My Prairie Schooler Christmas and new beginnings!

For Christmas this year I got a lot of what I wanted without even asking for it! How about that! Mike gave me 5 Prairie Schooler patterns for Christmas and I had gotten a 30.00 gift certificate from my advent exchange partner at 123stitch.com so I stocked up a little on thread and got 3 Schooler patterns as well and then last but not least my good friend Mary Loiuse sent me a belated Christmas gift that had the Schooler chart Santas and Snowmen and the chart for the stocking SAL I am taking part in in the new year! The charts I got are as follows November, December, Santa and Friends, When Witches go Riding, Birdsong ll, Daffodils, Stars and Stripes and the 12 days of Christmas the book I got was days 9 through 12 so at a later time I will have to get days 1 through 8. I also got Seasonigs Greetings from Bent Creek. I am so thrilled at all I got that I do not have to worry about not having anything to do now!

I set up some stitching goals for the new year. I have signed up to take part of a stocking SAL for the new year. It is a pattern from the better homes and gardens collection. I am doing the stocking Stitchers studio and if I feel really inspired I might do seamstress' cuff as well. When I am done with these I plan on giving them away as Christmas gifts next year. I have a few in mind that would love these. My main goal is to try to have a finish a month if possible in between working on other things. So hopefully that goes well!

The last few weeks...

Well I have been busy and trying to catch up on things. My Christmas was good. It was a meager one here at home but it was still great because I was with Mike and James my 2 favorite men in the world to be with! Later that day we went to in mylaws for brunch it was great as well but I was glad to get home. I did take pics of some of the gifts I made to give away to family but James deleted them before I could download the pics so I have nothing to show! Mostly for the adults this year I kept it simple and made all the gifts. For my inlaws I made them a chocolate chip cookie mixture in a jar and made a few ornaments that I attached to the jar with some chocolate dipped spoons for when they drink hot chocolate. I gave the chocolate dipped spoons with hot cocoa packets to everyone on my list with the pointsetta ornament I made. It is in one of my posts here from earlier in the month. The children on my list they got 10.00 a piece seeing as I have 8 kids to shop for on top of mine that was even too much for my budget. I have been finally stitching away and got one finish done by LHN and am alomost done with another I hope to post those finishes some time this weekend! In closing I want to say thank you to all who follows my blog. I hope everyone has a great new year ahead!

Some finishes

This week is Christmas and things are slowly starting to wind down here, thank heavens! I have been a busy bee this month with making things to give as gifts to friends and family. Last week I spent my Thursday evening making up 15 goodie bags for my son to give to his teachers, principal, bus driver and such at school. I decided to make for all of them chocolate dipped spoons and a few packets of hot chocolate to go with it. I figure this is what I am going to do for Mike's cousins and uncle for Christmas as well. For the most part I have made ornaments for most of the family. On Thursday me and James will get his grandparents gift made up. I decided to give them a chocolate chip cookie mix in a mason jar and dress it up with ornaments I made for them. To have to buy gifts for everyone in the family I simply cannot do because we have fallen on hard times over the years and are working back up to where we used to be so making the gifts this year has been a lot of work on me but at the same time a huge money saver and I fully intend to do this again next year! There are a few finishes I want to share as well. The first one is something I made for my husband Mike a little sappy but oh well, it describes what I feel about him. The summer will be 14 years we have been together and we have been through our share of hardships but seem to have walked away from it even stronger. This pattern is by the Sunflower Seed and the second one is an ornament I made for my son James to put on his tree. I know he will like this because he had seen this pattern a few months ago when he was helping me to decide what ornaments to make for family and he mentioned how much he liked it. He loves penguins and I think it turned out cute. This pattern came from the book called The Big Book of Christmas Quickies by Leisure Arts. This is all I can share for now but will have more updates in the days to follow. Thanks for stopping by.

Finish for myself!

I spent the week off and on stitching a pattern I came across for a tissue box. I put the finishing touches on it this evening and have it in my room now! I love cross stitch that is my first passion as many as you ladies can agree, but once in a blue moon I will do something that is plastic canvas and that is what I did. I am showing what it looks like from the front and side. Now back to finishing holiday stitching and making more gifts. The more I think about this week the more I panic because I still have too much to do! Have a great week!

Holiday gifts

Well I have been busy even though I have not been posting. I sent out my sisters package on Monday and she already got it so I can show that off. I made her a ornament and gave her some hang tags that she can use to dress up a gift or put them on her tree if she likes. I also have made some simple little ornaments that I am going to dress up a gift bag with for some of my friends. I made 11 of these little things! I have more stitched but can't show off yet because they have not been given so I look forward to showing that off later this month! I have been putting finishing touches on ornaments to give to family for Christmas and made a door hanger for my father but can't show that yet either! So far December has been good. I have been getting Christmas cards in the mail from my stitching friends and some have had little surprises in them! I am also taking part of an advent exchange in the cross stitching group I am in. I am thankful that my partner came through and I got my package in a timely manner. Some of the ladies in the group are still waiting for theirs to arrive so I am hoping their packages arrive quickly so they can take part of it as well and have fun. I have been a little disappointed with the exchange I don't know what to say so I won't. The gifts have been wrapped very pretty though and I love the paper the gifts have been wrapped in. As you can see Lana is having fun laying in my stash and in the next picture my baby Bela is hanging with her sister Lana. Bela is growing up fast! On January 4 she gets fixed finally. I can't afford to get her declawed but getting her fixed is the most important as all of my other cats and dog are. The last picture I could not resist because it is rare to have all my babies in one picture. Here they are at feeding time! Hope everyone is having a great week so far!

Finally I can start posting!~Ornament exchange

Me and Sadie decided to do a ornament exchange this year between the 2 of us and last week we both got our ornaments! I made Sadie a Santa ornament called Pere Noel. I got the pattern from a leisure arts book I checked out of the library. Sadie made me a Prairie Schooler Santa! I love it!