christmas 2015

Merry Christmas! Christmas came very fast this year - it seems like before I knew it, it was here. Here's some memories for my online scrapbook.

How cute is Butters? He's starting off my photo story with the cutest picture of him.

My daughter said I could take Matthew to see Santa this year. Holly, Eileen, William and I set off to the mall. I was so excited to have a little one to take to see Santa. I sat him on Santa's lap and Matthew turned and looked at Santa - poked his beard and then started to cry. Bless his little heart. After that we walked the mall and he loved it! The activity of the mall kept his whole attention. It was so cute!! And I love this picture.

We purchased tickets to Holiday Nights at Greenfield Village on the nastiness night of the year. There was severe weather warnings with lots of wind and rain. Holiday Nights is mostly an outdoor event. Greaaaat...

With no refunds on the tickets, we put on our big girl panties and braved the weather. It wasn't too bad. They had the largest train set and lego build I've ever seen.

The amount of lego effort was amazing.

So with much detail - you could literally spend all night looking.

We rode the carousel - it was super old, built back in the 1800's.  With the wind and rain, I wasn't keen on using my camera and my settings were hurried and not very good.

And I got some pretty good shake in my photo. Overall the night was good. We were soaked to the bone when we left - but I would go again. It actually was a lot of fun.

Christmas morning and Holly and Eileen opening presents.

And Jason .... 

Holly made this for Burke. She did it all herself. She picked out the fabric and designed the embroidery on the apron. It says "Never trust a skinny cook." He was fighting the tears. Special daddy gift. I was really impressed how well it came out. The best part was she actually let me teach her how to make something.

Burke gets me a Santa every year - and here is the one for 2015. This Santa I can put down by my fireplace as it's ceramic based. He came bearing gifts of his one.

I almost forgot to take pictures and Jenny reminded me .... right before everyone was about to leave. So I quickly set up the tripod. The lightening was bad with this beam of light coming in and I wasn't able to do much about it. So .... we powered on.

The baby had just about had it for the day - ready for his nap. We were able to snap a couple and I was practicing with my photo editing skills.

The same with this one. I like how it turned out. It would be an excellent picture if everyone was looking at the camera. The dogs weren't cooperating either.

Jason was in the shower when we took the family picture, so I snapped one of him near the tree. It was a little dark so I lightened it up a bit. He was wearing his new Christmas clothes.

End of the day and everyone was gone. Time to clean up. Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and I'm looking forward to the New Year.

the making of a christmas stocking

With two new additions to the family, I finally got a chance today to make their stockings. I started with Matthew's stocking first. I also made one for Julia, our Swedish foreign exchange student.

I have the advantage of owning an embroidery machine, but if I didn't ..... I would probably use some glitter glue to write the family's members name on their stocking.

I got out my pattern which I made a few years ago. Here's how I made it.

I took an old stocking I had and used it as a template. Cut 2. Keep one in tact, that will be the inside of the stocking. I usually make this out of fleece. The second one cut the top off (for the name), and the heel off for some extra decorations.

I'm using my embroidery machine here to complete the top of the stocking. I bought the fonts several years ago - it's called Walt Disney. I have this entry level Brother embroidery machine which I bought for about $300 and I love, love, love it. It only does 4x4 designs and only a single spool at a time - but what a work horse! I haven't killed it yet!

I sew the top to the bottom part of the decorative stocking. I used some brick brack over the seam line. Do the back the same way.

I embroidered the heel of the stocking to make it extra special for my grandson. I used a nice big block of white to do the actually embroidery. Once it was done, I put the heel out around the design.

And then sewed it to the stocking.

With right sides together, sew the decorative stocking together at the sides.

Use the full size sock template to cut out the fleece for the inside. Cut 2.

And sew the fleece together at the sides leaving about a 2-3 inch opening in the seam to turn the stocking inside out.

Make the hook for the stocking by taking some fabric, fold inside and again. Iron it very well to make nice sharp edges. Sew edges together.

Put the fleece stocking inside the embroidered stocking with right sides together. Basically, you are putting one stocking inside the other. Always, always, always make sure right sides are together. Pin the hook hear the seam.

Sew together around the top of the stocking.

When it's done, pull it right side out through the 2 inch opening you left in the fleece. It should look like this.

Sew the 2 inch opening in the fleece closed.  Push the fleece inside the embroidered stocking and voila! There you are!

The stocking is done for my sweet baby grandson, Matthew. It matches his brothers and his mom's. On to Julia's!

Isn't that just the sweetest face ever! My little monkey face ...

olaf!

Over the years Aunt Dottie made barbie doll clothes for me when I was a child. And when I had girls she made barbie doll clothes for them. Sadly, none of them survived the years. It makes me sad to think of those lost treasures.

I was thinking about Christmas and what to get my two beautiful nieces Abby and Avery. Abby LOVES Frozen. Did I mention she LOVES Frozen? Avery, while younger, shares her sisters LOVE.

So my thought was to get Abby and Avery barbie dolls and make them some Frozen costumes for them. It then morphed into 18 inch dolls instead of barbies, but the idea was still there to create costumes for them. So then, I started to think about the other small beauties in my family, and began to think of Olaf.

Wouldn't Grant, Matthew, and Lena love to have Olaf?! I began to look around at the different blogs about creating Olaf, but they all seemed to lack the full face and kind of 3 dimensional look.

I tried several times to create the perfect pattern but grew frustrated very quickly. Why hadn't I paid attention in math!? I was ready to give up when Julia suggested I buy an Olaf and create the pattern from that. Good idea! So off I went and began taking the purchased Olaf apart at the seams.

I redesigned parts of the pattern along with the eyes, buttons, and mouth for my Olaf. To add an extra touch, I embroidered the name of the child on the bottom of the foot.

So Brandy, if you read this, Grant's Olaf should be on the way soon - just in time for birthday #2! I actually finished stuffing Olaf while I was watching Frozen. Jackie came over for lunch and now .... well .... guess I'm making 4 in total.