God's Christmas

My Littlest daughter is so very dear and sweet!  She has been telling us all month long that this is "God's Christmas".


And My husband and I just love her all the more for it!  It has been a focus of sorts at all the needed times!


God's Christmas!

This Christmas in a worldly sense, was going to be the bleakest.

No money, no gifts, no food or groceries...But, if it weren't for our Faith in the God of Isaac, Abraham, and Jacob.  Father of all the Universe!  Heavenly Father of our Savior Jesus Christ born in us the Hope of Glory!  We would be so pitiful by the World's standards.

Through God's People...He has sent money to buy some gifts, food for our Christmas dinner, clothes for little ones who needed them, boots for our oldest boy and for daddy,  40 rolls of toilet paper, yarn for a daughter learning to knit, Publix gift card, Olive Garden gift card, Currier and Ives plates to match my granny's plates, hot chocolate, chocolate covered pretzels, queen ann cherries, apple cider, fabric that I could not have ordered if I wanted to!!!  I just can't even begin to share all the insights and love from friends and family!  It is overwhelming!  Because of God's Christmas, we are experiencing what a celebration of the infinite love and mercies of our Heavenly Lord and Savior!  Oh Praise Him!  Even if there were no gifts, even if there were no luxuries, even if there were no money!  HE has still seen fit to bless us and we are joyous!

                                                   We are so thankful!

      It has been a wonderful month of giving and receiving and it is not over...I just wish I had more to give!

           May the Lord bless all who continue to do His will this month and every month of the years!

               So we made a sign above our fireplace to also remind us!

Pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing...

We are very blessed.  

When The Guys Go Hiking...

When the guys go hiking...all us ladies get together to sew!


We are having a blast!  We watched a few movies...Return To Cranford, Saving Sarah Cain, and Austrailia.  Next up for viewing is North and South.

I was able to get a few things sewn.  These are some shorts my Daddy has been after me to hem for him.  Well, they are done!  Yay!

This snowfox pillow for a dear friend of our family who loves snowfoxes and baby blue, and of course snow!  I will not be making these for my etsy shop.  I got the idea from a blogger named...lucykate.  I don't want to steal anything to sell.  But I made the little fox slightly different than hers so as not to offend.
I really like her alot.

I tried making a cute little change purse.  I am not sure it works that well.  My abilities with curved zippers is not all that great!

Praising the Lord Jesus for great friends in the Lord!  Praising God for fun with creativity!  Praising God the "guys" are doing well on their hike!  My husband called today to let me know my three boys and himself are well and are enjoying themselves!  

What I am up to Now

I just had to make something...


I just couldn't stop thinking about it...


I couldn't sleep at night...


So I took yesterday morning and did it!

Aren't they adorable?  It is actually one pouch, but two pictures of it.
I think it could be better.  But I say that about all my creations.  There is something else I am working on too!  I just can't share it yet.  Maybe I will share one of my gingerbread pattern weights with ya though...

He is sew cute!  I taught myself how to chain stitch last week and that is the icing on the cookie!  Next item up for sewing is the cookie jar to put them in!  Can't wait!
Tah-Tah

Update Cake...

Well, I thought I should share a few pics of the recent cake I helped to create.

We do not know if it is a boy or a girl.  So we went with a pink cake on the bottom  and a blue cake on the top.

I wanted to have Jacks Jack's eyes (incredibles) but we went with the face that was on the cake online.
The mother(Becky) of the mother to be and I made the cake.  She and I took 6 hours with a few breaks to make it!  It was a lot of fun!

Felicity's New Gown...

I am so excited!  My daughter Hannah ordered Felicity with her birthday money, and I know it sounds strange, but I think she did it for me!!!

I wanted to do a little dance...but I contained myself to a demure smile instead*wink.

Anyway, I made Felicity a new ball gown for our Masked Ball...We are having a "Surprise Mask Ball" for Felicity...shhhhh.  It's a secret.

I just wanted to share the photo of the gown...

So what do you think?

Maybe I should start making these and selling them on my etsy shop...I dunno.  I will think about it some more.

A Crazy End to a Crazy Week

 Well, this week started with my oldest daughter's birthday on a Saturday after the Youth car wash in town.

 Followed by Math class with some really great people!  And then a Publix trip and finding out our visitors from Virginia were about 4 hours early and would be at the church in about an hour!  Yikes.  I still had to go to another store and the library to boot.

 I didn't get any pics of my dear friends when they were here!  Boohoo!  I really needed some up to dates!

 We got sick, or should I say I got sick...and had to call off some plans with them.  Our Virginia Family.

 I was able to recover enough to go to the movies for free with our six children.  We watched Despicable Me.  It was great!  then we joined our friends at Our sweet pastor's home for some dessert and fellowship.
The next day we spent setting up for our church fall festival.  That evening right at the end...my sweet oldest daughter was hit in the head by a horseshoe!  Oh what a scary thing!  My husband and I rushed her to the ER and was seen and gone in three hours!  Praise the Lord!  Her cut was to the skull!  I didn't take a picture of that.  Just the after...

It was slightly bigger than a quarter when we got to the ER.  She got 4 stitches on the inside, and 6 on the outside.  We are just praising God that it wasn't deeper and worse or in a different portion of her head.

She had been near the game where they were playing horseshoes but not in the game herself.  Thank the Lord it is healing up wonderfully!

Getting Done...

Well I have been getting things done...

 This is a cake, stump cake in fact, that I made for a cake auction we had at our church for Operation Christmas Child.  It looks a little dull in the picture above...but the picture below is so cute!

 A sweet lady from church gave me some flowers to put on it for fall.  I love how it turned out!

 Here is the back side of the stump.  I wanted to do something crazy like put gummy worms in it and hide little mice and maybe some rubber roaches.  But, I was trying to considerate.  A cute little old lady might buy it, so I didn't do it.  The cake sold at the auction for $30.00.  It was a lot of fun watching all the other cakes sell!  There are two wonderful cooks at out church,  Miss Nancy, and Ms. Rose!  And there were ladies fighting(in a good and fun way) for their cakes!  SO funny!

 Here is a peasant blouse that I made that same week.  It looks so much better on my little girl than it does on the hanger.  I made four of these shirts so far and two skirts to match.  Oh it was great!

This is the auctioneer and the pastor.  We kinda reeled our youth leader into being the auctioneer because he already talks fast.  When he preaches you can't even take notes!  Just pay attention and listen!  His dad is the pastor.  We love them both very much!  It was Pastor Appreciation Day at our Sweet Church!  A very fun day indeed!

New Etsy Item...

New Item in My Etsy shop!

I am seeing apples in someone's future!

They are so, sew, cute!  I think it will be hard to let them go!

 these are calle pattern weights.  You place them on your pattern that you have cut out and placed on your fabric with out pinning!

 No more tears, rips, and buckles in your fabric!

I mostly made them just to see if my idea would work.  You know the whole inspiration thing in my brain!?  I can't wait to make more!

October!

This month is a great month!  I praise God who made it.  I was born in this month and so was my oldest daughter! 
I love to sew during this month!  I feel very(overly) creative and inspired by so many things around me!

My oldest daughter, was baptized last night by my husband!  What a lovely celebration and affirmation it was!

Two others were baptized last night!  It wasn't about numbers added to our church, it wasn't about, look at me I'm getting dunked, it wasn't about anything but what the Lord has done!  Oh Praise Him!

Sorry they are so blurry!  A very kind lady from our church took the photos with my camera so I could be in baptistry waiting with a towel and a hug for my sweet rooster!

God is so good to us!  He contiually provides just what we need, He continually directs us to good, He continually leads us gently on.

This is my youngest...she has the sweetest heart!  Making a sandwich with love!

And speaking of love...
My sweet husband had to replace my faucet that was springing out waves of water onto my counter.  He replaced it with this!  Beautiful.  I am so glad.  He joked with me that I just picked it out to match my cast iron pots and pans!  Hmmm.  Maybe I did!

Fixen' in the Kitchen Update

Here is the Gator...Rice Krispy homemade fondant Gator.

This gator will be placed on a swamp cake(chocolate cake with chocolate icing).

I used yellow and black marbles for the eyes.  I will tell the moms and kids at the party not to eat them!  I promise!

Top view.  I decided not to make the legs.  He is a half submerged gator!  This was great fun!

Working in the Kitchen

I have been in the kitchen working on a gator made out of rice krispy treats!

Really, I have!
I will be putting homemade marshmallow fondant on it in the morning!

Here is some pics of the process...

Very Messy.

I had to rub it with shortening.

Then placed it in a ziploc lined bowl.

I then pushed out all the air that I could out of the bag and sealed and put it in the refridgerator.

Tomorrow we shall see how it turns out! 

It is so exciting to save  four dollars!  Yep.  It was going to cost $6 dollars to buy premade fondant and I just couldn't bring myself to do it!

I was just one youtube away from $2 dollar fondant!

Maybe Monday I can post my newest creation...
Themed Pattern Weights!

Sewing Season!

Thanksgiving Covered Dish Carrier...

I am so glad to finally have it finished!

Now on to my next few projects.  Last night I started making homemade pattern weights!  Oh they are so (sew) cute!  Look good enough  to eat!

Here are some bolts of fabric that I worked on getting organized yesterday.  I found somewhere there are these neat plastic holders to hold up to 6 yards or more of fabric. 
Well, that got me thinking, I can't actually buy some right now, but there was a perfectly good, large piece of cardboard that I cut up into 6 large cards.  About 10" by 15".  Worked pretty good.  But not as pretty as the actual ones...http://www.thefabricorganizer.com/  Check them out if you have lots of fabric and are looking for a good alternative to stashing them beautifully!

Now on to more of my Sewing Season!

new ideas brimming over

I am just so excited about the new ideas that I am being inspired by...

I am going to try to make a doll dress form! Yay..

And I already made a messenger bag for my oldest girl...I will post it in a minute...

I am also excited about my etsy shop again! So I will be updating it soon too.

I have been in the process of making a covered dish carrier for Thanksgiving...It says: "Thank you God for everything." On it. And it also says thankyou for birds that sing, for the food we eat, etc.

I will be trying to make my twin daughters each a Lil' Bo Peep skirt. Can't wait...I will be posting pictures shortly...

What I'm Up To...

I am going to try to make this American Girl Tree house for Kit out of...

This... a very sweet lady from our church brought this dollhouse to us this past week. I am so excited. It is the very size I needed to do this! Yay!

I also found a post or blog or something or other that shows you how to make a tree trunk for the underside! This is going to be so much fun when I am done! I think I want an AG doll for my birthday...oh well.