The World Surrounding Me

Christmas Stockings on the Mantle New for 2011. I designed & stitched both of these in less than 90 minutes. They aren’t huge, and that’s on purpose, since we don’t need excuses to buy a ton of candy to put in them! Made from batik fabric, with a cut-away snowflake shape, to match the tree [...]

While I’ve been stuck at the house supervising construction workers on our bathroom, I’ve been sewing & crafting. I made two more ornaments yesterday: a star & a wreath. Wire wrapped star Tutorial found via pinterest. I didn’t have the weight of wire recommended in the tutorial, so I just used what I found around [...]

Inspired by this link I found on pinterest for swirled ornaments, I created these out of leftover acrylic paint, glitter-paint and plastic ornaments. Total cost for these 2 ornaments, plus 2 more not done yet: $4! (And, the cost would go down if I made more — $2 of that cost was the glitter-paint.) The [...]

If you, like me, have a blue & white color scheme on your Christmas tree and want some gift-tags to match, download this free printable PDF. Here’s a small preview of the front of the tags: Print just page 1 if you want single-sided tags, which could be used for other crafty purposes. Print both [...]

My parents are visiting us for a few days, from Connecticut. We’ve had fun going shopping, watching Nebraska win their bowl game, and eating BBQ & Tex-Mex together. Here’s mom, making corn tortillas, from scratch. This was the first time she had ever made them. We ate them with homemade posole and green-chile-chicken-breasts on Tuesday [...]

I just put up my manger scene, hand-carved by my uncle Larry circa 1991. No tree yet, but it’s starting to feel like Christmas. (though, it’s never “officially” the Christmas season at our house until we get uncle Joe’s letter and tub tub of popcorn!) This year, I set the nativity it directly under one [...]

Yes, it’s Matt’s birthday so I should post something for/about him — but he’s still at work, so instead, you get Christmas tree photos! I pulled my achilles right before Thanksgiving, and though I have medicine, it’s slow to work. I’ve been hobbling a bit, so our Christmas decorations have been going up more slowly [...]

As a followup to the link we posted at Christmas, here’s another link: http://nuclearity.org/ Look for the episode called Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown! I listened to it on the plane home from Connecticut today and enjoyed it — including the interview quotes with Linford from Over the Rhine (one of our favorite bands). There really [...]

We’re going to be traveling tomorrow, so we thought we should send out this early Christmas greeting. We give you this holiday classic that always reminds us of what we’re celebrating. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKk9rv2hUfA Matt & Becky

Since Friday, I’ve baked 7 containers of cookies. It’s a nice escape to come home from a very busy day and basically just make a mess of the kitchen. So far, I’ve mostly experimented with new recipes including a pathetic refrigerator cookie recipe from Martha Stewart. The cookies are cute (pinwheels and bullseyes in different [...]