Coffee Sacks at last!

During the past year or so of reading maya*made I've been inspired to try sewing/crafting with burlap. It's taken me a while to get to the coffee store to ask if they had any and then another two trips before I made it when a) they had some and b) the person with the right keys was in! I never guessed I would be so excited about some burlap! It's actually quite interesting to see the different graphics, words and fonts on the sacks.  I can't wait to turn these into great stuff!

My favourite part is this graphic on that last sack:

I'm not sure how I'll use it yet but I have it earmarked for something particularly terrific!

I have cut open one sack already and made a little bucket but unfortunately my camera battery died so I'll have get back to you with a picture!

Christmas Crafts - Part 2

A couple more of the crafts I've been working on.  These ones are gifts!

First up a little envelope pouch with a pair of felted candy canes inside.

And next a little boxy pouch:

That holds a pair of mini ornament earrings!  I was pleasantly surprised how well this tiny pouch turned out.

I have a few buttons to sew on some more envelope pouches that are destined for gifts and then I think I am done the gift crafting!  Just in time too!

On my Desk

Quick shot of my desk amid Christmas card making a couple weeks ago.  Lots of good stuff - stamps by Old Island Stamp Company, new chalk ink pads by Versa as well as Penny Black stamps and sparkle pens.  I had a great afternoon creating cards to send to friends and family.

Christmas Candy

I'm more of a baker then a candy maker but there have been a few confections coming out of the kitchen in the past few weeks.  First off I made candied orange peel...

So I could make this white chocolate bark (with candied orange peel and almonds):

Yummy!!

Then I made caramels.  Tried not to think too much about all the fat in the litre (yes, litre!) of whipping cream that went into making this pan:

Which then had to sit for 8 hours before being chopped up:

And wrapped in 192 little wax paper squares (we were environmentally friendly and ate some before they were wrapped to save the paper!)

The caramels have since been moved to a more festive tin but this bowl was what I had handy when I was wrapping them.

The last confection was filled dates.  The pictures didn't really do them justice as they look just like dates from the outside.  But inside!  A toasted pecan covered in caramel.  Delicious!  And almost healthy!  (Or so my mom and I tell ourselves as we eat them up!)

What have you been making?

In the Moment - December

It's over a week into the month and I am just now sitting down to write my post about December.  I didn't feel overly busy but maybe I was.  (And Giveaway Day didn't help, so many blogs to look at!)

On to December.  What I am mostly looking forward to this month is Christmas (in case you hadn't guessed already)!  Not just the 25th but also all the festivities before and after that as well as all the holiday things like baking and decorating trees.  Let's start the list with that:

• Baking.  Last year I made 15 kinds of cookies.  A little overboard I know.  This year I have 10 types of cookies on the list (and a few moved over to the "January" to do pile).


• Decorating trees.  Looking at all the ornaments collected over the years, watching the lights twinkle in the dark.


• Wrapping presents.  Challenging myself to be more eco-friendly this year.  Hopefully sew some gift bags, if not work on using up the used paper in my closet.


• Giving presents.  It makes me happy!


• Singing Christmas carols. 


• Remembering the time of Jesus' birth.  Those chapters in Luke seem more meaningful at this time of year.


• Making and sending Christmas cards.  Using those sparkily Christmas stamps too!


• Getting the mail.  I love mail and December has to be the best mail month of the year!


• Longer days.  Not yet, but soon the days will start getting longer.


• Relaxing.  Time off work, preparations complete, time to spend with family!

Christmas Crafts

I've been busy with Christmas crafts lately.  Lots of lovely tutorials to try as well as things that pop into my head.  Here are some felt ornaments from that lovely stash shown here:

So far each one is unique although two of the stars seem to been twins of a sort!

I tried out felt cafe's candy cane tutorial which I saw last year but didn't have the supplies for.  First I tried classic red and white:

Then I added a green stripe:

And had fun arranging them all for a photo:

This weekend was busy but very productive: baking, card making, tree decorating, present shopping, etc.  Didn't take many pictures although it was sunny (hooray!) and knew I would probably regret it later (i.e. when trying to take pictures in the dark/artificially lit indoors).

Giveaway Winner!

After consulting the random number generator we have a winner! Rosemeg who said: I love the little stars -- both the tacks and the paper wish stars. So sweet! 

Thankyou to everyone who left a comment reading all the nice things you said about my work made my day(s)!  I wish I could send something to you all but unfortunately my budget doesn't quite stretch to that!

December Giveaway Day!

 

This is my second time participating in Sew, Mama, Sew's Giveaway Day and I'm just as excited as the first time!  This is what I will be giving away:

 

 

• Two mini scrapbook/notebooks

• Set of 6 starry thumbtacks

• Set of 16 fancy photo corners

The photo corners look like this:

 

 

To win this lovely set please leave a comment before midnight on December 6 about something on my blog or Etsy shop.  The winner will be picked by a random number generator.  I will ship internationally so everyone is welcome to participate!