A New Toy...

Today we celebrated my mother in law's birthday by buying and decorating a bird tree. They don't have space in their house for a tree, and they are avid birders, so we decorate a tree with suet and birdseed and lights and bows and put it in their yard where they can enjoy it.

Where they live is fairly rural, and their yard is full of beautiful birds.


And we got the first snowfall of the year.


On the way, I made a stop to pick up my new toy.....

Hello new camera!

Bye bye old friend.

My New Favorite Dress

The girl who said she won't wear dresses......wore a dress! I've had an idea to do this peasant style dress with a tie neckband instead of elastic, but hadn't done it since my 4 year old says, she doesn't like dresses. But recently she's been more agreeable with clothing, so I gave it a shot.....

Sorry about the photo quality, I've been having issues with taking photos in low light lately....which will hopefully be resolved when I get my new digital-SLR this weekend. An early b-day present to myself!

I think it looks really cute. I did have to bribe her to get the photos, and she got a little upset putting it on....a little tight in the chest. But when she got to school this morning, there were many oohs and ahhs from her little friends.

This is my new favorite dress to sew, so.....we'll see how long I can keep the little one off the dress boycott.

Christmas Ornament Bunting Tutorial

I've wanted to make an advent calendar for many years and have seen some amazing inspiration out there. Here's one on Purl Bee that I love and Homemade by Jill. But alas, it is December 1 (in a matter of hours) and it hasn't happened.

So instead, I came up with this ornament bunting, that has a similar feel, but much less work. What can I say, I'm lazy....

Here's what you need if you want to make your own:

• felt in various colors for ornaments
• felt scraps for decorations
• ribbon (to hang individual ornaments)
• ribbon or bias tape (to hang bunting)
  
• glue (I used a hot glue gun, but any fabric glue will work)

You can find my ornament template HERE, I hope (first time using googledocs)
Cut out ornaments, double layered. I made 10 ornaments with 3 different colors.


Cut a ribbon strip for each ornament about 12 inches long. Sandwich one end of the ribbon in between the felt layers, pin and sew around. Make sure the end is down far enough to be secured by your stitching.

Here are the ornaments with the ribbon attached.....

And with decorations glued on! This is the fun part where you get to be creative. I thought about colors and shapes that I like and about things I think about this time of year.....trees, mittens, mistletoe.....

Next, lay out your ornaments as you'd like them to hang....

.....and tape them to the floor. Yup, I said TAPE them to the floor. I found this the easiest way to get the height and spacing I wanted.

Next lay the ribbon (you could also use bias tape) you want the ornaments to hang from and pin them in place.

Carefully lift the tape off the floor (I had some little helping hands for this part), and sew along the top and bottom of the ribbon catching the ornament ribbon end on both sides.

All you have left to do is trim off the ribbon ends and hang up your bunting!





Maybe I'll do a an advent calendar next year.....or maybe another one of these!

Enjoy! Send me a pic if you do one, I'd love to see it!