January 3, 2017

Today was my regular day off from work and because we have both been home since December 30th, we have been able to take care of several of those little projects around the house that only take a few minutes, but never seem to get done. The outside Christmas decorations and lights came down and were stored away. Christmas cards were put away because I keep cards that are sent to me although I did re-purpose one of them into the red gift tags seen here. I used the gift tag on the right as a template to cut out the shape and a hole punch to make the hole.

Then, I moved onto finishing this ornament wreath that I had made recently. I was going to put a ribbon through the wreath itself to better camouflage the wire, but I was not able to manipulate the wire ribbon in such a way that I was happy with the result so I re-positioned a few bulbs instead to hide the wire. Making bows is something that I have never attempted before so this bow is my first! I used a snowflake patterned white ribbon and a twist tie to make the bow along with several passes at plumping the ribbon to look full while hiding the twist tie.

This piece was finished late last night, too late for a blog update. I did not get around to washing it today or thinking any further about how it will be finished.

A Christmas ornament that I had stitched before Christmas was partially finished today. While I was waiting for the glue to set on part of it, I started stitching on this ornament that I found on pinterest recently. The fabric is a 28 count amber coloured linen and the threads are from my mystery thread box.

My computer is telling my that is 10:07pm and 6:30am is going to come early after being off for most of the Christmas break and such a productive day that also included a hike in the woods with our Maggie and a loss at curling tonight. Ciao!

December 27, 2016

This project is not a stitching project, but a project nonetheless. I bought these plastic balls at Canadian Tire last week when they marked down the prices on their Christmas decorations by 50%. They are strung on a wire clothes hanger that we unwound and roughly bent into a round shape. I really had no plan for stringing on the bulbs beyond I wanted a pretty wreath so there was some "string and remove" as I stepped back to see the colours and the fullness. A pair of pliers was used at the end to bend the hanger ends to make a clasp that is hidden under my fingers in this picture. My plan is to hide the clasp under wire ribbon that I need to find at one of our local craft stores and perhaps weave some ribbon in and around the bulbs to cover any open areas where the wire can be seen. Sadly, I used up the only wire hanger I could find in this house so there may be no more attempts at other colours or combinations.