy Block of the Month Class.

I couldn't wait to show it because I am proud of it and who knows when I will get to actually quilting it. I know that is what makes it a quilt but I don't have the backing fabric yet so it will be a while.

It is a little loud because ... Ok, it is a lot loud but I loved the colors while I was making it. I used the lighter fabric for the sashing which calmed it down nicely. I will probably use something light on the back too so I don't nauseate myself looking at the bright colors. I will go with calmer colors next time.

I hear Craftsy is doing another Block of the Month class for 2013 but there is nothing posted yet.
The teacher that did 2012 Block of the Month, Amy Gibson, is doing her own thing this year called "The Sugar Block Club." Each month you receive an email with a new quilt block pattern and a recipe. It only costs $7.95 for the whole year so I couldn't pass that up. I really enjoyed this past year learning about quilting.
Well, I have a few more days to squeeze in some Christmas crafting so I better get to it!

Oh, Christmas Tree!

I've been dying to do something creative and Christmasy but I haven't come up with any ideas until now. For some reason this popped into my mind in the middle of the night and I couldn't wait to get up and work on it. It is so dark and rainy here in Pittsburgh today so my photos aren't the best.

I recently saw these trees on The Graphics Fairy and wanted to use them for something. I printed the tree in two different sizes and sprayed them with adhesive and covered them in fine glitter from Martha Stewart. I love her glitter!! The adorable little girl is also from The Graphics Fairy. She is too cute!

I cut out a disc of cardboard and made a tab at the bottom of each tree and the girl and glued it to the disc.

I forgot to say that before I glittered the trees I glued toothpicks to the back to make them stronger. I used some seam binding pieces to hold the trees up.

I added some fake snow to the front and stuck small pieces in between the trees.

Then I found a tray and some beads and then added a glass dome. With the size of this dome I probably could have made a bigger tree. 

It was fun to work on! I hope you are having a fun, creative month!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

November Collage Challenge

The beginning of every month brings Mary Green's Greenpaper collage challenge. Mary provides three beautiful images and you have to make something using at least a part of each image. I was stumped for a few days because I like to have a character in my collage so I searched and found this cute cowgirl on The Graphics Fairy.

Janie was getting to be quite the super model. She was thrilled when she was asked to be on the November cover of Vegetarian Times.  She had just come from another photo shoot for the Girls Packing Pistols magazine so she was still wearing her holster. The stylist decided to use it and fill it with root vegetables. 

The L'Oreal Paris hair and Makeup team added the cabbage and baby carrots to her head and some natural looking makeup and she was ready for her photo shoot. 

This beauty is going to sell a lot of copies!

Thanks for the fun challenge, Mary!

The Haunted House

There is a large haunted house up on Spooky Hollow Road. Children never go there on Halloween night or any night for that matter.

But this year there were new children living down the road and they weren't afraid of anything. Sam and his sister Eva walked up the hill and toward the house. They only hesitated because they didn't see any lights on.

They crept up the porch steps to look inside the window. Sam almost fell through the rotten floor boards.

Eva wanted to leave but Sam felt drawn to the house and he wasn't ready to give up.

Just then a little girl named Susie peeked out from behind the tall tree in front of the house. She was trick-or-treating by herself and she was a little afraid to knock on the door at this house. She told them she was waiting until someone else came and she was happy to see them. Eva was still unsure so she stayed with Susie and sent Sam to knock on the door by himself.  He actually was a little frightened at this point but he wasn't about to let his fear show. 

The children had been so busy chatting about things that they never saw the ghostly figure watching them from the upstairs window. They would have run for sure!

Sam knocked on the door and waited a moment. Slowly the door opened and a woman emerged. She was oddly dressed but otherwise she didn't look too frightening so the girls ran to join Sam and they all yelled, "Trick or Treat!"

The woman spoke slowly to the children and said, "We have no treats for you but come into the parlor. We have a very good trick for you!"

Sam and Eva followed the woman into the house but Susie had other plans.

"I'm only in this for the treats," said Susi. "You can have your dumb tricks!"

Susie left them at the haunted house and continued collecting candy till she couldn't carry any more.

Sam and Eva entered the house and were startled by the ghostly figure at the top of the stairs.

 She came down the stairs so fast it appeared that she was flying. She nearly knocked the children over as she joined her friend at the front door. 

"Ha! We have tricked you!" yelled the women. 

"Huh? What?" cried Sam and Eva.

"We are going to a party and you must stay and babysit our five babies. Good bye!"

The women left and Sam and Eva spent the rest of their evening babysitting instead of being out trick-or-treating.

Meanwhile...

Susie went home and went to bed with her bucket full of candy at her feet. She had wonderful dreams of peanut butter cups all night long.

The End

The children, trees and banner are all from a darling printable PDF by Claudine Hellmuth that you can buy at her Etsy shop. The spooky house is a great antique doll house sitting in my garage that desperately needs renovated but I never get to it. It sure makes a good haunted house though. 

Have a fun Halloween!!!

Block of the Month Squares

Here are the last four quilt blocks I made for the Craftsy Block of the Month class.

These first two were the August blocks. The first is the Ohio Star Block.

 The second is the Double Star. I should have had more contrast between my center star and the solid fabric I used but I was running low on fabric pieces to choose from so I did it this way. 

These next two are the September blocks. We use the Drunkard's Path template to make this Chain block. I thought the curved piecing might be difficult but I enjoyed it and would love to do more.

The other September block is Cleopatra's Puzzle. I did it slightly different than how it was taught and I like the way it turned out.

Now I only have to make the October blocks and then we will start putting the blocks together into a quilt. I still need to buy my backing fabric though. I can't wait to see it all finished!