Merry Christmas!

My cat and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Bookmarks

The other day when I probably should have been doing something else I found
this cute little bookmark tutorial.

We whipped up a bunch of them today at school.



I used fancy buttons for these instead of charms. I think I just found another excuse to dig through my button collection.

A beanbag for my camera

I don't have time to be sewing non-essentials right now when I've barely put a dent in my Christmas list but I had it in my head that I needed to make a beanbag for my camera (to use when I don't have a tripod handy) TODAY!



It's just a beanbag filled with little pellets that I finally found at Michael's after I called, asked them if they had them, they told me no and then I went and found them on the shelf myself.

It's light so it won't weigh down my camera bag and I think it will come in handy when trying balance my camera without a tripod.

It might just be completely useless. Time will tell.

It's coming together

I've finally put together a couple little Christmas gifts!



These are handmade (by me) soaps in a little felted bowl.

I thought it would be fun to embellish the bowls with buttons (of course!)



I can get back to my knitting tonight after the little fiasco that happened here two nights ago. My not-so-bright dog not only unravelled the knitting I was working on but he also CHEWED the needles!!! The needles have been replaced and the knitting saved.

Pretty bowl and ugly soap

Here's one of many more bowls I've knit and felted in the last couple of days.



This bowl was knit using Patons SWS yarn. Wow! Do I ever love the way it felted!



And sitting in my new pretty bowl is my new ugly chocolate raspberry soap. It sure smells great but I am not happy with the veins running through it. I have no idea why this happens. I have to figure that out.

Getting busy

Last night I made some "Sweet Pea" scented bath bombs. Oh my, how I love them! I know that many people prefer showers to baths but I'm a bath girl all the way! I'd use these in every bath if I could.



And I've been knitting.



These are the beginnings of more felted bowls. I keep thinking of different colours I want to make and different ways I could embellish them. They are keeping me entertained, that's for sure.

And then there's soap. I've already made several batches for Christmas gifts. Chocolate mint, sweet pea and pina colada soap. I just finished making a batch of chocolate raspberry. I don't think it will be ready in time for gift-giving. Oh well. More for me. :)

Felted bowl, take 1

I have to make a confession.

I've hardly thought about Christmas.

At all.

I have not made a Christmas list yet.

I have done nothing.

Now I'm starting to panic. I have a few ideas floating around my head but that's all they are. Ideas floating around my head.

I decided last night I had to get my act together. One of the things I've been thinking of is little felted bowls to hold little gifts (I'm not sure what yet).



Those are clementine oranges in the bowl, not normal oranges. I like the size of the bowl. Now I just have to figure out what to put in them and crank out a bunch more bowls.

Or not.

I might change my mind.

Fetching

A while back, I knit a new hat. I knew immediately that I wanted to knit a matching pair of fingerless mitts to go with it.

I wanted fingerless mitts so that I could still use my camera in cold weather.

Although I have never knit cables before and was quite frankly afraid of them, I decided to knit Knitty's fetching fingerless mitts.

Here they are:



And here they are in action:



I'm thinking I need more of these!

I love Edward

I'm a 40-year-old woman (I HATE to admit that) and I'm far too old to be excited about the opening of a movie. ESPECIALLY a movie where the heart-throb is a 17-year-old boy!!!! But I am. Excited. "I can hardly sleep" excited.



As many of you know, I'm a high school librarian. I'm very very involved in our school's "Twilight Club". Yes, a book club that exclusively discusses the Twilight series. We have more than 30 students who are completely obsessed with the books and can spend hours discussing who's cuter, Edward or Jacob.

We have made arrangements to get a "special" viewing of the movie tomorrow (opening day) at noon. We have more than 100 students going on the field trip. I think (sadly) I'm more excited than any of them.

It's "Twilight Madness" at my school and I'm afraid I've added fuel to the fire. I spend my days talking to students about the book and pushing it to those who haven't read it (there aren't many) like a drug dealer. We are even making our own Twilight t-shirts using t-shirt transfers and an inkjet printer.



I have told more than one student that I'd leave Joe for a vampire. In a heartbeat (ha ha ha).

I have staff and students e-mailing me about the book. When Edward leaves Bella I got an e-mail from an angry staff member telling me that she "broke up with Edward" when he did that. That e-mail came in at 11 o'clock at night.

If you haven't read the book, do yourself a favour and run out and get it today. Trust me.

Edit: I'm not sure if you're aware but the 5th book in the series, Midnight Sun is available to read on Stephenie Meyer's website, www.stepheniemeyer.com. I'm reading that today.

Butterflies and flowers

There hasn't been much happening on the crafty front at all lately around here, mostly because my sewing room is a complete disaster and it's much easier to avoid that room than to deal with the mess!

After spending the day Saturday lounging around, reading and watching movies, Joe and I decided to go to Niagara falls on Sunday to take some photos.



We started out a the butterfly conservatory in Niagara Falls.



It was beautiful there, but oh my it was HOT!!!



After that, we went to a greenhouse that is operated by Niagara Parks.





The flowers were breath-taking but I have no idea what any of them are called.





We had a fun day and a fun evening processing all the photos we took. I'm so glad Joe decided to get himself a digital SLR, we're having a great time learning about photography together.

Notebooks

I had almost forgotten about these. Back in August/early September I went on a fabric-covered notebook binge!



I used this tutorial.



I made big ones.



And little ones.





And ones for friends.



This is the one I carry in my purse. I love it because the pencil is tucked right into the pocket.



Warning...they are super easy and fun to make!!! Don't say I didn't warn you!

A hat

I always seem to get the urge to knit as the days get colder. This year is no exception.

Lera sent me this link and I knew I had to make it.



That's me sporting my new hat and new sunglasses. I had to get new glasses and decided to have my old glasses coated and turned into sunglasses. I have not had real sunglasses for about a year (when I lost the clips that went with my old glasses). Love them!

Anyways, back to the hat...I love the hat. I'm a slow knitter, but it came together quite quickly. Even Joe said it was cute and he hardly ever notices things like that.

I have a matching pair of fingerless mittens in the works. Stay tuned.

More photos

Joe and I have been camera crazy. Reading about and playing with RAW files, learning how to use new software and adjusting our camera settings.

Last night we went out for a drive. We ended up at two different pumpkin farms and took a bunch of photos.













I am SO excited about RAW photos! They take much longer to process, but boy, are the results ever worth it.

Today I'm off to my sister's bridal shower armed with my camera.

If you're stuck at home sick...

Then you might as well curl up with Martha Stewart's new holiday issue!!!!



I found it at Walmart while I was waiting for my prescriptions to be filled. I've already quickly flipped through it and although I'm glad I bought it, none of the projects scream "make me now!". They might, once I feel better.

apple crisp

On Friday night Joe and I bought some apples from a local farm.



Today I decided they needed to be turned into apple crisp (not an easy thing to photograph).



I've also been starting to play with RAW photos. I really really have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm having a lot of fun trying to figure it all out. Here's a photo of one of our cats, Maia.



And, I've been sick. I have had a terrible headache for the past few days. It's gone, but now I think I have an ear infection. All I want to do is sleep.

New lunch bag

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving. I've cooked myself a small turkey so that I can have my absolute favourite thing, turkey sandwiches, for lunch this week.

To celebrate my sandwiches, I decided I needed a fancy new lunch bag. I used the Favorite Things Lunch Bag pattern.



I like it, I don't love love love it. Why? Because sewing corners is hard. I had planned to use the leftover fabric to make matching napkins (how cute would that be??) but I think I'm leaning towards saving the fabric and making myself another lunch bag when I find a good online tutorial. Although, by the time I'm done with this bag I'll probably be sick of the fabric so maybe I should go ahead and make matching napkins and move on. I think that's what I'll do.

Autumn

I'm exhausted. We just got home from a long day at a local conservation area with some friends. The colours were beautiful, sadly, most of my photos weren't.

Here are the few I was able to save.

The first two are of the ruins of an old mill. I would love to go back and take some portraits there. We didn't have time for that today and the place was packed!





Our senior dog, Chinook.



I was playing around in the car.



The obligatory red leaf photo.



And a pumpkin patch we drove past on the way home (and I made Joe pull over to the side of the road at).



It was a very photographically discouraging day. I was playing with a new lens (that I bought second hand) and I don't blame the lens for my crappy photos, I blame the fact that I'm just not used to it. I took over 200 photos and liked maybe 10. Sigh.

Pumpkin muffins

In October I get a craving for pumpkin stuff, muffins, bread, cookies, whatever. For the past couple of years pumpkin muffins have given me my "fix".



Yesterday, while Joe was out geocaching I made a batch. Yummm. Yummmm.



Joe doesn't even like them, so in an effort to save myself from eating the entire two dozen in two days, I've put some in the freezer in an effort to make them last. I have a feeling though, that even partially frozen pumpkin muffins would taste good!