Preparing for Christmas

Hello to YOU! Oh boy have I been enjoying the holidays and I hope you have been too. Already have attended 2 Christmas parties. One was the Saturday before Thanksgiving. That certainly helped set the cheerful mood for the holidays. Lots to share again with you so grab a favorite beverage and hope you enjoy all the photos.

Cupcake cuteness!!! I LOVE this ornament from 20143 JCS Christmas magazine called Gingerbread Cupcake by The Victoria Sampler. I hand over dyed the fabric myself, the darling gingerbread buttons I found at Michael's, the beads I had in my stash already. Very convenient! This was a ornament that I had marked to stitch but never got around to kitting it up. THEN I had read on Sharon's blog Shebafudge that this was one of the ornaments she wanted to stitch and from reading her post - I was inspired and went on a quest to shop for the gingerbread buttons and the silicone cupcake liners:) I had success after 2 days of hunting.
Thank you Sharon for your inspiration!

Here it is all finished

Made the cording for the hanger myself. I didn't have the tiny heart buttons, I substituted tiny red buttons.

After making the cupcake ornament I was inspired to decorate some edible cupcakes which I took to Ladies Night with for our church Holiday potluck.

I have been participating in some exchanges thru EMS (Ellen Maurer-Stroh forum website). This beautiful ornament was sent to me by Catherine (EMS-Catvache) from France. This was our Holiday ornament exchange.

Catherine sent me some extra goodies with the ornament. I was so surprised when I saw this book - I LOVE it! You see for some reason DMC has lots of incredible chart books that are not sold here in the USA and I wish they did. Thank you so much Catherine.

For our EMS Holiday stash exchange, I sent these gifts to who I had - Christine (EMS - Chrisy59) here in USA. She received her package and loved it all.

Here is all that I received for the Holiday Stash exchange (EMS) from Bea (EMS - Beaj) from Canada.
All these goodies came to me in this Incredible hand made stitched envelope by Bea. Yes it really did get thru customs and arrived safe and sound. Some trims, needles, a pretty felt ornament and a gift certificate to 123stitch.com - WOW!!! How lucky I am!

The back of the envelope Bea stitched a wreath, bee, and a Christmas tree:)

Thank you very much Bea for all your generosity. I am using the pocket for threads and scissors. 

A while back I was a lucky winner at Chiara's giveaway at her blog "thegreytail" back in October. I won a signed copy of Autumn Sampler by Nikycreations. All the way from Italy. How cool is that!
Thank you Chiara, I look forward to stitching it after the holidays.

Some updates on my wips. This is Mary's Sampler all I have to do is stitch the border.

"Peppermint Mint" by Little House Needleworks. The fabric is 28ct Pink Peppermint Candy Stripes evenweave by Fabric Flair. I thought the name of the pattern and fabric where a good match. And I LOVE Pink:)

and here is my progress for my sister's Christmas quilt. These are the fabrics that she has been collecting the past 4 years. I added some fabrics that I had purchased on a recent shopping trip not long ago. The middle panel is all one piece and I wanted to use it as a center focal point. I know there are lots of colors going on but I did my best to lay them out and hopefully look good. This is turning out to be a large sized quilt not a lap quilt - lol.

I did show my sister when I layed them out to see what she thought and she loves how it's looking. I still have to add more rows below whats photoed. So far the size of each square was cut  9x9 and I have 8 squares across and haven't decided on how many squares going down yet. My sister wants is very long because shes tall. Hope to get this done before Christmas. Good thing she loves Christmas all year round.

My progress for Fairy Hill Bothy Threads Cut Thru SAL with Debbie and Linda!

Finished the backstitching for this section. Now you can see a  bag that says gold, a gold cup, a key and gold stars in the earth. There's a fairy resting and reading a book, a jar for teeth for the tooth fairy, even the spines of books are labeled, and a flower clock.

A few years ago I signed up for a online scrapbook class called "Journal your Christmas" by Shimelle.
This is a scrapbooking class to celebrate the holiday season. I've enjoyed participating in this class over the years. And for this year I'm keeping it simple, here is my album cover.  If you would like to learn more of the class click on "Journal your Christmas" above for Shimelle's post explaining all about it.

Just to give you an idea what the inside looks like, this is my page for Dec 1st.

Preparing the album is lots of fun and after the holidays are over I have something nice to reflect back on.

No trees up yet but am getting closer. Preparing for Christmas is so much fun! Do you have your tree up yet? By the way we are having extremely cold temperatures the last few nights - 28 degrees. No snow! I also have my PS - "Christmas Eve" sampler being framed. It will be done in 2 weeks. Just in time for Christmas.

Thank you for your visit.  with my Love and Appreciation - Annette