Coffee and Cross Stitch

The Christmas season is officially here! | December Daily

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

This year, I ventured to NYC for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Why, you ask?  Simple.  My friend, Matt, was marching in the parade as a member of the Madison Scouts. He was one of 426 participants, made up of current and alumni members, to march in this event.

The Madison Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps was one of the groups that marched down 7th Avenue, around Columbus Circle, and down Broadway to Herald Square.  And guess what else?!  They were the group RIGHT IN FRONT of Santa, so they essentially escorted him to Macy's!!  

HOW COOL IS THAT!!!

This video doesn't do justice to how absolutely incredible the brass players are in this corps, but this is what was broadcast on tv (they played Christmas songs as they marched down to Macy's, but this is all that was captured for the broadcast....)

 

I mean, COME ON.  Those screaming trumpets!!!  I can't.  

Here's them at rehearsal, standing still, playing the cadence and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town":

 

Seriously.  So. Much. Fun.

This event, naturally, had to mark the beginning of my December Daily album.  This year, I am determined to keep up with it better than in the past.  Determined.

The December Daily is intended to be just the days leading up to Christmas and then Christmas day (1-25 December), but I like to include the entire Christmas season, which starts (in this case) with Thanksgiving Day.

Here are is my album so far ---

 

I'm not sure how I like the 4x6 title, so I may end up changing that, but I do like to keep things simple.  The top left is from a Heidi Swapp value pack with embellies from My Mind's Eye, and the right is a pic I took when I was in Chestnut Hill on Wednesday morning, before I headed up to NYC.  It was too awesome with the holly boughs and the pup sitting outside Starbucks, waiting for his owner.

For this spread, I used the Merry Christmas letterpress plate from Studio Calico, a quick pic on the train, and 2x2 instas from the parade (i printed all these pics on my Canon Selphy 910, which is a great lil' printer for projects like this, so you can instantly add photos to the album.).  Unfortunately, I couldn't get close enough to the parade itself to snap pics of the Scouts as they went by, but since the balloons are enormous, I was able to get snaps of some of them.  I still have to do simple embelishments for the red squares, but I left it as-is for the moment, and hopefully tomorrow I'll be more inspired to get my stamps and embellies out to finish this page.

That's it, folks!  December Daily is officially started!!

How was your Thanksgiving?!  Have you started any of your Christmas season festivities yet?!!?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas | Cross Stitch

Yeah, I know.  It's been looking like Christmas since before Halloween, but places are starting to put up their lights, so it's really starting to look Christmassy here :-)

If you couldn't guess, Christmas is my ABSOLUTE favorite time of year.  I'm a summer baby through-and-through, but Christmas makes me so happy I can hardly stand it.  The music, the lights, the decorations, the card making, the cookie baking, the mulled cider, the hot chocolate, ALL OF IT.  I want it to be always.  

But, then it wouldn't be such a special time of year, so I have to settle and only have it be during December. 

(sigh)

All this Christmas excitement has me pulling out some of my newer (to me) Christmas stitch patterns, like this one from With Thy Needle - 

 This is "Letters to Santa" and is adorbs.  I am in love with the snowmen and the giant candy cane in Santa's hand.

 

And the reindeer!  I die. (ps - this second shot is closer to what the fabric really looks like - the lighting distorted the top pic a little)

I haven't decided if I'm gonna frame this (I stitched it on 40 ct. Purely Primitive from Silkweaver, because the 22 ct called for in the graph is just too much.) - it's a 5x5 square - or make it into a small.  I pulled the green fabric from my sewing stash, just to see what it would look like with this piece, and I'm really torn.  I'll probably decide sometime in 2017 what to do with this, but until then, I'll just keep on stitching.  :-)

Are you guys working on anything for Christmas right now?!  Or are you already 2 seasons ahead of me and working on summer stuff???

Baby Shower Goodies

My baby sister is having a baby! 

Naturally, I had to outdo myself, and make everything for the shower.  

Ok, not literally everything...but close.

First up:  the invites.  Why buy them when you can make them, amiright??  Especially when you don't know the gender of the baby - much easier to make non-gendered things than try and buy them.

I went to my local Paper Source, and picked up some mint green flat cards and envelopes, plus fine papers to line the envelopes.  (If you haven't tried lining envelopes, you totally should)  I also used a cutie stork stamp I got from there to put a simple flourish on the bottom.

How cool is that Color Box stamp pad!!  It matches almost perfectly to the paper I chose.  Awesome.

That liner paper!! GAH.  I can't get enough.  

The invites were super simple and easy to make - since I was using Paper Source paper, I went online and found their templates for printing inviations at home (You could use their templates with other paper, you'd just have to scale it to what size paper you're using, if the dimensions aren't exactly the same.). You can buy blank invitations from them and print at home, so they have Word templates to account for paper size and margins, depending on what design you got.  I used this one, since it was closest to how I would be stamping the image on the bottom of the invite.  I typed in all the info, hit print, and viola.  Then, I stamped the image on the bottom, and embossed it with clear embossing powder to give it a little something extra.

I stamped each one on the back with my Kelly Purkey stamp, and signed and dated them all.   

Perfect.

Next up: the favors.

In my mind, favors must be useful.  Or, they should be food.  Chocolate is usually a winner, but in this case, since it's fall and I have serious problems when it comes to great ideas and underestimating how long things take to make...I decided making apple butter and apple cranberry jam was the way to go.

I know, right.  Delicious.

So, I got 4 oz Ball canning jars, made the recipes, then hot bath canned them.  That way, people don't have to feel pressured to eat them right away.  Using scraps from cutting the white paper for the invites, I made little "thank you" tags for each jar.

Super simple little tags stamped with this expression stamp, hole punched, an eyelet smashed on, tied it with some twine, and boom.  Favors. 

Delicious favors.

They all went into baskets at the shower for guests to grab on their way out the door when the festivities were over.  

Each basket had a tag, so you knew which one you were grabbing.

 Um. So. Do you see that sideways "L"???  Yeah.  That's what happens when you pick up the letter stamp, and swear it's going the right direction, but it's not.  Then, your almost uncontrollable OCD freaks the f out, and you begin a panicked search for more blank tags.  Unable to find any, you decide if anyone even notices, you'll say you did it on purpose - it is a baby shower, after all, and it's cute to make stuff look baby/kid-ish.  If that makes sense.  You know, like when I used to write my "J's" sideways when first learning how to write my name.  Now I just stamp letters sideways for effect.  And to drive myself insane.  Literally.

So, there was a sideways "L" on the tag at the shower.  And now you know the story behind it.   Just in case anyone asks.

Ahem.

Lastly:  the dessert table.

 

Hello, sugar coma.

Cookies.  Pumpkin cake.  Pumpkin bread.  Luscious cake balls that my lovely friend, Angela, volunteered to bake.  Scones.  Maple cakelettes.  

Homemade baked goodies overload.  I think I'm done baking for the entire year.  My mom and I baked everything on that table, with the exception of Angela's cake balls.  

I made the cards to label the goodies, too.  Glitter pumpkins are all the rage.

 Glue stamp pads make using glitter SO much easier for stuff like this.  You use the stamp on the glue pad like you would a regular ink pad, stamp the image, then pour glitter over it, and tap off the excess.  Let dry.  Glitter pumpkins abound.

That's it for the shower goodies I made.  I have a few tricks up my sleeve for when the baby arrives, but until then, the projects are super-secret-on-the-down-low.  

Have any of you done any handmade things for showers or parties?  What did you make??