Christmas Greetings

We hope you are all having a lovely Christmas Day.

Artful Thursday and Kitty Cats

Happy Day Before Christmas

As this is my normal time for Artful Thursday I have a couple of things to show.

As mentioned in previous blogs I am working slowly on a class projects for a class called Remains of the Day by Mary Ann Moss.

This first picture shows all the pages I have cut out. They will have LOTS more added as I go along. But this is the way it begins. I have more pages than I really need "just in case."

And the second picture shows the paper scraps I will use in the second phase.
And now for the fun of our life.... out three kitties. The first picture is of our "bookend" cats. Spooky on the left and Tuffy on the right. They love to sit "up" where they can see and keep an eye on things.

And next Spooky is keeping a sharp eye on Bentley. He is a boy cat, a flame point siamese, who thinks he is royalty however Spooky doesn't agree.

The Wednesday Before Christmas

Twas the Wednesday before Christmas when all through house the cats were all sleeping in their favorite places. The cards and gifts were all mailed. And all that were expected were received. For once we are not a part of the last minute race.
The cookies are baked, and food is all bought. So what do we do until Friday morning.... no rushing about, no dashing to and fro. Instead we will listen to carols and enjoy the time. It has taken us quite a few years to get to this point.

Seriously though, I always aimed to have time to relax before Christmas. But never expected it to happen. This year it did. Now we will no doubt go crazy.... or not.... we will enjoy the time to work on our hobbies that were supposed to be put on the back burner....

Bill is in his modeling studio making a model of something or other and I am getting ready to continue to work on my newest project. I love it!!

I start the next phase of the journal from the Remains of the Day class this afternoon. I spent the morning collecting up things I might need.

Maybe tomorrow I will have something to show....

Mini Monday-- Christmas

On this "Mini Monday" I thought I would show a couple of the Christmas room scenes I have made. This first one is in quarter scale. Notice the penny to get idea of size. Many of the items came from quarter scale swaps I did.

This second scene is a bit more complicated. It is full scale. I bought a "gift box scene at a flea market a while back. I changed it by adding all the Christmas fabric, ribbons etc. And then filled it with items I received in a swap from Joyce Mori. It was a Christmas Countdown kind of swap so we opened one item each day. The idea was to build the scene around the fireplace.

Here is the scene out side of the covering box.

And if you want to see the Christmas scene I did this year go back to a few Mondays ago.

Click here

Merry Christmas to you all if you don't check back again before the day.

We are going to have a White Christmas and I finished my book cover.

Yesterday the east coast of the US got plummeted by snow. Luckily we were just on the backwards edge so only got about 3 inches, not the foot or two many of the coastal areas received. The sun is out today and it is quite pretty. I took a couple of pictures to document it for us and thought I would include them here.


Here is a picture of the poor lawn chairs out on the patio just off of our deck. They look sad and lonely.

But on to better things. I am pretty sure my cover is done.... unless I think of something else to add to it. I made a tie for it which is connected at the flap. This picture shows it open.

And here it is closed.

Next week we will start adding things to the inside. Mostly from recycled items. It should be interesting.

Continuing with "Remains of the Day" project

Last night my sewing machine was really humming along. I got out my pattern for the journal I am making, all my fabric scraps, my ironing board and iron and started the process.

This first picture is what it looked like after I picked out the fabrics I would be using. I laid them out to see how I would like them. In end however I left two of them out

In this next picture you can see how I stitched down the main pieces using a zig zag stitch in red.

I used red because it is one of the main colors in the piece AND because I LIKE IT.

And the final picture shows where I added a few other things. The leaf piece is part of a lace collar I had in my stash, the litte circle on the bottom was added cause I like that fabric and the flower was one I had. It may not stay. We shall see tomorrow.

Tomorrow I hope to be able to show you the mostly finished cover. I still have to make the tie for it. AND who knows what changes I will end up making.
I would love to read your comments.

Altered Art and Christmas

Getting packages wrapped and in the mail and working on Christmas Cards has slowed me down in my hobbies and my blogging.

But an altered Art lady named Mary Ann Moss has saved the day. I am so excited about a new project class I am doing with her. My good friend Anne is taking the class too so we have each other to encourage and push on.

I have finished the Artist Class I was taking and the 12 Days of Christmas projects I signed up for.
So now, once the cards get out in the mail I will have time again to Play. Unless my antique shop gets too busy, which I doubt, since Christmas time is NOT my busiest time out there.

This is an early Christmas present from my husband. He is getting his hobby stuff for his gift from me. The class is called Mary Ann Moss' Remains of the Day: A Shabby Journal of Scraps. This class is going to stretch me quite a bit, not in the usual realm of things I do ... But hey, that is good for me. The first lesson is to make the cover. I have finished the inside and today will work on the outside of it. My sewing machine will get some use beyond doing mending.

A few months ago I bought a huge amount of scrap material from a home decorating fabric shop near me. I am pulling that out of my stash today to start selecting the pieces I will use for the outside of the cover. I have already used a few pieces for pillow but that is all.

I will report in tomorrow on the results of today's play.