Snuggle Monkey

Butterfly woke up in the middle of the night with a bad dream. I came and talked to her for a while and she settled down with her sock monkey cuddled up with her. I just had to take a picture of her, she was so cute and forlorn! Then I noticed that Sunshine was perfectly cuddled with her monkey too. Daisy was disappointed that I didn't take a picture of her sleeping too... but that will have to wait for another night.

Far, Far Away in the Cousin Nativity

Christmas Eve the kids all took part in a Nativity play with a batch of their cousins. Sunshine and Butterfly were both assigned parts as angels. I realized at the last minute that I needed to have costumes for them! I had my husband pick up some white pillowcases while he was out and about and I whipped up these cute little white pillowcase dresses. They took me maybe 10 minutes each (though taking a little longer would look better, lol)

Little Sunshine talking with Grandma before the Nativity play.


Standing by the Christmas tree. The girls chose their own clothes to wear with the dress, and I didn't have time to re-vamp anything. Otherwise there might have been some pretty white shirts instead of bright tees.

Some real Monkey Business

This afternoon I got to have three of my nieces come over for a crafting party. (In case someone hadn't noticed: I have LOTS of nieces. And nephews.) They brought some socks and two of them made sock monkeys for their two younger brothers and the third one made three hair bows for some friends of hers. They did such a good job! I ran the sewing machine and the hot glue gun, but they pretty much did everything else. I even tweaked the "North Pole Boutique" cards to make them custom from my niece as a finishing touch. We ran out of time a bit, but we were really close to finishing. The monkeys still need eyes and one went home with an arm or two pinned on, LOL, but the girls know what they're doing now and they won't have any trouble finishing them I'm sure.

SJ with her three hair bows. I walked through the first one but she put the other two together pretty much by herself!


RJ with her nearly-completed sock monkey. All he needs now is eyes! They're hoping to make up some clothes too.


JJ curled up on the couch stitching away on the other sock monkey.

Finishing Details

After making a bunch of clips and things for my nieces, I decided they definitely need somewhere to keep them. So I made these two bow holders and sent them along in the package.
As a final touch, since these things are all from Santa and I'm just helping him out, I made special cards to mount the bows on instead of my usual Tilly's Bowtique cards. These Christmas items come specially mounted on North Pole Boutique cards, complete with a gmail account. :)
Oopsie! I forgot to include the pic of my North Pole Boutique cards. Now It's on here :)

In a whole different area of crafting

Before I started with ribbons and bows I was making lots of jewelry. Mostly I made wire wrapped jewelry with sterling silver or gold rolled wire. It is beautiful, unique, and more expensive to make than bows, LOL. I still love jewelry, but I just can't do it as often as I wish.
I made this jewelry set for a mother of 4. What mother couldn't use something fun for herself? Unfortunately I am out of wire right now, so I wasn't able to do wire wrapped jewelry for her. I make this jewelry set out of wood, tigereye, mother of pearl, and freshwater pearls.

Tool Time -- but a litte more fun.

I made these tool-belt style aprons for two boys for Christmas. The 8yo loves Hot Wheels so his belt has 6 pockets made to fit Hot Wheels cars. The 5yo loves art, so his belt has 12 pockets to fit crayons. Each belt rolls up easily to tuck into a bag for a trip to the doctor's office or a long drive in the car. I made these out of navy blue duck cloth -- a heavy weight fabric with velcro closure so they'll fit for a long time.

We LOVE teachers :)

Last week was the end of school for the year (the 2008 year, not the school year :)) so I wanted to send some gifts to the wonderful teachers and helpers in our lives.
I made ribbon-wrapped pens in pairs for each gift. I also made some teacher themed bottlecaps which I made into magnets. They turned out REALLY cute and the teachers absolutely loved them.
We gave gifts to all 4 of Sunshine's preschool teachers, Daisy's bus driver (who has been really great and helped out with a bullying problem), and Daisy's teacher. Sunshine goes to a preschool done by the school district that is particularly for special needs children. They also take non-special needs children, but they don't get to ride the bus and they pay tuition. Sunshine is actually the only tuition paying child in her class. It has been wonderful for her, though, since there is a teacher for about every 3 children and she gets to be the leader and the example a lot -- good for a middle child. I mention all that to explain one of the caps I made particularly for those teachers:
"All children are gifted, some just open their package sooner than others." (purple)
the other say:
"Teachers Rule" (yellow)
"When's Recess?" (gray)
"Discover Wildlife: be a teacher" (orange)
and
"Every time the bell rings a teacher gets her wings" (green)

The bus driver got two pens and a key chain made with a bottle cap I made using the school mascot and "Tiger Pride 2008-09"
The 1st grade teacher got magnets, two pens, and a key chain too.

New Items for WInter!

Here they are! I have finished designing my 2008 winter line ;) I will add pictures of them, though I haven't done the "pro" pictures yet. These pictures are of the clips still clipped to my working notebook. I should be ready to deliver my order to the Lindon Kid to Kid hopefully tomorrow afternoon. I just need to finish a few last figures and get some more display cards printed up. I can't believe how fast I go through those! (I also did poinsettia clips, but I didnt' photograph them yet.)