Christmas Break

It's time for long evenings bathed in the twinkly lights of the tall Christmas tree, board games, stories read aloud and a couple of cookies. Our tree, all covered with wonderful memories, baby shoes that both girls wore on their itty-bitty sweet feet, ornaments from the different places we have made our home, gifted ornaments from lovely friends--ahhhh. :-) When I was a little girl I would sit and squint my eyes at the Christmas tree until the big bright lights would get all blurry and the colors would meet in long streaks all around the tree. This picture above has that same blurry quality to it, I still like to squint at the our lighted tree-some things will remain the same. :-)
Have a beautiful, peaceful Christmas and holiday break. Thank you for visiting my little blog and I'll see you in the New Year!!

Feeding the birds--Check!

I am so glad that my husband feeds the birds around our house. He gets out in the snow and ice to fill those feeders up. Boy, oh boy, if it were up to me they wouldn't see anything like a regular feeding. I do love seeing the birds dip in and out of the trees tho and land on our feeders for a little someum, someum. :-) I caught a little of the icey sparkle on the trees out front yesterday.

Check out this woodpecker! It has been visiting off and on for a few days. His red head and stripey back--so pretty. :-)

Paper Dolls

I made up some of these paper dolls to add-on to packages this weekend. They could also be used as ornaments.

First I printed off pictures of the dolls. Then I cut out a piece of wrapping paper, 8 1/2 x 11 or so, for backing. Carefully cutting around each doll, leaving a stitching margin of a 1/2 inch approximately. I cut out a similar size of the wrapping paper for each doll and put them wrong sides together. I then stitched around the outside of each doll--leaving a small opening along a straightaway for stuffing. Carefully place a small amount of stuffing into the opening with a bamboo skewer and push into the doll, continue until the paper doll is slightly stuffed. You can then sew up the small opening and knot the loose threads at the back of the doll. I used a small grommet at the top of each doll and threaded a bit of red/white yarn for the hanger.

Alternatively, you could stitch around the doll leaving the bottom open, stuff and then stand them as decoration. It doesn't even need a bottom. I did this with pictures of Santa a few years ago.

More outside pictures....

Em's snow angel all crusty with ice. :-)

I know I posted about the snow last week, well the weather is still the big news around here. We had a bit of fevered sickness over the weekend, all better now, and then yesterday a school snowday. We did get presents wrapped and sent out at the post office-phew! The sun has come out this morning and the ice is very pretty-sparkly and shiny.

The neighborhood is frosted

Lovely snow!!! It was so pretty coming down yesterday afternoon. We sat watching it as Em read The Story of the Nutcracker Ballet for her reading homework.

Those poor birdies are going hungry right now.........

Snow on holly--so beautiful. :-)

Colors of Christmas

Paper tags and cards, ribbons and a glittery Santa. I love all the flowers on the tag-shaped cards and the pretty embroidered ribbons. I can hardly wait to start doing up packages with these goodies. I also like the idea on Liquid Sky Arts to stitch up wrapping paper into little envelopes to put your present into--very pretty.

Just three little houses that are darling--found these at a local Farm & Fleet--you just never know where you will find sweet little things. :-) They are from Kurt Adler, here.

Happy St. Nicholas Day!!

This is a Hungarian postcard that I found at this site. My girls found some chocolate coins in their shoes this morning. Oh, happy day! :-)

Christmas Markets

A little flaxen-haired girl with her gingerbread. I love the edging at the bottom of her yellow apron. She is made by Werkstaetten Flade of Germany and figurines from this company can be found at The Wooden Wagon. She reminds me of the Christmas Markets in lots of German towns that are in full swing right about now.
The gingerbread hearts hanging in this booth parents would purchase for their children who would wear it hanging around their neck. On the heart in icing, the words "Ich Liebe Dich" (I Love You) :-)
I loved living in Germany. Our house was near a wooded park with lots of paths that had a little nature park in the center where we would visit the stern owls, grubby boars, and even a few grazing buffalo. Sundays were family days, stores were closed and lots of families take walks together or visit each other's homes. I still sometimes forget that stores are open here in the states on Sunday. :-)