Last minute Christmas

It has been a tradition in my family for many years to make a home-made ornament to give to each family. I usually make more than one to try out which one will be my ornament of the year.

Here is this year's ornament.

I used wooden spools and buttons from my mom's collection. I wrapped the spools with colored paper, then overlaid it with musical note washi tape. The little snowy green bottle brush trees were decorated with red beads, a festival word and a star made from 2 sequins that I glued together. 

The button is on the bottom of the spool.

I also made this paper ornament from a pentagon shape. When you fold over the sides a star forms.

I then stamped a sweet little Christmas tree in gold. These are nice gift toppers that can be used as a ornament as well. 

I was so inspired by my creative blogger friend, Annie from Freeze Frame, by her beautiful money gift wrapping that I just needed to add some pizazz to my daughter's money gift. 

I used what I had in my craft room and hand cut the star and swirl. The letters are alphabet stickers and the Christmas saying was left from a photo collage kit. At times like this I wish I had a die cutter. 

It is by far the prettiest money gift wrapping I have done! 

Thanks for the inspiration Annie!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! 

Christmas 2016

While decorating the house for the Christmas holiday, I decided I needed another Christmas quilt. 

What? 

Adding another thing to an already busy time is nuts! 

But...I did it! 

I found a gift block pattern on Pinterest and started making packages from Christmas fabric scraps in my stash. Originally, I planned on just making a 4 x 4  lay-out but as I was playing around, this arrangement immersed. 

I'll try to find the link and edit this post later. 

The quilt is about 56" x 64". 

I straight lined quilted through the gifts to make like a Christmas tree. 

You can see better from the back, below. 

The background is FMQ in stippling. I love the texture that it gives to the quilt!

The backing and the background were larger pieces from my stash which I inherited as was the red and white stripe I used for the binding. 

I just love it when I use fabrics from my stash! 

My stash is quite extensive that I barely make a dent, or so it seems.

I also made a new garden banner from a Christmas panel inherited from my mom's stash.

 

Our annual Norwegian Christmas progressive dinner (we call it the Troll Stroll) was this past Sunday and the usual characters showed up for some festive activities and gift giving. 

Do you have some crazy traditions?

My wish for you is to have a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year spent with family and friends! 

I'm linking up at Let's be social.

Finally done!

I have a finish!  

This quilt has been made over the year which makes it seem like it has been around a long time! The Rainbow Scrap Challenge hosted by SoScrappy announces a color of the month. You can choose anything to make or follow along. This year Angela designed a column quilt which I did not do but looked amazing put together. Maybe next year....

I choose to make a blocked based on the Soul Searching block. I changed the bar sizes so each block was smaller than the original. This would allow me to use more blocks hence more colors.

There are 12 colors even though the challenge was for 10 colors. I added an extra medium blue and an extra light green to round out my quilt. The background for the blocks is low volume prints. 

The backing fabric is from my stash. I pieced it with a column of 3 lanterns using printed fabrics that read as black for lantern's background.  

I made a scrappy 'piano keys' border using this technique I found on pinterest. 

I quilted using an organic straight line in the lanterns in the thread color of the lantern. In the low volume areas and in the border, I FMQ loops down each bar.

I'm naming this quilt Lantern Festival because it reminds me of the Chinese lanterns that fly in the sky at a lantern festival. This quilt finishes at 57" x 66".

I'm linking up to SoScrappy!

I have a few more projects hanging around my sewing room that I hope to find time to work on during this already busy time of the year.  

What have you been working on?