Round Napkins for Christmas

Over at Nancy's Notions I watched a short video on how to make round napkins and fold them to resemble trees.

They were quick and easy but I folded them over one more time as I liked my trees more slender.

So as you can see I have packed away the Thanksgiving decorations and have started on Christmas. "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas", (even if the A/C is still running)!

Thanksgiving decor just in time

I saw these done in "Better Homes and Gardens" and thought they were so pretty.

So I gathered up some acorn caps and got out my clear spray and spotted this metallic next to it and thought "I wonder..."

So I sprayed some of each and when they were dry gathered up some supplies.

I made a 3" circle pattern and got out some plastic pellets that I use to weight down stuffed things so they sit upright.

I just love that I got to use up small scraps of velvet I had saved. I hand stitched around the edges and after drawing it up and filling and stuffing I just sewed it closed.

Then tucked the caps on top. As you can see I decided I really liked the silver color better with the dark color velvet. It is especially glamorous on the burgundy that has a silver sheen to it.

I hope all of you have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Who knew?

Who knew I would be helping with a last minute request from a 6 year old who just had to have a Monarch caterpillar cake?

At first it was just going to be a caterpillar.

But then she got quite specific so this is what we whipped up.

Can you believe all I had to buy was the cake mix? Licorice, M&Ms, cake decorating tips, large box and even a liner paper for the grass were all just sitting around here. I guess that is why they come to me. I always have plenty of 'stuff'. I just hope it passes the 6 year old's expectations.

Now back to Christmas stuff...

Update

Just a note of update on the tea towels I did here.

I bought a pen at JoAnn's in the quilting section designed for holding up to laundering as it is for signing quilts. I tried it out on another towel and it worked great and held up beautifully when I washed it.

I packed away the stash of blank tea towels with the pen and packed up all the Halloween decorations without taking more photos so you will have to trust me on this one.

Beads and Bells Christmas Necklaces

All that is needed for this project is a strand of beads leftover from Mardi Gras, some jingle bells in various sizes, large jump rings and some small pliers like those used by most jewelry makers.

Attach the bells as desired on the chains using the jump rings. This took a little longer for me as I did not have any jump rings large enough so I took the time to make some with a jump ring tool and some wire I had on hand.

Even with that it was a fast and inexpensive project duplicating necklaces we saw for sale at JoAnn's for $5.00 each. We just couldn't resist since I had the supplies at home already other that the bells which we did buy at JoAnn's.

We just can't give away everything we make.

Webbed Christmas Ornaments

To finish the ornaments that we sprayed with gold webbing we used different things.

I stuffed half of mine with red curling ribbon.

For the rest I printed sheet music from "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" onto some parchment paper and then shredded it.

Kristy filled hers with strips of red tissue paper.

But the sheet music strips she preferred to put into clear ornaments.

No matter what they came out great and she is looking forward to giving them away this Christmas.

Check back to learn more about that necklace she is wearing.

More Webbing

Now that Halloween is officially over I need to back track a bit and show you some of the Christmas things we also worked on.

We were having so much fun with that black webbing that I got out the gold can and some clear glass ornaments so we could see how that looked.

Pretty cool. Now to decide just what we want to do next. Can you believe we are finally moving on from Halloween to Christmas?