The cutest stockings ever!

My friend Ann Moody makes these. How awesome are they? She wants to open a shop and put these on Etsy in the future. She makes each one custom and she sells them for $125 each. She uses very expensive wool yarns and they do take her quite a few hours to make. She is hosting a holiday open house at her lovely home on the 4th and 5th of December. She will have lots of her pearl button jewelry along with handmade wool ornaments and lots of yummy baked goods. I'll post pictures of some of the goodies I made in an upcoming post along with my new Jackson Pottery Santa and snowman.

Oh Happy Day!

This is my collection of Santas from the fabulous Illinois artists' Robert Jackson & his sweet-as- sugar wife, Sandy from Rock Island, Illinois.

This was the line to get in last year. If you want to be certain of getting a Santa you should be in this line at least an hour before the shop opens. I'm telling you this may not look like a lot of people but these ladies bring boxes to fill. My Mom being one of them, she buys 5 of everything!

Today is one of my favorite days of the year! Jackson's antiques in Rock Island is having their holiday open house from 5-8 pm. My Mom is going to wait in line for me so I can pick my son and the neighbor girl up from band. Anyway back to Jackson's, they design a different pottery Santa and snowman every year and today is the day to get one! They sell out of them in the first hour. They are made in a mold and then they are signed and stamped that they are made right here in our little part of the world! They make adorable crafts, have coffee and handmade treats, decorate their little house so festively. And did I mention the also have scrap booking type things that you can buy already done up? (They sell supplies but I like to buy the stuff already done up.) I can't wait to see what new and wonderful designs they come up with and I will post pictures of the new designs! Wishing you a beautiful, happy day too!

~Heidi

Tough times

This home was my favorite one I saw when we were designing our own home. It was my inspiration for the house we built. I didn't end up with the funds to do the faux stone (yes it is "faux"). But I did incorporate a few of the elements. Anyway I heard yesterday that the gal who was the homebuilder and designer of some fabulous homes (this one included) around my area has filed for divorce, declared corporate bankruptcy and left town. She was an incredibly hard worker. She wasn't a personal friend of mine but I do admire talent and a good work ethic of which she had ample of both. When a community loses a person with her talents it really loses a lot. She also built a public golf course with an exquisite clubhouse, townhomes, condos you name it. And she could lay tile like a pro! This is probably a familiar story in many peoples hometowns given the current economic times. Good luck to her, I will miss seeing her creativity brought to life!

Our new "Stash" and some Jedi Warriors

Oh no look what is on my kitchen counter! I think the Butterfingers are gone now so I may be a little safer. We live in an area where some towns have Trick-Or-Treat on the 30th and some have it on Halloween. We took advantage of this and went both nights! Got to get the most good out of the costumes because they are only used for this Halloween and they are already talking about what they want to be for next year.

This is the picture before the boys started off with their cousins. We do this every year with the girls and we have a blast! Dad makes a big batch of chili for when we get home. We love this tradition.

This is the sck my oldest carried around with him and I knew we had emptied out the sack so I went to grab it to put it away and.....

it was much heavier than I expected. Jasper had found his way into it and discovered a new hiding place!

My middle son thought it would be a good idea to whip a towel at me in the kitchen. The melted candle sitting on the candle warmer seemed like a good safe alternative to an open flame. It was a good thought but as you may know it melts the entire candle. I had candle wax on my kitchen cupboards, the wall, the counters and oh did I mention the dog? Yep a day late for Halloween but the poodle is sporting "Pumpkin Pie Spice" orange candle wax on his fur. Hope you had an excellent and fun Halloween weekend. We sure did!

My version of a fabric organizer

I have seen three different versions of similar organizers on etsy.com. They all were cool but I wanted to try to make a custom one for me. Here is what I came up with today. The pocket on the left hand side of the organizer offers a great way to protect my post cards from the sweet and talented Heather from Audrey Eclectic. This is her blog http://reverieart.blogspot.com/

These are the supplies needed to make one. I used a heavy interfacing and fusible fleece along with a 1/2 yard each of tan linen fabric and a pretty cotton print I found at JoAnn's. Of course you need thread and a sewing machine. I didn't have a pattern but I had a small notebook that I used to design my pattern around.

This is what it looks like closed. The ribbon came from Cris at Mommy's Midwest Mountain Folk Art Studio (visit her blog here http://mommysmidwestmountain.blogspot.com/ )when I bought an adorable kitty angel from her off ebay. I also used a vintage pearl button from my stash to loop the ribbon around for a closure.

This is so much cooler than carrying around my stuff in a grocery sack. :)

Thanks Cookie!

TDIPT Group (To Dwell in Past Times) just had their third anniversary for their group of awesome artists. They had a giveaway and look what I was fortunate enough to win! This is an amazing piece of art donated by artist Karen DeGreve aka "Cookie". This mask is made of paper mache and is just perfect for hanging on the wall. Here is a link to her blog. http://curds-and-whey.blogspot.com/Check out her latest post of Fall leaves in No. Missouri. She obviously has a wonderful creative eye with her camera as well!

Thank you so much Cookie! It is a treasure for my family to enjoy for years to come!

Pesky cat and Fireplace makeover

This is a picture of the kitty's behind. He actually climbed underneath the couch and somehow managed to climb into the bottom of the couch. This is also the reason I was woke up at least three times last night! Naughty kitty!

My fireplace just got its mantle thanks to my parents. My Mom's nagging and my Dad's handiwork. Just a little staining left to do. He had leftover pieces when he got done, should I be scared?

I found this picture to show what the fireplace used to look like. Big improvement I think!

Another picture of our craft show we did. Almost everything we put on this table sold. We bought the metal pumpkins at Goodwill and spray painted them silver. A lady came by and bought them both. The little pumpkins with the ribbons were just dollar store pumpkins spray painted with ribbons attached. One lady bought all we had! My sister had a great time using up my german glass glitter to bling several of the things she made. Almost everything on this table was done by her. She really liked the idea black, white and silver for Halloween this year.

This is a great picture of some of my kinfolk. This is for you Aunt Char!

Wishing you a beautiful time!

Heidi