Merry Christmas!

Here are a few pictures to share our Christmas experiences.

 

First, Iris with her mermaid tail afghan (her second favorite present) ...

Next, the sock snowman that Iris made for me (my first favorite present) ...

 

Here's Iris and me doing a little crafting ...

 

And Iris helping Sonja with her new rocking horse ...

 

 

Iris and I made a zentangle inspired drawing which was a card for the family.



All of my hand-crafted Christmas cards and tuck-ins should have reached their designations by now, so I will post a picture of them here; although most visitors to my blog have probably received these.

 

The cards are made with fabrics and a star puffy sticker.

 

The ornaments are machine embroidered onto felt and backed with another piece of felt.

And in return, I received these beautiful, heartwarming cards and gifts ...

From my Our Home for the Holidays crafters' challenge friends:

 

From a friend on Magical Holiday Home:

 

Merry Christmas!

 

 Big and Little Sister sweatshirts for Iris and Sonja. This was a last-minute idea, and it was hard to find plain sweatshirts, so they aren’t the same, but I think the girls will like them.

 

 

 

 

 

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Here are my wine bottles dressed up for the season. I knit some of these last year and had one red hat and scarf set for myself, but it didn't show up this year in my Christmas boxes. I didn't do a lot of decorating  because we won't be home for Christmas and I guess I thought it would be easier to knit another red set than to dig through all my boxes to find it. I suppose it will show up next year and I will think I need to get another wine bottle. I found the gold bottle at Goodwill last year but I'm pretty sure I can find these at a local grocery store (with wine!).

 

 

I made this gift bag for the Russian Tea Cake cookies I made for a friend's birthday gift. They are his favorite cookies, and I try to make a batch just for him every year. His birthday was actually on December 5th, so I'm late. I think he'll eat them anyway.

My friend, Kathy, wanted me to get some Folgers coffee containers from another friend who uses that brand of coffee and searches out people who can re-purpose the plastic containers the coffee comes in. I took a few to use for my crafts and requested some for Kathy. When I got them recently, I thought it might be fun to wrap them up as a "Christmas gift". I just used some glittered tissue to wrap them, some fleece to make a hat and scarf, an orange pipe cleaner for the nose, a few buttons, and they became a snowman.

These grime guards are for QSnap used for hand embroidery (including cross stitching). I have a friend who has just started CCS and has purchased some QSnaps. Her first project ended up getting pretty grimy from her hands, so I've made her some grime guards as a Christmas gift. They were quite easy to make. I used an online tutorial for the measurements. One is for an 8" size and the other is for an 8"x11" configuration.

 

 

Here's Sonja's 2016 Christmas ornament. This motif is part of a larger chart which is in the Autumn 2015 issue of Stoney Creek Cross Stitch magazine.