Merry Christmas

I hope your Christmas is filled with family and friends, joy, happiness,and lots of good food.

Christmas Time Again

It's that time of year again, Christmas tree hunting. Now I have to admit because I am about ready to pop and could not go climbing in the mountains, I was a little worried when Marcel and Robie went chasing after a tree that "looks pretty good from here". Now Robie has not done much of the the tree hunting, his family usually went with fake trees or ones from lots/farms. So yes I was a little worried when the boys disappeared from view and a little while latter I heard the saw fire up. But, I have to say I will never doubt his tree finding abilities again, they found the cutest little tree that fits perfectly in the corner of the living room.



I took us a little while longer to find mom and dads tree, but after lots of hunting (road hunting on my part) we found'em one.





After getting it home and a few tries to get it to stay upright (we need a new stand apparently) our Christmas decorations are complete.

Its beginning to look alot like Christmas

I know this one is a little late, life has been completely chaotic, I can't believe Christmas is only days away. We have the tree up and most of the presents lined up underneath. Missoula finally broke out of its cold snap (think negative numbers), snowed then immediately warmed up even more and has been raining, which turns to ice every night, and thick fog, but they are calling for snow today and cold weather for the rest of the week, fingers crossed!

This past weekend the U19 girls I help coach had a couple games in Salmon, ID. It is only about a three hour drive from Missoula, so it was just a quick day trip. My dad got his Christmas present a little early and I believe she is everyone's favorite.



Meet Bones the Shed Dog! She is an eight week old Yellow Lab, Golden Retriever mix. She will be trained to sniff out antler sheds in the woods, I know she will be able to do it, this is one of the smartest breeds of dogs you can find (Our fist dog Katy was a Lab, Goldie mix and a GREAT dog).

Also on our trip to Salmon we had to stop and see 'Liver Eatin'. He is an old friend of my dads and a total character. I do not know how to describe him in words, so I will just show you his latest pet. He found her as a baby and has raised her.




Yes that is a skunk, no the stink glands have not been removed, yes my sister is petting her!

Ornaments

So I did these a while ago..okay maybe it was only two weekends ago but I have been so busy it I am losing track of time.

Mod Podge I love this stuff. I haven't played with it for years but I still have a few of the projects my mom and I did. I went into Michaels for...uh well...oh! I think I was looking for some ribbon to hang my Angel ornaments and got sidetracked (a very dangerous thing). They had dimensional paper ornaments perfect for decorating, sorry I do not have a picture of just them. I grabbed 3 round ones (one for each cat) and two stars. And of course I had to find some Christmasy paper to use.

I cut out two sides for each ornament, making sure each one was about 1/8" smaller than the ornament.



Then I painted the edge, and up the side of each ornament with white acrylic paint. I put a layer of Mod Podge on the cardboard side and place the scrapbook paper over and put another layer of Mod Podge ontop, making sure to smooth out the bubbles and center the circle.



While letting side one dry I cut out a picture of each of my cats (maybe someday I will do this project again with a picture of a dog or even better...my own child!) and cut a hole in the matching three pieces to make frames. Once they were dry I Mod Podged both the picture and the second piece of paper to side two and let them dry.


Our kitties Sully (gray) Ally (top) and ShitHead AKA Zoey

I am sometimes very inpatient especially when waiting for things to dry, so I used some of the the polka-dot scraps and Mod Podge and spruced up the little clothespins that hold our stockings.

Christmas Times a Comin...

This weekend was filled with Christmas preparations. Including the second annual waffle cookie bake at my Grandparents in Plains, MT. The girls (Mom, sister Sidonie, my brothers girlfriend Niki, my Grandma, and I) made cookies all day while the guys watched the Grizzlies play football (I believe they are up to 91 unanswered points)

Final Christmas decorations were also put up this weekend, and that included the tree. Which we had to find first. I don't know if you have ever seen Christmas Vacation but it is a family tradition to watch that movie at least 3x each year. Well one of the opening scenes is finding the family Christmas tree. When Clark (Chevy Chase) sees the tree the clouds part and light is shinning just the tree. Well every year we must find the tree. This year it was surprisingly quick finds for both our tree and my parents tree. I don't know if it was the cold and the negative digit windchill or the new spot, but whatever it was it was almost too easy.




And I just have to add a picture of my lovely siblings



I did finish decorating our lovely tree and I made some ornaments but I don't have all the pictures so hopefully tomorrow.

Tree is DONE!

YAY!! My advent calendar is finally done! I spent all day Sunday finishing the tree. I hand lots of little steps to finish:
* Cut the fusible interfacing to fit the back of the tree
* Pin and fuse it on
* Pin the stump on
* Pin and sew the tree backing on
* Iron on the snow patches (I used heat'n bond from JoAnns)
* Attach the numbers I cut out of felt that I found with a sticky side (from Michael's



* Cut out my star and attach it to the top



I love the way it turned out. I am so excited to use it for years to come. The only thing I wish I had done, and at some point will add, is a way to hang it up. Maybe a few loops on some of the branches or something.

Thank you again to Abby at A Feathered Nest for this wonderful idea, I cannot wait to see how yours turned out!

Words

This project was my first attempt at hand stitching anything. I do not have fancy machines that will do letters for me so I had to figure out a way to get my letters straight and all fit on the square.

So I pulled out the tracing paper from my architecture days and wrote it on that, then I pinned it to the felt and sewed through it.



Just pulling the paper out made the stitches uneven so I used an exacto knife and tweezers to get the little pieces out, but I think it turned out okay for a first attempt.

Yummy Felt

I found this post and fell in LOVE. I was looking for someting to do while watching endless hockey games on TV and this was just the thing!