Santa!!!

Here's a little video of the kids and their cousins the moment Santa makes a delivery at our Christmas Eve celebration at Nona and Grandpa's.

Santa = Grandpa jingling Bells and leaving a big red bag of toys outside the front door.

Our Solstice Celebration.....

Baking Cookies

ArtA Night Time Drive
Hot Cocoa by the Fire

(See their Solstice Jammies there? They chose the fabric themselves.)

Felt Fun...

4 thick felt coasters + 1 coaster cozy...
A Handmade Holiday gift for a friend.

Thick white felt + blanket stitch + decorative center stitch + 4 fun thread colors
=
cozy modern fab

A Gingerbread Village...

What fun it was!

I'm sorry!

I had no idea that that silly You Tube Widget was causing my blog to be an uploading nightmare!

Chris Just told me tonight that he had been having trouble viewing my blog since I added that thing.

So. It's gone now.

My apologies.

I was wondering why my views had dropped so much...

A Custom Whimsy Order...

Complete.

On to another.

Soon I will close up the Plumm shop so I can focus on
crafting gifts and decorations for our family and friends.

Only 2 weeks left until the Christmas.

And

11 days until winter Solstice.

Because, for us, the Holiday Season is primarily about celebrating the change of the season...
we'll give the kids a gift on December 22 to celebrate the Solstice.


Pajamas...if I can finish them in time!

Tis the Season...

Holiday Card production has begun!

We always try to take a quirky photo of all four of us...not the standard posed picture of the kids...for our cards.

This year I decided that, since I took the Handmade Pledge, I should make our cards rather than order them.

I had an assembly line set up on the kitchen table most of the weekend which involved...
a paper cutter, a 20' tall stack of pretty papers, double sided tape, scissors, coffee, a ruler, 2 kids, markers, envelopes, an address book and yummy snacks!

We are almost finished...just a few more messages to write.

Then stamps.

I love the feeling of sending all of those personal messages of joy out to all the folks we love.
Anticipation of our cards reaching their destination...Mixed with the triumph of accomplishing it yet again.

A Holiday Gift...Perhaps...

This is my first time with the double pointed knitting needles...I always suffer through with the Circular needles. I was always so sure one of the needles would slip out and being lost forever. So far, nothing of the sort has happened.

I must say, I am converted. This is a MUCH better way to knit a round hat.

This hat may or may not be a Holiday gift for someone who I'm pretty sure doesn't frequent this space. I am going to remain vague on it's destination and inspiration, just in case...

Found It!...

This Year's wrapping paper...

(Are you catching the opalescence?!)

Do you search high and low until you find just the perfect paper?

Each year I expend almost as much energy looking for paper as I do creating things to wrap it in. This year was no different. It's taken two months of serious searching to attain this delicious wrapping. All worth it.

My standards are, but not limited to:
It has to be non-Christmas-ish,
unexpected,
bold or graphic(or both)
not traditional holiday colors,
somewhat or very hard to find (so no one else will have it),
fun for the kids
sophisticated enough for the adults...
and just generally perfect.

Last year we had ultra glossy hot pink paper with ice blue bows. Loved it.

And..yes..I am also a meticulous gift wrapper.

Think of the gift tag possibilities with this paper!

What are you using this year?

Whimsy...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the holidays this year I created a new listing in the shop just for custom Whimsy hats.
I get a bunch of custom requests every year from folks with great color ideas...so I hope this will help streamline that process.
It will allow anyone to purchase the 'custom hat' listing and then tell me exactly what colors and sizes they want when they checkout.
No need to buy one of the existing listings and then wonder if I will know to make it custom...

If anyone is interested, because of their popularity, the wait for hats right now is 7-10 days. I'd like to have my last Christmas order in no later than 12/14... just to be sure it will arrive in time.

So if you're considering an order...don't delay!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our sweet friend Hanna models a Whimsy hat...

Check One More Off The List...

Paper Chain...Check.

Advent Calender...Almost There.

I just need to stitch on the squares...then add the numbers.
Better hurry...tomorrow's the first day.

SO...

I always thought advent calenders had treats.

I never had one, but is seems the ones I coveted as a child involved treats...
or at least the ones that stuck with me did. Things like little chocolates, or a small toy or ornament.

But, Chris tells me that growing up his never involved a treat. Apparently he had little windows...to what he can't recall.

What is your family's advent calender like?

Go Play...

I learned about Free Rice over Here...and promptly went over and earned 340 grains of rice. It's a pretty interesting concept...if you've never visited the site it's worth a quick look.

Or, better yet, a long visit in which you become hopelessly addicted and end up feeding a few folks.

Free Rice is a non profit company who is helping us learn a few vocab words while using the advertisers money to feed the hungry.

Essentially, you play a fun vocab game and for each correct answer you are financing the donation of 20 grains of rice.

As of yesterday they have donated 4,550,033,230 grains.
Also, yesterday, they increased the donation per correct word from 10 to 20 grains.

Pretty ingenious
(One of my vocab words. I got it right).

Stockings for Stuffing...

I've finally begun working on our Christmas Stockings...
This is not something I do every year...but we don't have a proper matching set for all four of us.

That makes this the Year of the Stockings.

Chris and I have a matching red and green velvet set that have our names embroidered on them. His parents bought them for us years ago and they've served us very well.
Problem is that since we've had the kids our names have changed to Mommy and Daddy..."who are these 'Chris and Amanda' People?! Why are we hanging their stockings? Where are the mommy and daddy stockings?" Plus...I really would like everything to coordinate to some degree.

Maybe I'll wrap the old ones up very carefully and we can use them again once the kids move out and we go back to our 'grown up' names!
(Does that ever happen?! I seem to remember my grandparents still calling each other Mom and Dad even though their kids were very much grown. Hmm.)

So...

This year we will have 4 new handmade stockings embroidered with our names.
They will all have the same blue felt background, but each of us will get a different image of our choosing. I chose an apple tree. I don't know why.

Can't wait to find out what the kid's will request.

I'll report back...

The Lucia....

In Red.
Over in the Shop right now.

Easy Like...

Sunday Morning...

It's beginning to look a lot like.....

Christmas!

Our holiday decorating always begins on Thanksgiving.

We have this great vintage aluminum tree that we just need to have up for as long as is within the limits of polite society.

It just makes me smile every time I see it.

The kids practically worship the thing.

It really glows at night...and, during the day, when most 'normal' trees are bland and boring, ours acts like a disco ball in the sunlight, throwing little sparkles all over the ceiling.

The wreath will go up next, then my snow-people collection.

I love holiday decorations.

This Pretty Much Sums It Up...

Thanksgiving jig. from savymanda on Vimeo.

Can there be too much Cute...?

I was browsing around over on Etsy this afternoon, in between stirring and chopping, and found these. I gasped. The cuteness...it is overwhelming.

The entire Fantastic Toys shop is full of small things I must have.


I have a little snowperson collection for the holidays...and I am allowed to add ONE new little friend every year.

As soon as I sell a few more hats I will be treating myself to a little Snowgirl Softie.

Thanks, Life..

• 

For everything.

I have so much.

Tomorrow I'll celebrate it all...the way I should every day.

Whew...

My fingers have been busy...

The Shopgirlz hat order is all finished.

It's probably going to remain pretty heavy on photo's and light on words here until after Thanksgiving...

The Day After...

It was divine.

The Night Before...

Tomorrow is our 'Friends Thanksgiving' dinner.
The table is set, the toilets are scrubbed, the children are washed, the fancy cheeses are chilling, and I am so excited.

We will all cook together while chatting and sipping wine. The children will be supervised by everyone and no one. We'll all sit down to a proper dinner. Board games will be played. Deserts will abound. The fire will be lit.

The day will fly by.