This year I participated in the the same ornament swap that I done for the last five (or is it six?) years. I almost opted out this time, mostly because I don't do much crafting these days and I didn't know if I'd have the time, but now that it's over I'm glad I did it and I'm already thinking about what I can make for next year's swap.
I made these little cupcake ornaments, and I think they turned out pretty well. I had an extra one that I made for myself, but I ended up giving it to someone else. I'd like to have one to keep, but I'm pretty sick of making cupcakes, so I don't know if that will happen!
As always, I got some pretty adorable stuff in return. It's always fun to hang the new ornaments on the tree.
Since I was already doing the ornament swap, I went ahead and did another swap that included making something for four other friends. I made them each a set of four cloth napkins.
In exchange, I received a Christmas plate, two knitted washcloths, a hanging kitchen towel, and a decorated canvas that is now hanging in our living room.
For both of these swaps, I am happy to say that I used only items that I already had in my basement. My goal was to not buy anything new, and it isn't as fun as going to pick out new fabric, etc., but I did it. There is so much fabric, yarn, and other random crafty stuff in my basement that I could probably do swaps for several years and still never have to buy anything new!
Last week I was reading through some of my old blog posts, and feeling sorry that I haven't blogged nearly as often in the last two years. I am feeling a little more inspired after reading old posts, so now I'm going to try to blog at least once a week. In the past I always tried to have pretty pictures on here, but now it seems like whenever I take pictures with the intent of using them in the blog, it just doesn't ever happen. The pictures sit in my camera for weeks and never see the light of day. So, I am hopefully going to be blogging more, but be warned that most pictures will likely be those of the crappy cell phone variety. Since I can take those and immediately email them to myself, I am much more likely to actually blog about them!
The kids have this whole week off school and we don't have a single thing on the calendar. I was worried that we might start getting on each other's nerves with all this uninterrupted togetherness, but this week has been really delightful so far.
We've had lots of time to use our new Christmas presents. My grandma gave Noah and Emma these gingerbread kits and they were really excited to put them together. Noah and Allie started decorating the train, but then pretty soon they realized they could eat the candy instead, so most of the candy went in their mouths instead of on the train. I guess bowls filled with colorful little candies are just too hard to resist! Once they had finished eating the candy in the bowls, they started in on the train, and by the next morning it looked like this:
Emma's house has fared a little better, although every day it seems there is a little less candy than the day before.
That sweet little girl pretty much just sits and works on projects all day long. We gave her a potholder loom for Christmas so she has already made several of those,
and she also got some oil pastels that have been keeping her busy. She just blows me away with her artistic ability. At six years old, she is better at drawing than I have ever been.
She also just comes up with random crafty ideas and then will spend hours working on them. Today she has been busy making an elaborate New Year's Eve banner. Yesterday she asked me for some aluminum foil, then drew and cut out a bunch of stars and a moon. She wanted me to hang them on the fan in the living room, "to set the mood", she said. For what, I'm not really sure, but I do think they look kind of festive.
I am going to be feeling sad next week when she goes back to school!
