Ribbon Holder

I am about to distract you with my new ribbon holder that my husband Bryan made me. I am really trying to finish all of my ornaments for my Christmas Calendar by the Wednesday deadline! So I will post all of the pretty ornaments then. But, in the meantime, we are having to really make room for baby #2 and that includes having no mare craft room :( I know its for a good cause haha, but its still sad. So I had to split my dining room with my craft "space". I told Bryan I needed a rope or a dowel to hang my ribbons from and look what he came up with... isn't he so clever! He is VERY handy!! Look at that little man under the craft table checking out Dad's work...

He just drilled holes into the back of my craft table and screwed in hooks so I can take the bar off to change out the ribbon. (Please excuse the ugly wires)

And voila, how space-savvy is that?? Thanks honey!

Be on the lookout for 3 exciting posts soon to come, a FINISHED Christmas Countdown Calendar, a remake of my grandmother's vintage holiday tablecloth and our new Cloffice! So exciting....

Christmas Calendar: Week Three

 I finished my week 2 assignment and here is what I have so far...

I used real wool felt for the tree because it is so pretty and I only had to buy 2/3 yd. I also machine stitched the tree and the squares on because I don't have the patience to hand sew everything!

This week (week 3):

-Sew on all 24 buttons

-make 8 more ornaments

I like the look of the 4 presents hanging down from the tree and I know I need to make the star so now I have 5 ideas, 3 more to go...

Carrabba's Chicken Bryan

Gotta love a knock off! I was watch Good Morning America the other day and this guy was on talking about his new book. It was full of restaurant recipe secrets and he made one of my favorites, Carrabba's Chicken Bryan. I just caught a glimpse so I have no idea about the measurements for this recipe but I decided to "wing it" and it turned out really good! My hubby, Bryan, doesn't even like goat cheese and he loved it!

I made it a little fancy Italian dinner night and it was really easy and way less expensive!

Ingredients:

chicken breast

goat cheese

basil 

sun-dried tomatoes

lemons (for juicing)

white wine

cream

butter

garlic

pasta (optional)

Directions:

1. Grill chicken breasts

2. Melt 3/4 stick of butter and sautee some garlic

3. Add a little white wine, a bunch of lemon juice and some cream and stir for a few minutes to thicken. At the very end add chopped basil to sauce.

4. Slice sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese and place on top of chicken then cover with sauce

5. I put my chicken over Penne Pasta and served crusty french bread and olive oil herb dipping sauce, yum!

Christmas Calendar Week 2 Assignment

Ok, if you are following Jill's instructions here is this weeks assignment:

-cut the tree out and sew it on the back of the calendar

-make 8 ornaments

I have a few ideas for ornaments, a mitten, a peppermint candy, maybe a Christmas sweater? For some reason I really want to sew the buttons on to the tree, weird!

Christmas Advent Calendar: Week One

Ok I followed Jill's directions for the 1st week and this is what I have come up with...

I really love it! I changed my colors to be more traditional and I used yellow embroidery thread for a pop. I did use Jill's measurements just to go easy on myself. I cant wait for next week's "challenge".

Christmas Advent Calendar

This is so exciting!! I was just thinking about all of the festive Christmas projects I want to do and then Jill from "Homemade by Jill" posted this just yesterday. How perfect and what a cute idea! Finn is a little young to be excited about each day's "present" but I am not too old to be excited about it even when I am the one who is making it hehe :) Jill is recreating a Christmas Tree Advent Calendar from Inchmark. Here is Inchmark's final Advent Calendar from last year:

How cute is that?? So, this is what Jill is doing; she is going to post instructions with some templates for ornaments each week until December. Here is this weeks challenge (copied from Jill):

• Cut your main backing piece (I am cutting mine to 20x30 inches)
• Cut your felt pockets and embroider them with numbers 1-24 (my pockets are cut 2 1/2 inches square).  I am using a tight chain stitch to embroider my numbers.
• Sew the pockets to the backing piece

So I better get busy, good thing I bought a bunch of felt at Hobby Lobby yesterday (which is 40% off this week). I am thinking of making my back in fabric instead of felt, but maybe not. (p.s. I'm going to use a back stitch instead of the chain stitch) I'm excited!!!

Felt Food Factory....

There are TONS of felt food ideas all over the web but until last week, I had never made any. Now I have to admit, I have a felt food problem. Seriously it is addicting, I am going back to hobby lobby tomorrow to get more colors! We are making Finn a play kitchen out of a nightstand for Christmas so we have to have some play food, right? I have so many ideas but last weekend I tried just a few of them. Be ready for more pics from the Felt Food Factory coming soon...

Burger (bun soon to come)

Grocery Sack

Peel-able Banana 

Happy Halloween

 from Charlie Brown and Snoopy