My warm, little babies....

Winter storm watch for tomorrow....better than a winter storm warning.....but worse than a winter weather advisory. 

But my two little kitties possess that warmth and comfort that we all yearn for and when the weather outside is frightful, well, I just cuddle with my babies.

It's almost down...sigh....

Still working on taking the tree down. It's kind of like ending a book, or a chapter in my life. I do it reluctantly. Mostly 'cause it's a pain in the butt, but most mostly because it's sooooo beautiful and I like beautiful things.I have some more ornaments I'd like to share. For those of you that like to sew, here are some ideas for you. For next year, of course.

This one is my pasta angel. My friend Carol showed me how to make these many years ago. You can see the Ziti with lines body (my body now has lines, too) , the bowtie pasta wings, the elbow macaroni that make up the angels elbows, etc. The head is a wooden ball and her hair is rice. She is holding a thumbtack for a candle. Then it's all spray painted gold and a ribbon tied to the back for hanging. Cute, I think. (OK, so the first one I show you is not a sewing project...)

This next one was made by my friend Jackie. The body under the dress is weighted down with something  inside: I don't know, rice or sand or beans, don't really know.  It's hard to see, but she has a little halo made from gold wires. She's about 6 or 7 inches tall. She sits behind the glass in my hutch cabinet next to the wine goblets, peering out at the goings on in my kitchen. I have many things that Jackie has made for me. 

This angel is very cute, I think !

I made this one. My sitting angel. She sits on top of the Hutch cabinet, feet dangling. Her dress is like a big bean bag and I put rice inside to give her some body and weight. For me, it takes cookies, cake and icecream to give me some body and weight. Which, by the way, I WILL be taking off this new year. I WILL, I WILL, I WILL.....

Oh well, the next one....

                      

                

This is an angel my friend Ann gave me one Christmas. I hang her on a closet door knob in my family room, where the tree is. She is about 6 inches tall and hand made by someone...

I have many, many things in my house from Ann, really nice things.

This is a heart ornament that I made for some of the folks I work with, oh, about 10 years ago. Maybe more than that. I made about 4 or 5 for my own tree.

I cut out a heart from some  vintage looking fabric a bit bigger than the finished piece I wanted to make. I drew a smaller heart in the center and stitched around it with my sewing machine. Then I cut the inner most heart away, keeping the stitching. I turned the piece inside out, and then stitched the outside perimeter with a zig zag stitch while at the same time stuffing some batting inside as I was stitching along. That was interesting to do :-p    I hand stitched a bell in the center and hot glued some greenery and a gold string to hang it by to the top.

Now, this one is difficult to see and to understand what it is. It's hard to photograph with a flash because, it's a mirror I cut into a square. I collected shells from the seashore and used them in this ornament. (In the summer, I'm not stupid.)

I bound the edges of the mirror and each shell with copper foil and soldered the entire business together. Sort of like doing stained glass without the stained glass. I soldered a jump ring to the top and tied a pretty maroon ribbon to the top for hanging. The tiny little balls you see in the middle are b b's soldered on.       

And finally, speaking of balls, these are my little nuts. My son made these with me when he was little. As you can see, they are walnuts, with acorn or hazelnut, I can't recall, heads. They are 

glued to little wooden stars I bought at a  craft store. I bought fuzzy little balls for their tiny arms and feet and even tinier fuzzy balls for their eyes and noses. Then, taking scraps of felt, he made their little hats. I don't know how he did it, especially the green jester hat that has 3 points on it! Scraps of leather made their caroling books, and off they went, caroling. Oh yeah, they are supposed to be mice.

I can't remember if they have pipe cleaner tails or not. I think they do, but they are now wrapped in tissue paper and in a box.

OK, NOW I can go and work on putting away the rest of the decorations....or maybe not. I don't mind having boxes and bins all over the house anyway.;-(

At least not for one more day.

Well, it's that time of year again. Time to take down the Christmas tree. It's always a sad, wistful time for me. It's so beautiful come dusk  when the lights get turned on. Need no other lights in the room. It's glow is so soothing and calming. It's been a wonderful tree. We got a Fraser fir this year and it has barely lost a needle in three plus weeks. We've never had such a healthy tree.

I actually dread putting it up every year. The task of putting the lights on falls to me. I dislike putting the lights on, but I do it, mumbling.

There are so many ornaments that have a story. Old ones, handmade ones and crazy ones.

This is an ornament from my childhood. I have about seven or eight old ones. Every once in a while, I

unwrap the ornaments and find one that is in pieces. I guess they get fragile as they get older, just like us. I love the old ornaments.

This one on the right my son made when he was very little. It's Santa! Well, let me explain. His suit has faded to pink and his skin, well, it's developed a tan. One arm is held out in front of him and he's holding a jingle bell. The other arm is flung around his back, holding a pack and there is a blue teddy bear hanging out of the pack. His feet are rather flat. It is one of my sweetest ornaments.

The two on the left are special, too. The snowflake is one of the many my mother made for me. I have about eight of those. And there are many others that were hand made by her for our tree. She is a very good cook/baker and very good at knitting, crocheting and crafts.  A very smart woman.

Now the french fry, ah yes, the french fry. My husband wants to heave it or have it experience an unfortunate accident, but it's one of my favorite. 

Several years ago three of my cousins from Slovakia came for a short visit. We all went out to DiMillos restaurant in Portland, Maine, and I ordered something that had french fries. One of my french fries was the longest fry ever created on this earth. I couldn't eat it, I knew it was making history, so I wrapped it up in a napkin and took it home.  Weeks later I found it on a shelf and it was hard as a rock. (and in this process, it shrank considerably.) Long story, short, I made a french fry Santa ornament and it's hung on our tree every since.

So that's it. Down it all comes until next year.  :-(

Happy New Year ! Welcome to January 1, 2009 on this beautiful, sunny, cold day in New England.

Relaxing and watching snippets of American Idol 2008.

(sigh) wish I could sing....