we need a little christmas…right this very minute!!

Ohhhhhh I'm finally fully in the Christmas spirit!! I finished up my house today with all the twinkly lights and ornaments and all that fun stuff!! It doesn't get any better than this…except when Mr Gorgeous is home from Europe tomorrow…that'll be better!!! 🙂

So I wanted to share a couple of my projects and a little of my house…*sigh* i love Christmas!!

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First off, I have to give a big shout out to my Canadian BFF, Krista, again!! She is a perfect genius!! So, in October, she asked if I could make these flannel blankets for her daughters…basically sewing two pieces of flannel together. I said, of course, I could whip those out in no time. Here's the cool part…She said she didn't need them until Dec 24th, because they use them as Santa Blankets! Santa Blankets!!!! (can you hear Buddy the Elf screaming "Santa!!!!!"?) Santa Blankets are blankets that are draped over a pile of presents. Each blanket is a different color, and each child knows which color is theirs. So they can go and run and see what Santa brought them under their very own blanket!! And they can use the blankets all season long – Soooooo fun!! So without further ado…here are her blankets! (well, they are actually on their way to Canada, but here are some fun pictures!!)

I actually went a step further and machine embroidered their names on their blankets…so adorable!! I had a hard time sending these away-they were so comfy and cute!!

I love the patterned side, too!!

So…what do you think? Do I need to make us some of these, too? How about you?

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Last night I had to just "get away from it all" and create something completely NOT Christmas-related, not store-related, not gift-related!! Just for me…

It actually came from cleaning out my old button box. Do you have one of those? When I was young, my dear grandmother gave me a sewing box for Christmas. It is one of my dearest posessions! And it is full of buttons. But I wanted to organize my buttons so that I could actually use them!! What an idea…yup! I actually watch hoarders and feel strongly about USING what I have! LOL!!!

So anyway, I grabbed the "excess" stuff that didn't really belong to the button box and created a shadow box with it. I added some paint to the raw wood box, covered the wooden back with linen, and added a mini quilt I had made a while back using scraps from a bigger mini quilt. I grabbed an old book that I have designated for messing up…ie, use for parts…and cut out a fun sentence to add to the collage.

here's what i came up with…

click to see it bigger…

sometimes you just have to create just for yourself!

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and that leads me to my house…

did i mention that I LOVE Christmas???

I'm really excited about my burlap addition to the mantle…

happy home Christmas!! love it!!!!

the wreath on my mantle needed a little sprucing up…

what better than to use mini quilts???

yet another use for them! LOVE MINI Quilts!! (did i mention that?)

our gorgeous bowl of pecans…welcome to Texas, y'all!!

Here's my kids' advent calendar that our beautiful friend Dixie made several years ago!! We adore this so much!! Each day one kid adds another guy…until the 25th…then I'll put on Baby Jesus! so perfect!!

as for ornaments…they are such a gorgeous tradition!

I have a collection that I'm sure I've mentioned here before. It's of Old World Christmas ornaments (and a couple in the same style). I have one per year that I've been married! So last year I purchased two while in Gig Harbor, WA. and this year, I'm even. Well, really 19 is odd, but that's how many years we've been married! Here are some of those ornaments…