some Christmas ornaments . . .

The girls and one of my nieces made some Christmas ornaments today. The dough is made from cornstarch, baking soda and water - you have to cook it, shape it, and bake it. The girls had a great time decorating with paint, glue, sequins, and glitter. They were very proud of their creations (even Chantel although she didn't want to pose for a pic).

Christmas crafting . . .

Elayna put together a Christmas Countdown craft tonight - I helped with the cutting and stamping and she did the glueing and threading onto ribbon. Part-way through the threading she exclaimed "this is so much fun!" which was especially cute because her sister and cousin had quit long before this because it was too boring for them. I guess she's my little crafter so far.

camera bag - DONE!

Well I'm happy to see this project complete. It was a request by my sister, the photographer. She wanted a messenger bag to fit her camera and a couple lenses. So it had to be padded and sturdy. I used timtex(?) I believe it's called and it was a bugger to turn right side out to say the least. The flap is detachable with velcro so that it can have wardrobe changes.

A quilt for me . . .

I finished up this lap quilt for myself this past week. Over the past couple years, I've made quite a few baby quilts, a sampler wall hanging for myself, and some more quilts that have gone to my kids, charity, or fundraisers. So this is quite exciting for me to finally enjoy one myself. I already spent lots of time cozied up with it while I handstitched the binding, and hope this will be the first of many. I let Alyssa play with it for some pictures since she loves it too and she's much cuter than me. She tried to walk off with the blanket a few times while I was working on the binding exclaiming "my bwanket!" but I think she's figured it out now that it's Mommy's and not hers.