Monarch Post

full

 
Are you unstuffed yet?

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Four days of feeling very full, happy, and blessed.

Thank you so much for being my blog pals, you are light in my life.

****

P.S.

It turned out to be a really sweet homemade Thanksgiving around here. (Okay, minus two storebought pies and a dozen rolls.)

Mike carved his first turkey.

And Corbyn actually ate and liked my stuffing. (I feel successful now.)

Sophey decided to make cute napkin holders.

Ainsley got brave and made her first pumpkin roll.

I made that towering dessert holder out of some thrifted plates, candle holders and a bottle of Gorilla glue. (It was really fun, and boy, Gorilla glue is amazing stuff.)

And of course, our favorite ceramic terrier dog was made by Jesse :)

 

bows and a bow

 
Oh hello there. Come on in.

No, not my front door. (Darn.) Found the image while I was hunting around for something else. What a charmer. No flowers here either.... we've got snow now and later today the winter blizzard of the decade is expected to blow in. I'm heading out this morning to the grocery store to buy Thanksgiving food, and stock up on a few batteries and water, I'm thinkin'.

Anyway...

 

I've been a very busy elf the last week making lots of Christmas items for the shops around town. I made up a pattern for this stocking and the holly leaves, and used some more of my favorite vintage trims.

There are four stockings at All Tucked In and two of the giant Santa bags. Plus lots of ornaments, scarves, aprons, etc. The trees from the last post and more items are for sale at Just a Bed of Roses now too.

 
The Santa bags are huge European-style pillowcases from a thrift store find last summer. Loved the fabric, but I couldn't figure out what to make out of them with that giant pattern until this idea popped into my head. Sewed the giant bow up and loved the idea!

 
But my reeeally most favorite item wrapped up in another big bow was this beeming girl at her second piano recital last week. Miss Sophia loves playing the piano. No one else in the family plays the piano, but she's taken to it like a duck to water. She also won first place for her age group for practicing the most (over 500x's).... and let me tell you, I know every single note in Rockin' around the Christmas Tree like nobody's business.

Last week we went shopping for the new recital dress and shoes. I held up every cute little girl dress and she shook her head 'no' at every cute little girl dress. Then she picked out the strappy one here and the strappy black heels and said, "this looks like what a pianist should wear AND I will match the piano!" Oh my goodness... nine going on twenty-nine. Can't wait to see what proms will bring.

 
(Roses from Dad, isn't he sweet?)

Well, I'd better get to the store before the blizzard blows in. I just overheard the weather girl on TV with a forecast of one degree on Thanksgiving night. Craziness- it's still fall!

Hope you all have a really lovely Thanksgiving Day. XO

 

P.S. is it my computer or Typepad. I can't control the color when I make a link! Ggrrrhh!

 

 

 

seeing spots and dots

 
I really meant to be here Friday with my felty trees, but I wound up dog sitting Ainsleys' puppy Frank, Thursday through Saturday.

Now I know why three dogs in one house requires a kennel license... A few accidents, someone threw up twice, (not me) but hey, we all survived. My dogs were exhausted and so was Frank by the end of his stay. It was a very quiet weekend around here after Franks went home Saturday afternoon-- my dogs just laaaayed around the house all day, looking at me like geeez, I couldn't have chased Franks around the house one more time-- my paws are killing me.

Anyway,

 
The trees turned out simple. Very simple. I'm thinking of calling them vintage minimalist holiday cone decorations? Ya think?

 
(Terrible photos, I don't know what my problem was.)

I had so many ideas for my trees... they started out with ruffles, that wasn't working, so then I tried varigated shades of creme strips of wool. That was better. Then I fiddled and fiddled with ribbons and holly-- that wasn't happening either.

 
So the trees wound up with only floaty white berry dot sprays.  

I'm wondering if it had anything to do with what I saw on my Friday morning walk before I started working... (whoever you are that took the time to paint polka dots on the fire hydrant-- thumbs up.)

 

Or maybe it had something to do with babysitting Frank.

 
This is one crazy little weiner dog, btw.

 

*****

So if you happen to have a strange desire to make yourself some vintage minimalist holiday decorations, here's how:

Tacky glue five inch square pieces of creme flannel to cover the Styrofoam cones. While the glue is drying, cut up long strips of about 1 1/2" wide pieces of felted sweater wools. Don't worry about the length, just cut the strips as long as you can. If you have pinking scissors, use them for cutting the strips. (It looks cool.) Hot glue the strips to the flannel-covered bases, cutting the strips to fit. Don't worry about making a seam anywhere on the tree with the wool edges, just randomly join seams for a randomly joined seam look :) (Don't you love my directions?) Then hot glue assorted white berries and... Ta da!

(Always say, "Ta Da!" when you're finished. Howey Mandel taught me this on Ellen after doing magic tricks. He said always say, "Ta Da!" at the end of anything-- people are then more impressed with what you've done. I thought it was good advice.)

******

Okay, off to make more seasonal holiday decorations to fill gift shops with assorted seasonal holiday decorations and provide you with further lame-o blog posts :)

Happy Monday to you! XOKelly 

 

flaky and soft (ie- me, the snow and the yarn)

 
It snowed all day yesterday! 

Before it snowed it poured rain all morning. We have an issue with one of the basement window wells flooding when we have a torrential rainstorm, and so the window well began to flood. Of course I had just dropped off Mike at the airport in the torrential rainstorm, so Corbyn and I did the sump pump the window well thing on our own. After getting the flood under control Corbyn said, "I really wish it would just snow instead of rain because the window well will quite flooding if it just snows." 

Lo and behold, the skies parted and giant turkey feather snow flakes doth appeared about ten minutes after his request. This boy is good. And it continued to snow all day long... Every half hour I would yell from the kitchen into the dining room where he was studying-- Corbyn, make the snow stop now! He told me no everytime. And laughed.

Apparently, we have raised a child with magical snow-making abilities and a mind of his own. I'm wondering if this could become a problem in the future.

Anyway, moving on...

 
I found this new yarn by Lion Brand at JoAnns a couple of weeks ago.

It is the most cuddliest softiest scrumdiddlyumptious all cottony gorgeousy yarn I've ever felt. Felt being the operative word here. (I know, I wanted scrumdiddlyumptious to be the operative word here too.) It feels so wonderful in your hands. I decided it would be perfect for a scarf. I hunted around Saturday night for a pattern on the internet and ran across this pattern on youtube for a broomstick crochet scarf. A blast from my past. Do you remember this pattern? It was big in the '70s and I remember making doll blankets out of broomstick patterns. I thought maybe with the new cotton yarn it would make an updated Aran-ish looking scarf.

 
So then Sunday morning on our way to church I told Mike we needed to stop at Michaels after. He just said okay-- he knows me pretty well by now. The last twenty minutes of church all I could think about was making the scarf. I was like Dustan Hoffman in Rainman. I have to buy my giant broomstick needle at Michaels.... I always buy my giant brooomstick needles at Michaels... gotta make my broomstick scarf... gotta make my broomstick scarf... (Am I going to hell? I hope not; hell is kinda hot for scarves;) 

I made half the scarf Sunday evening; it works up so fast and it's brain dead easy.

 
 
Anyhoo, I'll show you the finished version soon. If you're interested in the pattern, Google "How to Crochet- Broomstick Lace Scarf" Click on the the photo of the broomstick scarf in lavender. (Someday I really need to learn how to download a youtube video. Sorry.)

Right now I'm so inspired with the snow, and this creamy yarn I've decided to make Christmas tree decorations from my creamy wool scraps stash... Be back with those next time.

Love,

Kelly

 

TGIF

 

 Oh, happy day. It's Friday afternoon...

I spent most of my week trying to work with a major backache. I think I might have had a pinched nerve. Me and the old heating pad are like BFF's now. (I'm thinking all the headaches lately have been part of the same back pain issue.) 

Yesterday, we went to Salt Lake City with our Girl Scout troop to Primary Children's Hospital . The girls had made about thirty-five hand-tied blankets for a troop project and we delivered them all last night. Primary Children's is considered one of the nation's top notch hospitals, and it's easy to see why-- everything there is so well thought out. The hospital is absolutely incredible, and the attention to every detail is amazing. We were greeted with such warmth, and the girls were fussed over and even photographed with their blanket donations. (Two minutes later we were handed copies of the photos.) We were also treated to a wonderful tour of the facilities. Our tour guide, Marie, was so great with the girls-- taking lots of time to thoughtfully answer their every question. It's the kind of place that leaves a big old lump in your throat.

What else is new? Lots of half-finished holiday crafting projects in my studio at the moment. I've got an explosion of ideas going on and the studio looks like it!

I'll have lots of show and tells by next week for you. Happy weekend everyone. XOKelly

 

P.S. If you are ever in need of a great service project for church, scouts, etc. Primary is always in need of toy and clothing donations. Handmade fleece blankets, quilts, and muslin therapy dolls are very appreciated too.

P.P.S. No dogs were harmed in the taking of photos or writing of this blog... Winston is just weird ;)

P.P.P.S. I really didn't want to do my link in purple, but Typepad decided that purple would look really special today.... Ggggggrrrhhh!!!

 

tricks and treats

 
 
Whew. What a busy last week. Halloween parties all over the place, including here. And in between I had a couple of near-migraine headaches, so lots of other things just didn't quite get done the way I wanted to... back to finishing all my project ideas up this week now.  

 
In the middle of the party here at our house on Friday night, we had the most spectacular sunset I think I've ever seen. One of the Dads phoned and said to go look outside at the sunset...

 
 
Breathtakingly eerily beautiful-- it was so surreal. Great special effects for a Halloween party ;)

xoKelly