My latest Baby Blessing dress

The latest in Blessing dresses which I made the week of Thanksgiving.  This one is for my nephew's baby girl.  (their 1st baby)  This one is again, different than all the others.  I used cotton lining, and I think it gives it a vintage feel about it.  The crochet medallions at the yoke were hand crocheted by myself, and the button is a vintage glass button from Europe.  Maybe someday I will make some of these dresses and put them in my Etsy shop!

Thanksgiving Centerpiece

Wishing everyone a very lovely, safe and wonderful Thanksgiving with loved ones around!

Here is my Thanksgiving Centerpiece that I just took down actually, because I will be going to Phoenix for Thanksgiving, but I did get to enjoy this bit of Thanksgiving spirit in my home on my table throughout November.  When I return, I will be working on decorating for Christmas.  OOH, CAN'T WAIT!

Be sure to check out the previous post and get entered into my latest giveaway, in honor of my blogs anniversary!

ANNOUNCING a new Giveaway

Announcing my blogger anniversary giveaway.  Here it is!  Hope you all like it!

In honor of this blog which was started 3 years ago, I am giving away a little Christmas shadow box with a "Lenox" angel inside for this vintage look giveaway.  I am not German, but I am fond of German craft goodies.  I pulled together all my German supplies to put this together, and I love the way it turned out!  It has Vintage German bible pages covering the sides.  It has German glass glitter encrusted on the front panel, and vintage pink tinsel. Also it has German scrap and foil Dresdens in the form of angel wings and a round star at the top.    There are 2 vintage doilies, (one rectangle, and the other is a small round one)

You can see the details here better!

Thesin grapes with gold glass glitter is also part of the giveaway, and also this cute little Crystal-like faceted angel ornament below.

All you have to do to be entered in my drawing which will take place on
December 2, 2011 is. . . .  either be a current follower, or become a new follower.  Comment on this post here and for another chance post this on your sidebar to spread the word.  I am so excited to get my house decorated for Christmas!

Simple Crepe paper Christmas Tree Tutorial.

A most simple and easy decoration to complete, without the use of hot glue.  As far as glue is concerned, I only used a little tacky glue for the top glass ball.  Everything else is pinned to the styrofoam cone.  Follow the tutorial to a quick a little crafty decoration.

I got this idea from Paper Crafts Magazine, and made them up into little kits for the Fairview Retreat.  Then I decided to do a larger one and add some Christmas red in there.  Here is a little tutorial for you.

Using regular sized straight pins, and the tiny sequin pins, I went to work.  

Start at the bottom of your Styrofoam cone.  Over lap each layer, so the pins don't show.

Pin into place as you pleat the crepe paper.  

Trim the excess crape paper off.  

I found my supplies at JoAnne's.  These little picks are perfect, because they are already attached to wire, and they are so glittery!

Clip off each ball leaving about 3/4 inch wire to stick into tree cone.

Randomly stick the balls all over the tree.  They should go in fairly easily.  If you want them to be super secure for a long time, you could put some hot glue on stems before you poke them in.  I did not.  They stay just fine.  Next add your tinsel around the top, by using the pins too!  I wrapped around twice, but this is optional!

Note*  these trees are not good for children.  Keep them out of reach of little ones.  Any colors of crepe paper could be used.  Hope you have a crafty Christmas season!

Been making Christmas gift tags!

Here are some of my Christmas tags that have popped up lately!  The last one is from a vintage card, and I made it last year.  I am starting to get that Christmas fever.  Although I am not ready to start decorating just yet.   I made the Ultimate Christmas tag kit for a partner, and then forgot to tag a picture of it.  Inside the tag kit box though, were everything she needed to put together 48 tags.  Some of the pictures here are some of the tags I made up for the Ultimate Christmas tag kit by Michele.

From the Retreat to Fairview

We exchanged kits with one another this time around at the "Retreat."  There were 8 of us and we each had someone assigned to us, that we would create a kit for.  It could be anything really.  One gal got the makings of a perfect gourmet cookie recipe.  Someone got a stationary kit complete with personalized stamp all done up in a lovely lid box.  Another gal got a kit that was done up to give oneself a wonderful pedicure.  Some kits had fabric.  The point was that a kit was provided that the person receiving it would really like.  Aimee gave to me, and she absolutely knew what I like.  I was stunned when I saw that the beautiful case sitting there  was for me.  She knew that I loved anything french, plus she knows how I love to scrapbook and do paper crafts, so the pictures you will see here are of all the special details she put into the French case.

This is my beautiful case!   It was like Christmas!

When I opened it I found all sorts of eye candy such as. . . . . .

Blank stationary, that will be turned into lovely french greeting cards wrapped up with a velvet brown ribbon, some brown tulle, and these sweet little blue forget-me-nots.

Isn't it wonderful that products like these can be found for us to use in our paper crafts.  We are lucky to have such loveliness made for our embellishing!  I think "be still my heart," were my exact words when I looked at all of this!

The pad of 48 sheets of 8x8 paper is titled "Ella Blue" and is perfect and the keys are so special too!

check out the lovely page markers that were in there too.  Thank you again so much Aimee.  I am swooning over it still!

Retreating!

I need a Break!  I have turned off my phone and will be doing nothing but crocheting or knitting, scrapbooking, crafting, and designing with my very dear friends from Nevada, Idaho, and Utah.   I am so lucky to be in Fairview, Utah. Oh and I think we might get snowed in!   (that would be so cool)

To get ready for it, I spent a morning two days ago making up batches of pomegranate jelly from our many bushes of pomegranates at home, to give to all my friends here.

It is also one of the friend's birthday this weekend, so I made another shabby tote for her  with more vintage crochet lace on it, and one of the things I put into it, is another little gratitude journal.

The front view

 The back view

The inside view.  I will be posting all of what I complete while on this most excellent retreat at the end of the weekend.  Happy November.

Our enchanted princesses

Here is what I have been up to this past week.  I was lucky enough to get to make my little Evelyn's Halloween costume.  The cool thing was is that this princess dress was actually made from her Mommy's (my daughter) Homecoming Royalty dress back in 2002.  And her escort was none other than Evelyn's father Trent!   I had a good friend take her daughter's prom formals and make them into princess dresses for her granddaughters.  I have wanted to do this too for a long time and finally got to making one.  Every time Evelyn would see pictures of the one's my friend had made, she would say, " Grammy is going to make that for me."  She was SO EXCITED!  She really thought it was a real princess dress.  Her crown is one of my daughter's from High school too.  It just tops off the outfit so nicely.

Here is a view of the backside. and another picture from when they came trick or treating at Grammy's house.

My photographer daughter Tara took these pictures of her beautiful little princesses just before Trick or Treating.  We ended up going to a party later on together and everyone loved the little princesses.

Little Lyla Jane as Snow White.  She is 16 months old and I did not make her costume.

  

We had a very enchanted evening with our little princesses.