A Few Gifts Given and Recieved

I thought I'd show some of the handmade things I made and gave as gifts. Well, I'll only be showing two things, because I thought I had taken pictures of other stuff I made, but apparently I was mistaken.

These are re-usable shopping bags I made using this wonderful free pattern here http://www.burdastyle.com/patterns/show/261. (If you are into sewing you have to check out this site. It's fabulous.)

I also made matching travel sized tissue covers using this tutorial here. But, alas, apparently did not take pictures...except in my deluded imagination. They're kinda boring to look at anyway, but were simple to make and therefore a nice addition to the shopping bags.

In a previous post I showed a pic of a dreidel plushie I made. I made up a half dozen of those and sent them off to Brooklyn, N.Y. Where apparently they were well received. I got a cute picture in return of some adorable children with some wooden dreidels beside them...and one of my soft plushie ones as well.

Some other things I sewed were also all of the "practice runs" of everything I made as well. Which I am keeping for my own use. Including a couple things I practiced, but never made anymore beyond the just one. I had hoped to get a lot more sewing done and make even more things for people. But a flare up of my chronic fatigue syndrome slowed me down. But I am so grateful that before that flare up my health and energy was far better than it had been in ages. So I really did get a lot more done than I probably would ever have done. And it was nice to feel great for a couple weeks in a row.

Something else I wish I had taken a photo of and gave as a gift (but did not make) was an antique Kodak Brownie camera from 1916. It was not in working condition, as the aperture was broken, but it looks really cool. Great for home decor that will look great with the receiver's vintage suitcase collection I think.


Here are the gifts I received. There's some sewing stuff, including a pattern for a laptop cover from sewswanky.com which is a cool little shop here in Cedar City. With my new rotary cutters and mat I'll be able to whip out more bags like I showed above in faster time.

The little markers are a stocking stuffer (even though we didn't have stockings this year) from Santa (aka, *me*...for the last couple years I've been doing little stocking stuffers that are not candy for our family...but this year it consisted solely of these cute markers).

And on the far left is a gift from my dad. You have to understand that my dad doesn't give gifts usually. My mom picks out gifts and says they're from both her and dad. But this year my dad bought me a gift. They're these aerosol spray cans that can be used with any paint. You just pour the paint in the jar and start spray painting. My dad knows I have a lot of little craft things I've been planning on painting. So this is a pretty nifty and thoughtful gift. And I can't wait to try it out. And it's extra nice that my dad thought of me when he saw these and decided to give them to me.

And now a close up the last thing. I am now venturing into joining the rest of modern society by having my first mp3 player. And best of all...it's Pink! Sweet.

I plan on using it a lot while I am doing my crafts and sewing...and ironing that the sewing requires. It was while I was ironing that I decided I really needed an mp3 player.

I also can now buy music with "IMVU credits" that I've earned from virtual products I've made for the 3D chat world of IMVU. So I don't have to pull out a credit card if I want to buy music online for my mp3. I've bought four songs from there already.

But I'll probably also may be listening to a lot of audio books on there as well. And maybe venture into the world of podcasts too. Who knows.

How to Scare a Guy Away

I had a guy from one of these social networking sites send me a message and ask me if I was "naughty or nice this year?" I got the impression he hoped I would say I was being naughty.

Here was my reply...

I've become a more, I suppose you could say, philosophical person. So...
I was a person who pondered my thoughts and actions. Where my thoughts and actions caused me to feel bad (also known as "being naughty") I noticed that I was not living in truth. And I could find a way to stop such thoughts and such actions. And doing that was very nice, for me and others. So even when I was being "naughty" I used it as a springboard to make it into something nice. And I looked into what are the lessons to be learned from everything, even the bad things I've done, to see the "blessing" in everything. So everything bad becomes good.

Hmm...the guy hasn't written me back. What a surprise. With a response like that he probably went and ran far away from his computer to get far from me, even if he was hoping for me to respond that I was nice.

So I guess Santa made a check mark against me on the "was naughty" list, not so much for what I said (because it is true, I have been trying to do just that), but because I got a sort of mischievously devious kick out of doing it. :)

Temple Wall

One of my favorite stores in town that had wonderful home decor has closed.
But I just got an email from the owners saying that they've opened up a new online store focusing on LDS artwork and accessories. And I thought I'd share it since a great many of my friends and family are LDS. :) Most of the artwork is fabulous photography of LDS temples, but they have some other things as well. And they will be adding more.
I'm hoping they'll be adding this one photograph they had in the store of the door knob to the Salt Lake Temple. Somehow the way the picture looked combined with the ways they had it framed just was really beautiful.

Here's the link to their website http://www.templewall.com

And here's a sneak peak of some of what they have.

Hanukkah Cuteness

When I was a little girl, one holiday season I ended up being given a dreidel. A dreidel is a four sided top that is often played with during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.
How a little Mormon girl who was surrounded entirely by Mormon's, and no one of any other religions, ends up with a dreidel as a gift I don't know. But it was a neat toy that I really liked.

It was also one of my first introductions to Hebrew and Judaism (unless you count stories read from the Old Testament in primary/Sunday school). As an adult, about eight years ago I think, I started to have a growing interest in Jewish traditions and art.

So anyway, this year as I've been picking up the art of sewing I decided while looking a lots of holiday patterns and instructions for making all sorts of soft toys, I decided a soft toy driedel would be really cute.

So off I went to search the internet for info on how to do that. To my surprise there wasn't any. But to my even bigger surprise I decided to make my own pattern, and succeeded quite nicely!

Isn't it cute? Okay, it doesn't spin very well. But it's a stuffed soft toy, it's meant to be cute...not useful.

One of my newest friends, Asher, is Jewish, so I plan on making some more of these up for his kids for Hanukkah...and maybe some for him and his wife too. Hey, grown ups can have soft plushie toys too! (Since Asher will probably read this we'll see what he thinks about that...lol.) I know I'm keeping one for myself. :)

I've also posted instructions on how to make these on a crafting website here http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/hanukkah_dreidel_plushie so others can make them too.

Oh, and just in case anyone reading this is looking for more Hanukkah crafts, Ms. Martha Stewart has a few here. (I really liked the wooden driedels covered in glitter to be used for holiday decor.)