Etsy Texas Winter Design Challenge

"What makes winter wondrous to you? Is it the holidays that occur during December? Or perhaps the miracle of snow in Texas? How about it finally getting cold enough to wear those scarves, gloves, and hats you love so much? Maybe long hot baths with your favorite handmade soap or bubble bath or slathering on your favorite handmade lotion or body butter to fight off winter's drying effects on your skin? There are so many possibilities!"

The Etsy group I belong to--EtsyTexas--has combined its December and January Design Challenges for one with a winter theme. There are a number of lovely entries, including  this one by Anastasia of WildMoonDesigns.

 Frost

Gorgeous, isn't it? And I'm not even fond of jewelry!

Apparently Anastasia is from my part of the country; she says she made this at her friend's bead shop in Fredericksburg. (For those who don't know the area, F'burg's about an hour drive from my home--one of my fave day trips.)

This is another entry I find interesting: an ID badge holder made of upcycled junk jewelry. Clever, huh? This one is from Monica at TheIDconnection.

 Fallen Snow

And this darling hoodie for a child! How cute would a kid look in this? It's from Julie at StitchesbyJulie.

 Winter White Child's Hoodie Sweater

Another by Julie from her Nature In Pastels shop.

Winter Stream

And of course I entered a couple.

Bloomin' Winter

This is the one on which I did the tutorial before Christmas. You can see it here.
And a sewing set created from upcycled herringbone wool. Gotta love it! (At least I do.)

Herringbone Sewing Kit

If you have a minute, why don't you stop by here, take a look at the entries, and vote for your favorite?

Tassels redux

I've been playing with tassels again.

It's not an obsession. I can go months with hardly a glance at my tassel-making supplies. Then, all of a sudden, inspiration strikes.

This first idea started with a gift bag from my birthday last year. It was such a cool bag--glossy white with black dots and stripes--that I had to translate it into something. Ergo...

 

Once I'd made the head, I stalled. What kind of a skirt did it call for? I tried one of  peach silk--didn't work. I made another of variegated blue ribbon yarn--cool skirt, but not for this head. (I'll be finishing up that tassel this week sometime.) The next was made of fall-colored ribbon yarn. It's now gracing a needle-felted pumpkin head--one of my faves. But nothing was working for this head. Then I stumbled across some recycled sari silk ribbon yarn here on Etsy.

 Lovely, isn't it? And it made a great tassel skirt. See--

Here's a shot of the whole thing.

 

The ruff was made from eyelash yarn and embroidery thread I already had. (I'm working on adding ruffs to all the tassels I have on hand. I think it adds a finishing touch lacking in my earlier attempts.)

This is one I made last September. 

 

Here it is with a ruff I made of some leftover fringe. 

Makes a world of difference, doesn't it?

Another from last September.

And with the ruff. (I'm liking this ruff; it was an elastic bracelet with wooden bell bangles that I picked up at a thrift store in Arlington last August. My sis Ginger thought it might work with tassels. She was right, though I don't think this is what she had in mind.)

Here's a closer look at the bracelet/ruff. Kinda cool, huh?

That's as far as I've gotten with the tassels. Now I need to find a way to photograph them to good advantage. I see a lot of shots on an angle. Maybe I'll try that tomorrow from my bedpost.

Have a good one, y'all. And thanks for stopping by.

Ta.

Lotion Tute

Happy new year, y'all! I know I've been silent for a couple of weeks, and I have no excuse, not even a reason. Laziness perhaps. Actually, laziness most definitely.

I'm in the process, as it appears many in blogland are, of cleaning and purging. Along the way--in the first closet--I unearthed some plastic containers I bought last year to package homemade hand lotion in. Never got around to making it and then sorta misplaced the containers, then got distracted by something else, then totally forgot I'd even thought about it.

When I finished the closet--well, sorta kinda--I made some hand lotion, which isn't as procrastinatory  as it sounds since there are a few birthdays coming up, and I usually include a jar of lotion in each of those gifts. Anyway, I thought I'd share the lotion-making process with y'all. (This has been around blogland for quite some time, so y'all might have already see it. If so, never mind!)

First, the ingredients--these all came from my local dollar store--baby lotion, Vitamin E cream and petroleum jelly. Total expenditure for ingredients: $3. The biggest cost is containers. I've used plastic travel size from Walmart; I've saved empty jars from purchased lotions; and I recently bought some lovely glass jars from an Etsy seller Supplies For You.

Darling, aren't they? I bought a case of 12 of the small jars and think they'll make the lotion part of my gifts a bit more special.

Back to the lotion:

Dump ingredients into a bowl. I use a stainless bowl reserved specifically for crafts.

Mix thoroughly.

To aid in the mixing, I heat a pan of water and set the bowl in the pan. The water in the pan is below the level of the bowl. Makes mixing easy.

Fill the containers. A plastic bag with a small hole cut in one corner works great; funnels, not so much--believe me, I've tried. Be advised: when you're finished, your hands will be more lotion-covered than probably they ever have been!

 Clean outside of filled containers with alcohol.

And voila! Enough lotion to last all year--unless you share, which I generally do. Honest, this stuff is good. Very moisturizing. For gardeners, you can double the amount of petroleum jelly. You'll need to rub longer to get the lotion worked into the skin, but it's great for abused hands.

Unless you plan ahead, you're likely to wind up with more lotion than containers. As mentioned earlier, I save old jars, and I've been known to tell my friends they can have refills as often as they want so long as they return the container.

I'd love to hear if you try this, or already have done. (I can't stop feeling of my hands. They're like babies' bottoms!)

Christmas Tour

Seems as if every year I decorate minimally and swear I won't the next. Somehow, though, time gets away from me, and I do it again, year after year.

Several years back I picked up a pre-lit tree that's probably no more than three feet tall. I've been using it since, except when I haven't. This year is one of the latter times.

This little 18-incher is my fall-back. I've probably had it fifteen years or so, but it's served me well. This year I didn't even put ornaments on it--except for the chocolate sign my GG friend gave me. The rest are simply picks I stuck into the tree. I still like the look of it, except in this picture it needs a little straightening. Oh, and the mirrored cone beside it is one of those Dollar Tree things that are so popular in blogland this year. I picked it up last Saturday and haven't taken the time to age it down.

Here another pic of the tree, all straightened and in a position to highlight the poinsettia I made as a topper. (The cone is gone, and obviously the lighting wasn't as good for this pic as for the first.)

I look at these pictures and think OMG, they look so...bare. This little arrangement atop the lawyer's bookcase in my living room needs some, I dunno, greenery. And I'd use some, except I didn't bring all my decorative picks from the storage shed and I certainly don't intend to buy more.

I started gathering these crystal candleholders back when I was putting together glass totems for my garden. I bought way more than I ever could use as totems, even if I'd continued making them, so here they are in my Christmas dekkies.

And this is my table centerpiece. Not much; just a few pieces of faux sugared fruit around a candle in the old copper bowl I always use as a centerpiece, surrounded by a twisted berry garland.

Our stockings: Tom's has a flamingo on the top cuz we've had these forever and he used to collect them. Max's is the denim one at the top. Not fully visible in this pic is the Garfield stocking hanger holding it.

The wreath into my garage was made by a woman I used to work with, back in the dark ages. I think it's held up well, but it's a tad small for my front door.

This is what hangs there. It needs a bit more decoration, but I'm not up for that right now and probably won't get around to taking pics of it when I finally do manage to tart it up.

So that's my Christmas tour. I won't promise it'll ever get better than this, but thanks for stopping in!

Gotta love...

Etsy Finds. This is the second time one of my items has been included in an article, and the number of hits I got was remarkable! Yesterday, they included the box of dominoes I picked up at a garage sale in September.

Honest, I wasn't even sure I wanted to sell them so I set the price pretty high. I'd had lookers sure but nothing like after the Storque article. (In case you're interested, you can see it here.) And they sold! Edited 12-12 to add clickable link.

Last summer, another of my items was included: I blogged about it at the time and it didn't sell for another couple of months.

 But it sold. Yay, Etsy Finds!

So the question is: how does one lure the Etsy Finds people to include items in the articles. I'm thinking photos. Gotta work on them photo skills. In the meantime, though, I'll consider myself lucky that I've been chosen twice!

Lunch with the GGs

Christmas is about people. Sometimes when I'm chasing myself--I haven't decorated; I have no tree; I've not sent out cards; I haven't even looked at a cookie pan!--I tend to forget about that.

But...I'm never too busy for lunch with the GGs! I consider myself lucky to be part of a mahvelous group my sis calls the GGs (short for gym girls--Ginger always comes up with cool nicknames!) Disclaimer here--I haven't belonged to that gym in six years, but they let me tag along anyway.

This year for our Christmas lunch we went to the Hill Country Galleria, a neat little collection of shops in Bee Caves, about half an hour from Marble Falls which is sorta kinda a central location for all of us.

These ladies are really neat, and I adore them. We're an odd collection: Mary and Donna are retired nurses; Josie was in the travel industry in New Zealand; my sis Ginger still works--when her hub sold his business five years ago part of the agreement was that Ginger would continue to do their books for a while; I'm not sure what Joy did; I don't think I ever asked, but her hub was a lawyer turned entertainment agent, and Joy's the cool sophisticated lady that goes along with that; my SIL Sunny was a SAHM, and me, I worked outside sales for a local telco.

Mary made us all promise that when we get old--no matter what y'all think, we're not there, yet!--and all alone, we'll live on the same street so we can take care of each other. Since oldness is kinda looking at us sideways, Ginger surprised us with badges my 'nother sis Daisy made for each of us with our names on it. ('Cept Ginger's simply says Me.)

Cool, aren't they? Daisy's pretty darned talented. (And patient; she ran into a problem and had seven to make so it took quite a while.) Of course we all wore them while at lunch, just in case any of us had a sudden attack of dementia. (Mary says they'll work perfectly when we're in the old folks' home and can't remember who we are!)

We exchange small gifts among us, mine this year being the poinsettia ornament for which I previously gave directions. Actually these ladies were the reason I came up with the idea.

These are the ones I made for them, the originals. When it came time to get ready for the lunch, I needed boxes--and boxes are the bane of my existence. I actually own a boxmaker, a pretty cool tool, but still I struggle coming up with ones I like that are sturdy enough. (Often, as I'm struggling, I chant under my breath Nester's mantra, "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful!" Still, even knowing that, I find myself apologizing for the boxes whenever anyone compliments them. Someone kick me in the rear, please!)

After trying to decoupage boxes made from emty Cheerios containers and realizing it would take far too long, I finally decided on boxes made from old Christmas cards. They only had to be sturdy enough for a trip to Bee Caves.

I think they turned out pretty nice. (The reason the one on the bottom left doesn't have a bow is cuz my SIL has the flu and couldn't go with. She'll get hers when she feels better.)

Now for pics of my haul!

The Santa is from my SIL--she sent her gifts with Ginge since she'll most likely not be seeing the GGs before Christmas. The silver tree dish is from Mary, who nicely included soap that looks like candy instead of the real thing, in deference to my sugar allergy (also known as Type 1 diabetes!).

The candle was also from Sunny, as were the socks in the next pic. Looks good in my guest bath, huh?

This is the final lot--well, not quite: I forgot to include the lovely quilt potholders Donna made--she's a wonderful quilter--since I've already tucked those away. And the fudge Joy made, which Tom is enjoying. The photos are ones Joy took and had made into postcards. Wonderful shots, professional looking. They'd look great framed. The little wooden sign says Chocolate Makes my Clothes Shrink. Very apropos! (I think the sign will look cute on the tree--when I finally get it up. Hopefully that'll happen tomorrow afternoon, only I'm just going with a small one this year. I'm getting started too late to do the big one!)

Gotta go now. Lots to do--I was in the middle of a load of laundry when the water dried up. The water company says there's a blow-out down the line. Dang! Oh, well.

Later, y'all.

More Ornaments

Unlike many of my fellow bloggers, I won't be decorating for Christmas until later in the month so all I have to share that's seasonal are the ornaments I've been working on.

This first one is a soft sculpture needle felted snowman head. Easy peasy--it's not even fair to call it fiber art, but hey, I do!

Santa required a bit more finesse than did Frosty, but not much. Still not satisfied with his mustache. Hercule Poirot, he's not!

This last is one I made for a sister, which is why the pic was just taken on my desktop. Billie's admired similar ones, and since she did me a favor picking up a shared shower gift for a niece I thought I'd send this along with my share of the money. I kinda went overboard with the decorations, but I like it. I think she will too. (If you're reading this, Billie, it's going in tomorrow's mail, along with my check. And thanks!)

I'm enjoying everyone's posts about their Chrismas decorations. Just don't expect the same from me for some time yet, if at all. (When I do decorate, it's not that lavish. Maybe I'll take pics of my sis Ginger's house. Hers always looks fab. And when my SIL Sunny starts decorating again--well, that'll be something to see.)

Ta, y'all.