Christmas Stockings

I've been busy lately with custom orders for Christmas Stockings.  Specifically, quilted elf stockings.
I love making them but I finally just got overwhelmed and had to deactivate the listings.

I'm hoping to have some time this next week to work on more aprons and also some "ready to ship" Christmas stockings.

Anyhoo, here are some pics of some of the custom ones.  They've all turned out so cute!

Meanwhile, my hubby is on vacation this week and is helping me finish the painting in my living room.  I hope to have it done this weekend so we can start decorating for Christmas.
I'll be sure to post pics when we're finished. 

Veteran's Day

To all those who have served our country and who continue to serve, thank you.

 The very poignant Korean War Memorial in Washington DC.



Tales from the Crypt

My son helped me decorate for Halloween this year.  He also answered the door every single ring.  Of course, he did it by running up to the door and slamming into it and acting like a monster.  He scared some of the little kids really good.  One kid was shaking so bad he could hardly hold onto his candy sack. 

The older kids (8 and up) loved it though. 

The signs were my son's idea.

It was scarier at night with the lights and all.  Plus we have this skeleton head that is motion activated.  It wiggles it's eyes and makes this aweful noise.  We have it on the porch where people don't really notice it until it scares the crap out of them.   MWAAHAA

Where have I been?

Well, my blogging has been spotty lately, at best, but I'm going to try to do better.  I could ramble on and on about my new wonderful High Blood Pressure (sarcasm) and the meds I've tried that didn't work and cluster headaches, plus all the other health related stuff that's been happening, etc.  But what fun would that be?  
One thing that I'm not going to do is say that I'm feeling better, because I don't want to jinx myself.  The last post I made where I rambled on about feeling better caused me to immediately feel like crap. 
So, lets not do that again.

Anyhoo, I'm going to attempt to do better.

The Studio show that I did on Saturday was great.  Thanks so much to Sharon and Tana for inviting me to participate. 
The crowd was really good that morning but thinned out quite a bit in the afternoon.  I SOOOO enjoyed spending the day with such wonderful local artists and crafters.  I got lots of tips and sold some stuff.  How great is that?
Plus, one really nice lady that I met sold me a bunch of her fabric stash (because she is downsizing) and I'm totally in love with my new giant box of fabric.  You rock Gwenna! 

I've already talked with my husband about how we can redo my closet in my sewing room to make it more efficient.  I promise to take before and after pics and post the progress when we get started on it.

But for now, I want to show some pics of my son's b-day that took place about 2 weeks ago.
He turned 13.  I swear he was just 3 last month.
His b-day was on a Wednesday which is chapel day at the school  he attends.  So, on his b-day, he had to wear his church clothes and tie.  Bless his heart.  When I asked him what he wanted for breakfast, he said butterflies.  So, this is what I made.

He also wanted a white cake (I used my Heavenly White cake recipe that I've posted here) and he wanted it to look like a Lego brick.  I'm sure I've mentioned before what a dismal cake decorator I am.  But I'm always willing to try.  I did lots of internet searching and looking at pics and this is what I came up with:

I wanted to use fondant because I wanted the cake to be nice and smooth but I'm no expert fondant roller or anything plus my hubby and son have decided that they don't like the taste of it.  So, as a substitute, I researched the Paper Towel Method.  I think it turned out pretty good and it was a lot easier than rolling fondant. 
I made 2 rectangular 9x13 cakes which I stacked so that it would be a layer cake.  Then I used Ding Dongs for the round "stumps" on top.  I covered them all with blue buttercream icing - you have to use a buttercream icing that will "crust".  This is the recipe that I used - except I left out the almond extract because I used that in my cake.

My happy b-day boy.  He got just what he wanted - a Wii and lots of games.

Happy Birthday to my young man.  He's almost 6 feet tall and his shoulders are getting wider every day.  Sigh.