And a (belated) Merry Christmas

 I think most of my friends have received their cards now - and I can show you guys our 2011 Christmas card - MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU - YOU MATTER,  weather you're here for the first time or you visit regularily. Thank you so much for the visits and the comments you've left behind. You make me so happy. And I wish you all the best!

 My 11-year old neighbor came to me with this drawing - TOne, will you please sew this dress for me? How is a girl able to say no do a question like that? Though I had some issues with the design - she's 11, like nothing to hold the dress up with... and really no waist...

But she is very happy with it - I did add shoulder straps, wouldn't want the girl to lose the dress at her Christmas party...

In Norway we're celebrating Christmas for almost a week - and then it's New Years - my brother is visitng with his wife and daughters, my girls just simply LOVE playing with their cousins, specially the oldest. We spend as much time as we can visiting them at my parents house, which mean I don't get a lot of time crafting and creating - which for me is holiday and recreation, but visiting with family is just so more important - the girls see their cousins once or twice a year. Today my entire family will meet at my parents house - all my aunts and uncles and cousins, and their kids again - we do this every Christmas - and I love it... Have a happy day!

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and gymnastics show

Christmas is getting really busy around here - between not having a car, buying a new one, waiting to pick it up, getting Christmas presents ready, sewing for a gymnastics show.... and baking and, and, and - it is busy, but I love it!!!! Preparing to make a nice Christmas for the girls, making lasting memories for them.... spending time with them. I appreciate being able to do this, looking at my girls, hearing what their saying, watching their show - I love it!

 The girls had a Christmas show with their gymnastics group today - they were supposed to be characters from The Lion King - I made them lion costumes. They also wore ears, I don't have pictures of those yet. - found my phone picture - last in the post

 Going out for dinner with my parents after the show - the girls still had painted faces - I love living so close to my parents. My only brother lives far away, but it's so nice with family close by.

 A rare appearance!

 Another shot of the costume...

 I've come to day 6 of the advent calendar - Tuesday I had cut out hearts for the girls - with a zig zag pair of scissors - they sewed around it themselves with the sewing machine, leaving a little hole to put the stuffing in - then sewed it back up.

 Wednesday I wasn't home for more than half an hour - they spent time with the au pair.

Thursday they got to invite a friend home for their calendar gift.

Friday we were supposed to make Christmas presents - we did them today  - painting on t-shirts. We used fabric markers.

 For grand-daddy (he's from Trinidad and Tobago - hence the daddy part of grandpa)

 For themselves, of course!

 Their baby cousin

 I made this for my friend - she likes hunting. I used cookie cutters.

And for daddy.

For the tenth day, I gave them the latest Barbie Christmas movie - my niece is also getting that for Christmas. The Barbie movies are such a big hit in our house, coming home with that movie- makes me mommy-of-the-year. They're not very hard to please....

Today we've done a ton of things - they love being painted in the face - they looked so cute when they were first painted - then the show, then eating dinner at a restaurant, then doing the t-shirts. Then today on the calendar it said doing Christmas cards - we've done some of them - at least the ones that have to go in the mail. Tomorrow it will say go to the mail on their calendar, sending off presents for far-away family and poor children in the Philippines!!!

this is before the show - with their ears!

Only two more weeks - love this time of year!

3, 4, and 5 - and gift ideas for the females in your life

Time goes by so fast during advent - I'm really loving this season. But my advent schedule has suffered due to my car breaking down. I wasn't able to get t-shirts to paint on Saturday - and because I hvae really nice parents whom lend me their car- I now have them and we can get this activity done.

angel wings

But I had to change up Saturday, Sunday and Monday - I moved Monday's activity to Saturday - looking for old toys to give to the nieces and nephews of my au pair. My au pair really like to tidy - and she has tidied all the girls' toys - mixing all the toys, putting all the small pieces together, all the pet shops, my little pony, Barbies - into one big box, because after all their small pieces.... (can you hear the irony here?) So I started to tidy out the girls' toys Saturday, throwing away broken toys and we all found toys we could give away - we'll send them off on Monday.

home made clothing labels for the seamstress friend - tutorial found here: See Kate Sew

Then on Sunday we didn't go to visit the old aunt. She's in the hospital now, and we'll have to wait and see what happens to her. Instead we had a making-cookies swap with three of my cousins. One of cousins has a daughter the same age as my girls. We all brought one sort of dough with us, made them together and divided the cookies - so we now have for different sorts of cookies. Here in Norway the old tradition says we have to have seven different sorts - only three to go!

and why not make a binder full of free patterns for your creative friend.

Yesterday we called grandma in New York. The girls haven't seen her for four years, and they don't call her much because they don't really know her, but I know she is so happy when we call, and I thought this would be a nice way to think of someone else for their advent. And she was happy. She had just received our Christmas gift last week - a 2012 table calendar with lots of pictures of the girls.

owl banner

Today we're back at our schedule, I've cut out hearts for the girls to sew - they are so excited about using the sewing machine...

gadget charger pouch

I've taken the day off to work on a paper I have to write for my school - ten pages by tomorrow on how to improve my students ability to write papers....I started this morning... procrastination - I know your name!

bag organizer

I keep wondering what I'm going to give the females in my life for Christmas - I'm a single parent so my gift budget isn't very big and I want to be able to make some homemade gifts. The pictures in this post are some of the things I'm thinking I can make for my girl friends, cousins, s-i-l and co-workers.

cowls

Hope you'll have a nice day - and if you have any good ideas for girl friend's gifts, let me know

2

Yesterday(!) we made Ginger bread cookies - the girls were so excited and they were just all bubbly and happy - it makes me so happy we have this type of calendar, spending quality time together.

 I bought store ready ginger bread dough - so easy. All the other Christmas cookies are made from scratch, though!

 Princess' cookies

 Angel's cookies

 They were so happy I had bought them small rolling pins - one for each!

 Yummy - especially for the low-carb eating mother!

Decorating the cookies, I also bought a store ready icing, and it was really hard to get out. But they do look cute, right?

Then name of Jesus was the Lord - talking about how a Lord is almost like a king - that He decides.

Happy weekend

Tutorial 28 - crochet Christmas chain

wow - I'm so late today, it's almost not the 28th anymore here in Norway - but here it is...

I've got five different colors, 20 chains, and it's for a fellow blogger - I hope she enjoys the colors I chose, I think they look Christmassy.

I used cotton yarn, hook number 3 (European size)

Make a loop, crochet 7 chain stitches

put your hook in the second stitch from the hook, then 5 single crochet back

turn, 2 chain stitches, 5 single crochet - and so on until desired length

It's not hard - but 20 chains take some time!!!

And tomorrow - my second last tutorial before I start with the Advent series!

Tutorial 27 - angel wings from paper

I really didn't feel like sewing today, besides, it's Sunday and I should be able to do what I want, so there. It's extremely windy here today, and my car broke down yesterday. On top of that I had to be at church - no car... we had to walk. It's not very far, but with all the wind, it's very tiring. It' so windy I didn't dare to get the girls to ride their bikes. I was afraid they would get blown over. On top of all of this (not complaining - we've had a beautiful 1st Sunday of advent) the power went - due to the wind, which meant no sewing machine. 

Because of ALL of this you're getting a paper craft today. The girls were in the bath when I finished it and hung it, when they came into the living room - they both exclaimed: "OH MOMMY!" - I guess they like it!

 It's a very quick project.

 You'll need: cardboard, news paper/old books/music notes, glue/mod podge and rope

 trace your wing on a pattern sheet - or a piece of paper, cut it out

 trace it on some cardboard - both wings

 get the news paper or old books, start to glue pieces in a criss cross pattern. I decided to use the colored side of the card board, an old ice cream box - the if someone looks at the back, it's just brown - or you can glue both sides.

 put glue on top of everything as well - let it dry

 tie the rope around the middle a few times, then put some rope around the rope in the wings and hang up.

We decided smaller versions of these would make perfect gift tags!

And tomorrow you'll get a.... I don't know yet - a good thing I only have three more to go - and don't get me wrong, I LOOOOVE this month of tutorials

Tutorial 26 - angel wings for the chair

I had something else planned for today, but sitting here by the computer, I suddenly remembered an idea that passed through my head a few days ago, and I had to try. And I think it worked!

 Decorating the Christmas table with angel wings on the chairs! - And wouldn't this just be perfect as seating cards at a girl's birthday? I know I want to do this for my girls 7th party - with names on for each girl! Perfect

 Because they also fit so very well on the back.

 You need:

paper for drawing your pattern

fabric

ribbon

stuffing

1: draw your pattern - one of the wings

 place the pattern on a folded fabric - cut two

 2: sew on four pieces of ribbon - I use long ones on top and short ones on the bottom - on the second one I'll try to reverse this

 3: put the pieces together - right side towards right - tuck in the ribbon, sew all the way around, leaving a hole for turning and stuffing.

 4: Stuff however thick you want it, top stitch the hole

 5: add some texture by top stitching a pattern on the wings

 I'm really happy with this- I am making one for every chair around my dinner table - and adding the names of my girls and my nieces for the Christmas dinner!

One happy angel gt her wings - happy weekend!