Handmade gifts and...

....the end of the year. Wow, 2008 has flown by so quickly!

It has been a great year of blogging. I made many new cyber friends from it. I'm grateful for everyone and everything that has touched my life in the past year. Thank you to those who stopped by and read my blog.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!

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I thought I share with you some handmade gifts in this last post of the year. I love to make handmade gifts for Christmas and have always included my family in the making of those gifts throughout the years. So it is a pleasure to know that they have adapted this attitude which made this Christmas even more special.

The first present is from Sweetie Pie.

OK.... it's not handmade, but it's a thoughtful gift from the heart. Every year, her school set up a Christmas Shop for the students to buy gifts for their families. I helped out in the Shop every year, so I knew what they had to offer and would perused and mentally picked out the items for each person on her list. However, my guesses were always wrong.

Also, she bought everything with her own money this year; I didn't have to help out. The mug said... "Mom ... you're the best in the world". It's an expression that she often uses.

For her Grandma (my Mom), she picked a mug that said "Grandma gives the greatest hugs". Sweetie Pie's explanation ... that is what she loves best about Grandma.... too sweet!

Now you know why I called her my Sweetie Pie. :-)

The next gift is from Mandy. She sculpted a miniature of our little Suki in clay. You know how much I love my doxies.... gotta love this mini creation. *:-D* She said she ran out of time but promised to make one of Yoshi Bear when she has more time.

Mandy also has taken a fancy to making little plushies lately and sewed some up for her friends. I wished I have pix to show, but I was working so much during that time that I missed the whole productions. :-(
I heard that there were a panda, a dog, a cat, and a tiger.

Here's a raccoon that she made for her friend's birthday a couple months back. It was made from one of her drawing, and she designed the pattern all on her own. I'm very happy that she has taken an interest in sewing again. :-)

Mandy is also an artist. She drew a portrait of her youngest cousin, Baby James, at 6 months old in charcoal for my sister.

The photo isn't the greatest due to the glass, but I thought she did a wonderful job.

Here's James admiring his portrait along with his dad....

Remember this quilt, Nifty Thrifty? I finished it just in time right before Christmas for John. Hee Hee... he saw me working on this quilt and didn't know that it's intended for him. He even suggested what color to use for the binding! lol

The quilt is very cozy. I used a combination of flannel and homespun plaids for the top, and the back is all flannel.

The last handmade gift this year is a shelf/quilt rack that John made for me. Usually, I know what he's up to, but I was clueless and very surprised on Christmas day.

My plan is to hang it in the play/guest bedroom. It's not on the wall yet, so that's why the hands are in the photo. lol The kids were holding it for me to get a photo.

My SSCS

I hope you all had a magical Christmas. We spent a quiet Christmas Eve over at my sister's house and a quiet rainy Christmas Day here at home..... simply wonderful!

It was nice to have had some quiet and relaxation times after the last few weeks of getting ready for Christmas and working almost full-time on top of it. Then, I'm back to working this last weekend; of course, being in retail business, it was a crazy place to be in right after Christmas. I'm looking forward to getting back to just doing part-time hours after the New Year.

On Saturday night, with John and the kids helped with the cooking, we had a some of our friends and their families over for dinner. What wonderful time spent catching up with our friends! It's the best part of the holidays for me... spending time with family and friends... and eating! ;-D

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I survived the temptation to open the gift from my Secret Santa till Christmas Day ! :-)

This is what Vickie sent me.... a quilted Christmas wreath...

... a Santa ornament...

...a book on Northern Australia, chocolate, candies,

Christmas FQ and pre-printed ornaments panel,

and a lovely stitched card....

...here's a close-up of the card...

isn't it pretty?
Thank you Vickie for all the lovely gifts. It made a very special Christmas Day!

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This is what I made for my SSCS partner, Gertie at Trudi's Craft Room....

do visit her blog... she has a great blog and more pix to show.

Also, a big thank you to Chookyblue for this excellent swap! This has been a lot of fun, and I'll definitely will do it again next year if she's doing it again. :-D

Merry Christmas!!

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas

from all of us!

44

Last Saturday was my birthday. Since I had to work on that day, we decided to go to Downtown Riverside to see the Festival of Lights the night before. We got there just as the sun about to set ... love how the colors came out in this photo. This is the Mission Inn all lit up.

I collect Nutcrackers... so love this too.... Another favorite.... almost life-sized mechanical figurines ...

As we walked around, we came across these two....

Great Dane! I'm so used to the size of my litte doxies that these two are like ponies to me. :-D

Then we found Cinderella's carriage....

... how could we not ride in Cinderella's carriage?.... It supposed to be 10 minutes ride turned into more than half an hour ride due to traffic. We enjoyed the extra long ride. :-)

After that, we found Santa (he's not real) sitting on this huge chair.... had to have the kids take a pic with him. Buddy wasn't with us that night because he's in a rock band and had a gig.
We did a lot of walking and window shoppings. The shop behind Santa's chair is an antique store... we spent a large amount of time in there. I found a couple of things that I liked but couldn't really asked for them since I've already received my presents earlier. One thing was a 24" white goose-feather Christmas tree (forgot to get pic), and this tiled birdhouse.
At $89 ... it's out of my budget. But I do love the whimsicality of it; this will be a future craft some day. I even have the birdhouse already.

As mentioned earlier, I had to work the next day on my b-day. John wanted to take me out to dinner afterward, but truthfully, after a BUSY day and even stayed longer than my scheduled time, I rather not go anywhere but just to be home and just eat leftovers. lol I was quite happy when I got home to discovered that he had ordered pizzas.... that definitely worked for me. Then, he and the kids had a banana split ice cream cake already for me too.... gotta love them all. :-) ... don't asked me why there are only 4 candles on the cake.. lol

I got to pick out my presents this year. I love it when that happened....
...found three layer cakes (10" charm pack) at my LQS. I already made something from one of them so that's why there are only two left... will share my project in future post.

I ordered a few things from Connecting Threads...
and the last gift from the family is a new LITTLE camera... so small that it will fit in my pocket.... these photos were taken by the LITTLE camera.

My friend, Pam, gave me this pampered set and matching pouches. It's so sweet of her to think of me.
Well, so far 44 is starting out pretty good. LOL I hope it stays that way.

SSCS

My goodness! Is it only 13 days left 'til Christmas? I haven't done a thing for the holidays yet... except for adding a Christmas tree countdown to the sidebar.

It seemed that I may have lost the last few weeks. Where did the time go? Usually, we bring out the Christmas decorations right after Thanksgiving, but since I worked that weekend, we didn't get to it.

Then I worked last weekend too, and again... we didn't get to it. Hmm.... do I see a pattern here? I guessed Christmas doesn't come if the person (ME) doing it every year wasn't here to set it up. Hopefully, we will get it started today; I will have the older kids help get the decors down from the rafters after school.

I am soooo looking forward to a weekend of no work(job), and a weekend of decorating, crafting, and maybe get some shopping done.

Anyway, I had good intentions to post about the Secret Santa Christmas Swap but that got away from me too.

The package for my partner went out on time and has arrived safely to Australia.

I received my package from my Secret Santa right before Thanksgiving. It is safely stored in my cabinet so there's no temptation to open it. It will go under the Christmas tree once we have it up. Let's see if my resistance to open the gift will hold out then. lol

Thank you, Secret Santa, whoever you are.

Well, I better get my rear going if I want to get things done.

Have a great day, everyone!