Merry Christmas!

In a few minutes, I'm off to my parents' house to make lasagna with my mom - it's about time she passed down her recipe. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

I have a little DIY over at Savannah Smiles for a Christmas tree topper star. I showed how to make the two top layers at Savannah's blog, but that was getting pretty long so I'm showing the other layer here.

When I set out to make my own star, I was sort of inspired by this one. I wanted to see if I could make something roughly similar with paper.

My tree topper

Start with a piece of paper about 2" wide by 4" tall (I cut a strip of 12 x 12 paper into 4" strips, then cut those down into smaller rectangles.) Imagine a 1/2" wide (give or take - I didn't measure this layer!) section in the center and fold "around" it, like this:

Now the little "wings" on the side need to be folded under the center section and back out to be about the same width. Your fold will look like a Z:

Next, you just need to clip the points. Cut at an angle from the outer edge just on the outer flaps; cut underneath the center section to hide the vertical cut, which doesn't have to be perfect.

Snip the corners of the center section only to make a point. The final product will look like this:

It's not complicated once you get the rhythm down, but it's a little weird to explain. Hopefully the pictures help! The last step is to glue all of these into a circle - I just hot glued them to the same circle of cardboard that I glued the center accordion layer onto.

Then, I covered it up with a circle I cut out of decorative paper and glued a piece of cardboard tube from a paper towel roll to make it easy to set on top of the tree. The decorative paper is just to make the back look decent if you're going to see it from that angle - plain paper would work just as well, or leave it out if your tree's against a wall.

Feel free to share photos of any tree toppers you've made - like this one or totally different!

December's Here

We got our Christmas tree. It still looks like this: http://twitter.com/#!/SmithAndDaphne/status/143506713260199938 (undecorated). I swear it grew when we carried it through the door.

I found my camera + tripod connector foot thing, but haven't been taking many pictures.

I sewed one Christmas stocking last night, hopefully I can make the other tonight and also add a bit of width to our tree skirt.

It's officially winter - we have eaten both Brussels sprouts and clementines. I'm finding myself eating more seasonally - coming back to certain foods at certain times of the year. Paying more attention to what's good when.

I planted a few bulbs yesterday - it was tough to dig some of them far enough into our "soil" - not because it's frozen or anything like that, but because it's basically rock and cement chunks after the first few inches. Another reason I want to sheet mulch. I may try forcing some of them indoors - need to figure out how you're supposed to do that.

It's starting to become that busy time of year. I'll have to remember to pull out the camera and record some of it. So bad at that.

How to Find Extra Time on a Thursday

This week has turned into a blog-break-week. After the long pre-Christmas nights trying to get things done (like, um, gifts), I've been trying to relax more this week. Tonight we're getting together with my family to meet a baby cousin I haven't seen yet, and then there's New Year's Eve and Day coming up...

This morning, however, I'm sitting here with my breakfast and hot coffee trying to warm up a little and waiting for our water to do the same. The hot water heater has been acting up and I am NOT in the mood for a chilly shower. So here I wait, with a little "extra" time. Luckily my work schedule is very flexible, or I'd be in trouble running this late. I'm tempted to occupy myself looking at one of the books I got for Christmas, but that would make me very late.

That being said, here's a small peek at some of the goodies my family gave me (I confess, these are the ones that haven't been put away yet):

Why yes, that's a gorgeous print from Kate Fete, along with Craft, Inc., the Alabama Stitch Book, and Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts. And an ice cream maker attachment for my KitchenAid mixer - I <3 ice cream!

My family chose good. And now I'm off to (hopefully!) find some hot water.

Merry Christmas!

We got our first Christmas tree this year. This is our fifth Christmas together (married), but for two of them, we weren't home for Christmas, one of them we weren't even on the same continent, and last year we were staying in my in-laws vacation home and didn't want to bring a tree and all its mess into it. With all the last-minute craziness that's been going on this week, I don't have any updated pictures of the tree - I made a tree skirt (well, halfway made) and it had some presents under it, but at least I got something photographed!

Notice the chair: That's how close the tree is to our dining room table

I also collect ornaments as souvenirs; this is from our honeymoon:

Got this one at the King Tut exhibit in San Francisco last year:

And these are ornaments I've been collecting for... 18 years? That seems like a really long time. My grandma always bought them for me when I was growing up; after she passed away, my mom bought me one and I'm trying to find this years'. I think I'll be ordering it online at this point; time got away from me and the ornament displays are pretty much cleared out.

 

I love that my tree is filled with memories. Here's to a very Merry Christmas and lots of great new memories!

Christmas Already?

I have done hardly any holiday baking this year. Not that I usually do much, but I've only made 1 batch of cookies. I need to make something for dessert tomorrow though. No idea what I'm going to do. Christmas kind of ran at me this year and I feel like I haven't gotten much done. I finally mailed off our Christmas cards today, and the presents are all wrapped and under the tree, but that's about it. Being sick last week kind of threw me off track.

I am in love with these mini gingerbread houses from Not Martha, though:

www.notmartha.org

Aren't they awesome? I'd love to have a bunch of them for a Christmas party or for the family on Christmas Eve. I don't think my family is big on gingerbread though... What new recipe have you tried out this year?

Sharing...

Well, I'm home sick today. My husband was kind enough to share his cold with me.

Between sleeping and drinking lots of tea, I want to work on this:

All fabric is Kate Spain's 12 Days of Christmas for Moda

Which is actually 3 projects, one of which isn't even cut out yet. Project 1 is a tree skirt - we were going to pick out a tree yesterday, but since the husband was sick, we put it off (again). Project 2 is a "12 Days of Christmas" garland, because how could I pass up that adorable 12 Days of Christmas fabric? Project 3 is stockings to match the tree skirt.

Let's see how far I get with this...

Holiday Food

Do you know your holiday foods? Take this quiz from Martha Stewart - I got 6 out of 8 - and was surprised. I guessed on quite a few.

Then visit these links for more yummy goodness:

Buche de Noel

Yorkshire Pudding (and other yummy treats)

Pistachio-Cocoa Nib Macarons with Bourbon Buttercream - Ok, not related to the quiz, but they sound wonderful. And Helene is French, and this post does mention all sorts of French goodies, and Buche Noel is French, so.... yes. That is all I need to say about it.

Christmas Cards

I sat down to work on our Christmas card for 2010 and basically spent an entire evening getting nothing done. I found a card I really liked online, but figured out after playing around with it that it would cost me $80 for the number of cards I wanted. Not quite what I was looking for; in the past, I've just printed out our cards at home, and they were really more of Christmas letters than cards. I wanted a photo card this year but with a little blurb about us - a quick update for those we don't see very often. Apparently that's not a common thing to want, because most of the cards I looked at didn't have any space for text.

I was browsing around on Etsy and realized that - hello! - there are a bunch of sellers with adorable digital layouts who will make my card for me, customize it to my heart's content, and then I can just get it printed somewhere local. Now I just need to choose one!

I think this one is my favorite, from Sugar Tree Studio. Maybe in red, though. Our Christmas photo was taken in an apple orchard and has a pretty green background that I think would look good with red. Update to come when the card is done!

Wreath 2010

I finally made my wreath this weekend. I actually bought the wreath form back in October, and I was going to use it for an autumn wreath bedecked with felt and whatever other embellishments I could find around here.

Instead, it sat around until Christmas. I kept it pretty simple; I would like to make the hanger fit in a little better but don't have any good ideas for it right now. I used a grapevine wreath form ($1), wrapped it in strips of grey wool felt leftover from trying to trim down some wonky squares (that's another story), and added felt leaves and berries.

I used masking tape to attach the felt on the back. The green and cream felt is just acrylic craft felt that I freehand cut into the shapes I wanted, and then I glued them to the grey felt with craft glue.

At first, the "D" in the center was hanging from the wreath by monofilament, but it's so light that it kept flipping around. I put some blue tacky stuff on the back and stuck it straight to the door. It's just a little wooden letter I found at a craft store and painted grey. Simple and easy!

*Also check out Rachel's wreath - it's super cute! *

Finally, some decorations are up

I did a little Christmas decorating last night. I finally took down my pumpkins and little Thanksgiving pilgrims and pulled out my boxes...

At that point, I realized that I don't really have very many Christmas decorations. Also, we live in a 1-bedroom apartment, so there's not a ton of extra space. Luckily, those two things work out well enough. We're going to go get our tree this weekend - since the majority of my Christmas boxes really just have ornaments in them, at least it will be well-covered in decorations.

There was one thing I made last year that I was looking for, and I finally found it at the bottom of a box. It's this little frame with some Smooshy Stack Trees inspired by Lolly.

Lolly's instructions are great, so click the link above if you want to see how to make them. For my trees, I only used two fabrics, a red and a green polka dot. I made sure the green was on top for all of the trees. I made 5 trees in all, and I think two of them might be the same size but the others are all different. I backed it all in a red and white paper that I had.

I decided to put it on our bookshelf for now, since that seems to be my central point for Christmas decor

In the middle, I added a chipboard "peace" that I probably picked up for $1 at Michael's or something. I put it all on a frame that I had sitting around; it's not made for 3-d objects so the trees are kind of flattened down in there and I had to put masking tape all around the back to hold everything in place. But it works! I just didn't want to spend money on a new frame. It also wasn't a planned-out project; I just sat down one night and decided to make it. But I love it!

It's a fun little accent that I can put basically anywhere, and I love how the glitter looks with Christmas lights near it.

Crochet Christmas Trees

I was at Joann Fabrics one day, and while browsing through the store (as I always do when I'm in there, I can't help it), I saw a fun sock yarn that was red, green, blue, and white. Loved it immediately. I have a lot of blues, greens, and red in my main living spaces, and that's what I was leaning towards for Christmas. This yarn needed to be made into something for Christmas.

Patons Kroy sock yarn in Summer Moss

I decided to make a garland with it. I have some up on Etsy, but I made myself one, too, because I love it. I crocheted several small Christmas trees and attached them to a long chain made from the same yarn. This is the first year I really get to decorate for Christmas and I'm so excited!

Handmade garland on the handmade bookcase

I can't really share a pattern for the trees because I don't have one. I liked them all to be a little different, so I didn't try to make a pattern. Then I made a wonderfully perfect tree the other day - but couldn't figure out what I did and thus, still no pattern. I tried them several different ways. Here's what I do:

* I found that starting at the top and working my way down was much easier than starting at the bottom.
* I begin with a chain 3, make a loop, and work 3 double crochets into the loop, then increase for about 3 rows, decrease quite a bit, then increase for about 3 rows... etc. Until it looks right. Technical, right?
* Sometimes I pull it out and redo a row. Just eyeball it. How's that for technical.
* Sometimes I mix up single and double crochet.
* It helps to do a treble crochet on the ends (or just something longer than what you're using) to keep it straight and not rounded up, if you know what I mean. Otherwise it can start looking like... this:

I did actually spend (too much) time on this terrible graphic

I have another crocheted garland to share soon. I promise to be more helpful with that one! Haha. :)

Christmas is coming!

I listened to Christmas music quite a bit today. Did a quick update in the Etsy shop and here on the blog for a holiday banner.

Busy with work and little details. I might share a little about those trees up in the banner tomorrow. We'll see how it goes. :)