Are YOU Enjoying the Season?

I love gathering with girlfriends to share decorating and crafting ideas.  I think I am the biggest crafter - I just want to make everything I see - from tatting to sewing to jewelry to home decor!  It's fun to be able to share with friends, yet appreciate all of our different tastes.  I am always the drip taking pictures - after asking permission of course - but my friends tolerate me :) 

It's a busy time of year, but it's so important to enjoy time with friends and family.  I really have to tell myself to quit worrying about what I "should" be doing, and enjoy the moments I can share with those people that are important in my life.

This week we shared a girl's evening of Christmas snacks and decorating talk  (I do more talking about it than actually decorating!)  and I thought I'd share a few pictures.  I love this look, but I know my home will never be this way.  I have too many projects going to get any specific "look", no matter how much I love it.

And that's just the front step so far . . .

I'm so doing this for our family Christmas gathering. 

 It's in the freezer now and I can't wait to see how it turns out!

I could sit here and read a good book or tat for hours.





Growing up visiting relatives on farms, I should be able

to get my hands on some chick feeders . . .

I love the neutrals in this living room.

And the antiques.

Happy Holidays!

I hope you are taking the time to slow down and cherish

every minute with family and friends.  I am!

Bead Intimidation

I was procrastinating trying to add beads - why, I don't know.  I guess I was just a little intimidated by adding another step.  Remembering how to join, where to join, which join to use, and how many picots confuses me enough sometimes :)

This is why it's so nice to have tatting friends to tat with in person, and try new techniques. Michelle and her daughter and I met yesterday to tat, and we worked on the Mary Konior "Posy" as a wreath.  I asked Michelle for some help on adding beads, and she brought some beads and her bead spinner and got me started.  (That bead spinner is a worthwhile little tool if you use beads - I think I need to get one!) Once I got the hang of where to place the beads for this particular project, it was a piece of cake. I finally finished this cute little wreath tonite:

I'm so over being intimidated by beads! 

Technology Rant

So, I have a blog.  I try to keep up with it and remember that I'm doing it mostly for me.  You know, to look back and see all the things I've done when I don't feel like I'm accomplishing anything.  And best of all, to make new friends with similar interests.  And I have many interests, so I can't concentrate on blogging about just one thing.  I'm all over the place :)

As far as the blogging goes, I've tried to put blogs that interest me in my sidebars since this is the way I've found many from other blogs.  Only then I began using Google Reader when I had so many blogs to follow that it was hard to keep up.  So now, I don't keep adding blogs to my sidebar, only to my Reader.  PLUS, there's that following thing.  So, now I publicly follow some, but have many more in my Reader.  How do you keep track of all that stuff?  Which features do you use and keep up with? 

Then there are the forums. InTatters and Tatting Forums. and Ravelry. I love to read them, but I can't keep up with interacting on them.  Oh, and Etsy.  I looove looking on Etsy.

I love Facebook and keeping up with friends and family, and seeing everyone's photos.  And NOW, we have Pinterest.com.  Do you do that too?  There are a million and one things to love on there - from recipes to repurposing ideas.  So, I started that too - it's a handy way to keep track of ideas and links.  There aren't enough hours in a day to soak up all the information and ideas that interest me.  Not to mention time to pursue any of those interesting ideas!

Oh, and I have a smartphone now too.  I believe it's smarter than me, but I'm learning.  Wow!  Calendar sync, apps, GPS, camera & photo tools - you name it.  And my NOOK for digital books and magazines.  I am loving all this technology, and I'm hoping that we may FINALLY be getting to the "paperless" age we've been talking about for 20 years :)

I think my goal for the new year is going to have to be to learn how to keep it all under control.  I still need time to read, sew, tat, garden, shop, bake, decorate and craft.  Laundry, housecleaning, family, friends, dogs . . .  

I never thought I'd be plugging in my laptop AND my phone AND my book.  (Especially funny for me - lover of antiques that I am.)

Follow me on Pinterest if you like - I'm putting that little button on my sidebar too.


That is all :)

On with Christmas Preparations!

Now that Thanksgiving has past, deer hunting is done, and our boutique is over, I am ready to get on with Christmas!  Music, baking, shopping, etc.  I never enjoy any of the Christmas stuff until AFTER Thanksgiving.  The commercial-ness of it is irritating.

Mom and I held our "Brunch Boutique" this past Saturday. We decided early in the summer to try it this year, since Mom has many beautiful quilts, bags, table runners, etc. that she has made.  I make a lot of things for gifts for coworkers, and it snowballs from there.  I have many crafting interests, and the internet sucks me in with instructions to make anything and everything I could want!  In any case, the past few months have been spent working on various items for the boutique. 

We planned our boutique for the Saturday after Thanksgiving because Mom always comes to stay for the week.  Hubby goes with my Dad, brother, uncles, nephews, etc. for the week of Thanksgiving to deer hunt.  Most people think it's odd to spend Thanksgiving this way, but it's a family tradition.  We girls have fun shopping, eating out and crafting all week, while the guys are in the woods hunting.  We make a traditional turkey dinner, and the guys deep fry turkeys and make all the fixings in the woods.  I couldn't be more thankful for this tradition!

Ironically, our boutique ended up to be on "Support Small Business Saturday".  It was fun - here are a few pictures:

Wine bottle Tiki Torches, Cup & Saucer Garden Art

Table Runners, Centerpieces, Potholders, Casserole Carriers

Quilts, Bags, Greeting Cards and Tatted Bookmarks

 And brunch upstairs - it was fun!  The house was buzzing with visiting, coffee, mimosas, and egg bake upstairs, and shopping and chatting downstairs.  I never did get pictures of everything.

We were TIRED - and went out to eat afterward to relax.  A successful, fun try at having a boutique.  Should we do it again?  Pondering that while I think about what to do next right now.  Bake? Read? Sew? Tat?  So many choices, so little time. 

Another Oovoo tattogether tonite should give me some inspiration!  

Virtual Tatting

We had some fun this morning with our Twin Cities Tatters gathering.  Michelle had a great idea to invite some blogging/tatting friends to our gathering by Skype.  Teresa suggested using Oovoo, a free video chat software available.  (My contribution to this conversation was idle - I've only Skyped with my daughter in my own living room for practice.)  In any case, Michelle got us all organized, and we were able to meet for a couple of hours this morning for our first virtual tatting get-together.  We lost eachother a few times, heard voices without video, and lost battery power once.  BUT, we did it.  An entry for the Guinness Book of Records maybe? 

Michelle and I met at our usual Caribou Coffee meeting spot, and got logged in with Diane, Dena and Teresa.   We shared a lesson on the SSSR, and started on the split chain.  Teaching/learning is a challenge using video chat - it was fun though, and quite impressive for our first try at this.  Most definitely something we want to do again. 

We did have a few people at Caribou wondering what we were doing.  I suppose it was an odd sight - Michelle and I sitting facing a laptop and chattering away, but not looking at eachother.  At one point Teresa told us someone was behind us looking at her - the gal just waved and left, obviously curious as to what the heck was going on.  Ha!  Isn't the internet amazing?