2011 Here we come

I just can not believe that this year is almost over. I see that a lot of people are making their resolutions. I have three. One to have fun with my stitching this year (I reasonably think this one can be achieved)!

Second is to try and post more comments on peoples blogs. I read every post but for some reason feel intimidated when it comes to posting a comment.

And my third one is to try to exercise. Even if it's once a week its a start. John also wants me to start eating like he does... but haha like that will ever happen! I love my food too much. Well I guess I won't see ya til next year! Happy New Years!

Wednesday SAL

Holy cow... is it really Wednesday? Am I actually posting this on the correct day?!? Lol it feels wrong. After being threatened last week that if I didn't put at least one stitch in I was going to be beaten with a wet noodles I decided maybe I should work a little bit on my SAL. I hope this satisfies Crystal. LOL.



I have managed to get a nice chunk of it done, and I would of gotten more of it worked on yesterday but I stopped at my LNS and picked up some fabric for the Crazy 15 and then ran into work and bought some floss. So I spent last night trying to get organized so I can start on the 1st.



I also forgot with all the Christmas chaos to show you my first ever over 2. I'm very proud of myself. I'm not sure if its stitched on linen or evenweave. I got a couple grab bags from 123stitch and this was a piece out of that. It's a freebie design from the Sanman board. Maybe next year i'll have to sneak in another project to try stitching something a bit bigger on some linen & evenweave.



Alright well i'm off to stitch some on the SAL and watch some movies today. I hope can I just relax with stitching & movies all day, but we might take our tree down today.

Just keeping in theme

Lol I know I was suppose to draw the winners yesterday. But I thought i'd keep in the theme of being behind. Actually I ended up working extra hours last night at work and was tired when I got home.So first off before I announce who the winners are i'd like to welcome all my new followers and thank everyone for entering. I've never had this many entries. 41 of you all together!

So I had John draw the names...

Drum roll please...

1st place goes to... Dogmom Diva


and 2nd place is... CalamityJr


Congrats! Send me your snail mail info soon so I can mail you your winnings. Thanks again everyone for entering!

Merry Christmas!

Stopping by to wish everyone a Merry Christmas today! And don't forget to take a moment to remember that...

Christmas Ornaments 2010

Woo hoo these suckers are done. I swear every time I've tried to do anything with them something doesn't want to work. (Mainly it was the tacky glue) But here are the ornaments in the all their glory.

Since the slideshow wants to cut off half of the pictures you can also click here and go to my photobucket and look at all the pics.

I hope everyone enjoys their Christmas Eve!

Missed Wednesday again!

I've just been so busy that it totally slipped my mind that yesterday was Wednesday. Sadly I haven't been able to even put one stitch in on my Christmas SAL. So you will all have to wait another week to see if I manage any progress. I am happy to say that I have only 3 more ornaments to finish up. All thats left to do with them is stitch the fronts to the backs. So fingers crossed i'll get them done today. I also plan on getting a big amount of my Christmas baking done today. Well i'm off to attempt to get those ornaments done. (Plan on posting pictures of them all later today if I get them done!)

Finally some breathing.

I feel a little better I got almost all my Christmas ornaments done today. Whew... big breathe of relief. Now to finish the last couple and a few more presents and do my cooking in the next 5 days... Hopefully I can get everything done in time. I thought i'd leave you with a puzzle (Just click the play button). Have fun.

So behind *Giveaway*

I just don't know where my days are anymore. I'm so behind it feels like in everything I do lately. I'm a day late with my Christmas SAL but I have good reason. I had planned on posting it last night after I got out of work but they asked me to stay extra and help close. So I didn't get home til 12:30ish. I was so tired and since it would of been late anyways I just went to bed. So here is my update of 'On Christmas Day'.



I am also so late in holding my Christmas giveaway. I feel terrible! I've had everything sitting in a box just waiting for me to take some pictures and post it. So here's the deal. It's going to be a late Christmas present from me lol. I have two prizes. First prize is...



A container of goodies, a snowflake bell ornament, a scissor fob, some lavender hand lotion and bath fizzy, a snowflake mug and tin (the tin has Russian Tea in it), and a small ornament for you to stitch.

Second place prize is...



A cute Rudolph pen, a scissor fob, and a small ornament for you to stitch.

Also in both winners I will be adding an ornament stitched by me, and some ornament finishing goodies that you can use next year. (like some Christmas theme buttons and fabric)

Now how to enter. Lets do it the usual way.
First entry... leave a comment
second entry... blog about my giveaway
and for a lucky third entry... tell me your favorite Christmas song

I think I will draw a winner the day after Christmas. (Just keeping in my theme of being behind in everything lol.) So good luck!

Snowy Saturday

**Very long picture heavy post**

It's snowing huge wet flakes today, and I have so much to blog about i'm not sure what I should blog. I think I will start with what we did yesterday.

We went to Bronner's in Frankenmuth, MI. (Click here to check out their site.) It's the worlds largest Christmas store (which is the size of 5.5 football fields). I always love going there. You always want to spend so much money. The whole store is decorated with some of the most interesting Christmas displays (some even move) and a few things from other holidays. Here are some of the pictures I took of the displays that are around the store. (sorry some turned out a little blurry)

Here are a couple of the ornaments that we ended up buying.
mine:



Johns:



one in memory of his cat that passed:



one for his Greek Aunt & Uncle:



and I got these for my dad. I plan on after Christmas getting some cheap things for a small tree for him because he wont put the big one up anymore. He would tell me stories about the bubbles lights when he was growing up and I always thought they were cool so I got some that just snap onto a strand of small white lights.



There is one other ornament that I did pick up but I can not share it with you all because it's for Emily. So you will all have to wait til she gets it in the mail.

One of the best things is an early Christmas present from my mom. They had cute little ornament trees that rotate. I thought how cool would that be to hang my holiday stitched ornaments on and she bought me one!



Then we walked over to the Silent Night Memorial Chapel so that I could take a few pictures to share with you. This is a replica of the church where Silent Night was first sung.

After that we went over to the Bavarian Inn for the famous Chicken Dinner. Yum yum. I didn't get any pictures because we were all way to hungry and ate it! After that we went down to the bakery and I bought a container of their seasonings and a small loaf of Stollen bread. I just love it! Then we drove home.

It was a great day made even greater when I got home and found a box from Gracie! She sent me some of the most wonderful little gifts. She stitched me a cute little ornament. I just love the beading on the bottom of it. I put it on my new ornament tree. A lovely dark chocolate bar that John and I shared. Some new needles, some gold beads, snowman tissues, a cute kitty charm that I immediately put on my phone after I had to steal it back from John. Also a small jar of prickly pear cactus jelly, which we opened and tried. It has a very interesting & wonderful taste, and I can't wait to try it on some toast. And a bead grabber! I have been thinking to myself for awhile now that I should buy one of these. And of course an Arizona post card and Christmas card.



I want to thank Gracie again and again. Thank you so much. I love it all!!! Now I also had wanted to make sure I get my Christmas giveaway up soon. So make sure you keep an eye out it should be posted in the next couple days!!! Now I think i've kept you all long enough (that is if your still here). Thanks for reading my blog and all the comments you leave. Happy Stitching to you all!

Christmas Shoes - New Song

Heard it today on the drive home from some shopping. I've loved this song from the first time I heard it. Always makes me cry.

I know it's Thursday

I know i'm a day late in posting this. I did it last night and was going to post at like 11:30 last night so it was still posted on Wednesday but John was on the computer and I just crawled into bed. So last night I finished the ornament I needed to have done by Saturday so I took a little time and stitched this much on 'On Christmas Day'.



I plan on stitching a bit more on it today before I have to go to work. Now here is a picture of the finished ornament.



This ornament is for my mom's best friend. She just loves Mickey and since i'm seeing her Saturday I figured i'd try to stitch up a Mickey ornament for her. I think he turned out pretty cute. Here is a picture before I put it together so you can see the backside too.



Alright i'm off to try and stitch for awhile. So don't want to close at work tonight. But hey its a job and i'm thankful for that!

Ha Ha

Sorry Em put your noodles away....



Finished at 5p.m. last night. Now to wait for mom to get back from PA (I think). So we can get it framed and shipped off. I can't wait to hear what the lady thinks of it. It's hard stitching for someone you don't know. My mom was telling me that when her family comes over all they do is talk politics and religion. So she asked me to make something that said no talking of politics & religion in this house. I picked some Prairie Schooler designs and a dove & cross from a first communion card. I think it has turned out really nice. Here's to hoping mom's co-worker will love it!

I also started one more Christmas ornament last night. Hope to get it finished by the 11th when John, my mom, and my mom's best friend and I go to Frankenmuth. I'm so excited I love going there! They have a huge Christmas store, and yummy chicken dinners. Don't worry i'll take tons of pictures i'm sure. Well i'm off to stitch on that ornament. Happy stitching everyone.

TUSAL ect...

It's the last month for our pic of our TUSAL jar. I do think i'm going to keep putting all of Decembers in this jar...and show you at the end of the month. It doesn't look like I've added much but I have to keep smashing it down. I have picked out a new jar for next year thats a lot bigger.

Aren't the reindeer so cute? For as long as I can remember my mom has had a pair of them under her Christmas tree and ever since I moved out of her house I try to steal them for my tree. Well this year we have some at work and they were 50% off so I snatched a pair of them last night when I got out of work. They do look so cute under my tree. I don't think they are quite as big as my mom's so if she does every give them to me (like she says she will later in life) they might be small enough to look like kids and make them a family.

On the politics/religion front... you should see a finished picture tomorrow. If not your all allowed to beat me with a wet noodle. I only have the second half of the donkey left to do. I really should have that finished today!

Well i'm off to get a cracking on that donkey. Happy stitching!

Tired

This is how much I managed to get finished last night before I crawled into bed.



The dove & cross really kicked me in the butt. I hate stitching with really light colors. So first off that was a pain. Then I was an idiot and when I made the pattern to make sure everything lined up how I liked, the symbols came out in all different directions of V. So my dyslexia really hated me! But I pushed on and got it finished (and then rewarded myself with some caramel). Now for today... finish the elephant and do the donkey and hopefully start on the backstitching. Shouldn't be much longer and I can start 'On Christmas Day'.

Work for my supper

I was told (by Crystal) that I could not have my supper tonight unless I made some good progress on my politics/religion piece. I think I have so now i'm going to eat i'm starved! Promise i'll work on it more after dinner!

December 1st

Wow can you believe it.... its December. Only 25 days til Christmas!!! And what better way to wake up to on December 1st but....



Snow!!!! We finally got our first sticking of snow. It's not much now but it's still lightly snowing and suppose to all day. I just love snow.... well until about the middle of January then i'll start complaining about it. :)

Well Crystal, Wendy and I, have decided that we will start our 'On Christmas Day' SAL today. Seemed fitting. So each Wednesday we will be posting our progress.



So I went to the LNS and picked out some fabric before work yesterday. I'm not too sure that i'm in love with the color I ended up with. So i'm planning on going back today and taking the picture with me and the floss I ended up picking out. Each of us girls is doing it in a different color scheme so it should be really cool to see each of ours. Crystal is doing red, green & white. Wendy is doing hers in pink, gold & white. And mine will be in two shades of blue and white.



Last night instead of working on my politics/religion piece I made some scissor fobs for some lucky winners over on the SanMan board. I still have one more to make so after that one is finished I will share them with you. I think these ones have been some of the best I've made. Even John said these ones look extra fancy.

Well here is my progress so far on politics/religion.



I will have to get my butt in gear on this! My mom wants to mail it out in time for Christmas. Guess thats what i'll be working on for the next few days. Happy stitching everyone!

Crazy organized

I tried to figure out a way that would make the Crazy 2011 Challenge seem a little less crazy and a little more organized. Think I figured a way. I went to the dollar store and bought 15 shoe box size plastic storage containers. I have numbered them 1-15 and have printed a picture on the top of each. So now when I do my rotation I can easily switch from one to the next. Lol is that being a little too organized? Now I need to get all the supplies into each box. But for now i'm off to get a couple hours stitching in on politics/religion before I have to get ready for work. I'll try to share a pic of my progress on it soon. Happy stitching!

Christmas Decorations

I only ended up putting like half my Christmas decorations up this year... it still seems like too much shoved into one little space lol. I'll take a straight one of the tree tonight.