Mom and Dad's Christmas Lantern

Last month, brilliant Monique shared another of her beautiful creations, a decorated Ikea lantern scene, and I was so charmed by it, I was soon emailing her to tell her I was copying the idea for my parents for Christmas.  ♥  I found the same lantern online, began ordering tree, lights, and blue gingham dollhouse furniture for it, and then was flummoxed when the lantern arrived in pieces-needing-to-be-assembled and emailed Monique again to ask how she'd put hers together, sigh.  :)  Eventually, I got it together--the story of my life, ha ha--and I finished it the day before taking it home for an early Christmas with my family.  :)  It's such a sweet idea, and it's not one I'd have ever thought of, filling the inside of a lantern like this.  More thanks to Monique for sharing, as she always does.  ♥ 

I began mine with what became the living room carpet, :) an old hand-towel in Mom  and Dad's shade of gray-blue.  A small snowflake doily-ornament came off my tree to become a miniature tree skirt.  After I'd gotten the decorating done, Mike figured out the lights. 

A heart appeared while we worked on it.  ♥ 

I had bought a miniature Beagle for Dad, as he's aching to have another one but Mom's not keen on the idea.  I crafted a mini newspaper out of folded-up/glued-together newspaper snippets and made a mini country decorating magazine for Mom.  I'm not happy with the collar-and-red-heart-tag that ended up looking like a bandana--Dad would never have a bandana-wearing dog--but I'd already hot-glued it into place before I realized how oversized it was. 

Part of a stained blue holiday towel that we no longer used but that I hadn't wanted to throw out found a new life as an afghan for the back of the couch.  I unraveled more of its yarn loops to make tiny  ornaments,  and I made a few little wrapped gift-bundles for under the tree.

A snowflake-patterned scrap of the same towel became a pillow, although the snowflake design isn't obvious.  The basket and shiny bow-wrapped gift beside it were little bits I'd saved from other projects over the years--and I'm glad I did.  :) 

I ordered a miniature Swedish tea ring from an online artisan, since that's what Mom always bakes for Christmas morning's breakfast.  ♥  I cut out paper napkins to go with that and the tea cups. 

The tree has its own built-in string of lights, and I draped the other strand around the couch for a little more glow on that side of the "room."   

When it was all put together and lit up, it looked full enough--and very much like Mom and Dad's actual living room at Christmas, which is what I was going for, of course.  ♥  (Again, how fun is this idea!  I want to make them for baby showers and birthdays and garden parties and weddings and kids' rooms and other holidays and! and! and. . . !)  :) 

I took a final picture in full sunshine right before wrapping it--

--and Mike and I gave it to Mom and Dad on the 21st.  Mom was as delighted as expected, and Dad was just happy to see a Beagle in his living room finally.  ;)  Here's to the fun and love of Christmas, and here's to the sharing of sweet ideas.  ♥ 

Then One Foggy Christmas Eve

Julietta's first Christmastime.  Darling girl.  ♥  While family eats and watches a Christmas movie together back home, Mike, Stuffed, and I are cozy in our little apartment, our cards all taped to the door, our favorite movies playing one after the other, and Stuffed napping here, there, and everywhere around us.  'A strangely foggy Christmas Eve here too, so much so that we can hardly see our neighbors' apartment next door, and the fog after a day with temperatures in the forties and our windows open most of the day while holiday baking was in full-swing.   My favorite day of the year, this.  ♥

It's been an easy-peasy day here, and this entire season's been the most-organized of every holiday season so far for me.  We have been washing dishes as we go all day, so we're even caught up in the kitchen, and unlike every past year, I have the cinnamon rolls baked and waiting to be frosted and it's earlier than midnight!  ;)

Yay for progress!  

Mom reminded me this past weekend that Mike and I did Sloppy Joes for Christmas Eve a few years back, and yes, that sounded good this time too, so after baking sugar cookies and cinnamon rolls today, supper was an easy affair.  Mom, of course, with big meals for more than ten both tonight and tomorrow, has been much busier, and it's been sweet to be able to cheer each other on today.

Happy holidays to you all.  Tonight and all the days ahead, may you find sweetness, love, and wonder.  

♥

Bianca Painted Stuffed!

And as with her gift last year, I could not be more charmed.  She handed it to me Saturday night covered in crushed and crumpled wrapping paper, and my brother explained, "She's had this made and wrapped since ohhhhhhhh, October maybe!?"  :)  Sweet Bee.  ♥  I will treasure her and her artwork all my days. 

Artwork by Bianca

The flu struck the week before Thanksgiving and never really went away.  'Am still sick but can almost say I've managed to pull off another Christmas.  This is niece Bianca's Saturday depiction of the two of us beside the Christmas tree.  (My hair!  Our eyes!)  Rarely have I been more charmed by something (or someone).  :)  ♥  Happy holidays to you all, and catch you in the new year. 

You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day - unless you're too busy; then you should sit for an hour. ~ Sukhraj S. Dhillon

Well, today has been a relaxing day off.  Really relaxing.  Really off.  I slept in.  The first two Christmas cards came in today's mail, Mom's and Aunt Heidi's.  Mike had the day off too but went out to breakfast alone and then ran a few errands downtown, so I had most of six hours to myself.  I added the miniature pink gingham wreath to my little cottage planter, per somewhat new tradition.  I thought of one last little gift for my older brother and his family and ordered it with just enough time left for it to arrive by next weekend's early Christmas.  While watching The Shawshank Redemption, I touched up a few Christmas tree ornaments with some fresh paint, glue, and faux snow before rehanging them.  I made this year's batch of salt-dough ornaments while watching About a Boy, another of my favorite movies (and books).  (And let us pause here to admire the colorful holiday table-scene here:

Ah!  Love!  Every time I watch this--and it's become another Christmastime tradition for me--I remember that I want to look for a simple candelabra like that one, and then forget until the following Christmas.  Maybe 2018 will be Candelabra Year.)  I had made my last big bunch of salt-dough ornaments in 2011--

--but decorated the tree this year in just pink and white so wanted some pink candy canes and hearts instead of all these rainbow-hued ones.  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand just now taken out of the oven and cooling a bit before I add them to the tree, then, is this afternoon's batch, along with a couple hearts formed from the last little scraps of dough.  (Salt-dough:  1/2 cup salt, 1/2 cup water, 1 cup flour-plus-more-mixed-in-as-needed. . .baked at 250°-ish for about four hours.  Katy Elliot's recipe--and are the snowflake ornaments in her post not the loveliest!--is the one I started with in 2011.  I usually need more flour than her recipe calls for, and I bake mine at a higher temp, but my recipe is otherwise her recipe--and a good one it is.)  Quite soon, then, the new candy canes and hearts will get hooked onto tree boughs and I'll loop some green thread or fishing line through the hearts to hang them and will declare the tree done. 

I'm off tomorrow too and am trying to talk Mike into a game of Trivial Pursuit.  No takers yet, but I got a "We'll see" upon last mention, at least.  'Am at some point re-hanging the gingham apron "curtain" that has a home over the air conditioner now that winter's here. 

I still have my cards to get ready to mail, despite Wednesday night's best intentions, but returning to my book sounds better than cards and envelopes.  Sometime this weekend, I'll take some Christmas tree pictures.  Ahhh, well, one picture for now, because I just added the salt-dough pieces and this is all making me very happy.

Sweet little tree.  ♥  After all the stress and chaos this week, this Christmas tree is actually my favorite one ever.  Go figure.  Thank you all for your kind words on the ol' balancing act.  Maybe everything just had to get worse here before I could figure out how to make it better. 

And Now. . .Alice Otter (My Favorite Gift I'm Giving This Year)

Whew!  I finished making Alice Otter earlier this morning.  She is part of my Christmas presents for my parents, just as Emmet Otter was last Christmas.  

 I can't be with my family while they watch Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas on Christmas Eve--enjoying the movie over eggnog and dessert is a family tradition--but now they will have the complete set of "Ma" and her Emmet to hold my place.  :) 

I started creating Alice in November and soon realized that I was mistaken to have thought that Alice Otter would be easier to make than Emmet.  I had expected her to be easier since her body is hidden by her dress, but between the dress-making and simply the ongoing trying-to-making-her-face-look-right, she was quite a challenge.   At least she and Emmet are a two-member family, since I don't think I'd want to construct a third otter next year.  :)  I also didn't realize until right now that I attached her lace-and-red-ribbon trim to the front of her dress upside-down.  BAH!  Maybe I'll attach extra lace under the red ribbon to make up for it.  BAH!  And BAH! again!  Anyway, she is either done or nearly-done, depending on my handling of The Lace Issue now.   :)  Her outfit in the movie is just lovely, so to have gotten it even this close was quite the feat for me, since sewing's not really my thing.  

I began with a stuffed animal I bought to cut up for fur and parts. 

I re-cut it to form the body--

--and re-stuffed it to re-shape it a bit. 

The plan had been to start with her face, of course, but I found myself beginning with her costume instead.  "Measure twice, cut once"-type thinking made me too nervous to add her face, I think, since once it was attached, there would be no going back to correct it.  The collar and bow were made from a piece of leftover lace in my fabric stash. 

I found one button in Grandma's button jar that matched the dress well, and I took the lid off a mustard bottle to make the nose.  :)  

I had bought the fabric back in August after a long search for one that closely resembled Alice's talent show costume in the movie.  (I wanted to make the talent show costume because so many of Mom's other Christmas decorations are blue, and Alice's other dress in the film is a brown-with-gold print.)

I didn't realize until I went to attach the finished arms that I had made them way too big and too long, so I spent at least an hour redoing them. I made a basic wrap dress that I'd later cover with a pleated fabric-piece for a proper dress. 

I remembered from last year to use white paint to add a life-like glint to her eyes.  The eyes and eyebrows were pieces of black fabric cut off a raggedy piece of a bag lining. 

I found a doily in October that I thought would be the right size to use as a cap, and I guessed correctly.  I made blue ribbon/cord from a length of the dress-fabric and threaded it through the doily's holes.  The ball-trim is from a piece I've used for so many other projects.  It all worked. 

And then I stopped taking pictures until I was done with her this morning. 

If I had stopped to refer to the photos of her I'd been using as reference all along, I'd have noticed the upside-down lace-and-red-ribbon-trim, but I'll live. 

Dad will get a kick out of her, as he did with Emmet, but I know Mom will truly love her.  :)

I'm so tickled with this. 

I tried making a mouth a few different ways, but I never came up with one that looked even remotely right, so instead I added extra fur with hot glue and bunched it up until it looked like there was at least an opening there.  The suggestion of a mouth looks better than any of my attempts at a real one did.  I added blush to her cheeks with a little of my lipstick, to make her look different from Emmet, and I used a paintbrush to spread some white eye shadow above her eyes. 

I attached her to a plastic container to make her a bit taller and to give her a way to stand, since it bothered me last year that the boots I'd created for Emmet hadn't worked out and he needed to be leaned against something to stay upright. 

And like last year, I made a gingham label as a finishing touch. 

Oh, I love that cap!  Anything with ball-trim just sends me, I love it so much. 

I go home tomorrow for a way-too-short visit and look forward to seeing not only my family, but also Alice and Emmet together for the first time.  ;) 

And now to figure out The Lace Issue before I pack this into tissue paper and box it up for Mom and Dad.  This is my favorite gift that I'm giving this year, although one for my nephew keeps making me laugh too.  Ah, holiday silliness!  I love it. 

Merry Early Christmas!  ♥

♥