I’ve been making things in my usual ADD fashion, a little of this and a little of that. I did some more needle felting:

I’ve been inspired by my chickens lately. I also have some Blythe clothes cut out and I’m watching some eBay auctions for Barbie clothes hangers. Christmas decorations are going up a bit at a time.

I need to finish a scarf by Thursday for a gift exchange at work. I’m a little nervous about the scarf, we drew names among most of the women in my department, and I don’t know the person I have at all. I really like giving handmade gifts, but I know that not everyone appreciates them. I think the scarf is going to be very pretty, but am I being selfish in doing what I like, rather than what I know the recipient likes? Because I really have no idea what she would like. I did a little asking around, but I didn’t get any really clear ideas for a gift. Maybe I need to post a picture of the scarf to get more honest opinions. I’ll do that tomorrow :o) I can always scrap the scarf idea and get a gift card or something, I just hate giving that sort of anonymous, all-purpose gift. Am I weird?

And, finally, the last member of my immediate family has started a blog. My third brother lives in Portland where he’s a Radiologist and has a beautiful wife and three of the cutest kids you ever saw in your life. I’m not just saying that because we’re related, really it’s quite amazing that I share any of the same genetics with all these good-looking people. 

I wanted to give some thank you gifts to some very nice people, and finally managed to get it together enough to package them up. I love wrapping presents. I might have mentioned this before, but one of my favorite memories of my Grandma was spending a few days at her house before Christmas as a teenager and helping her wrap her gifts and make her dipped chocolates. She taught me how to get nice, crisp corners in the wrapping paper and how to tie a perfect bow. I’ve branched out a little from the traditional gift-wrapped box and ribbon wrapping since then, but I can still wrap a box just about perfectly :o) There’s a better picture of the package on the left on flickr, but I can’t seem to upload it here. I added a pair of pretty chopsticks to the bow.

So, Friday I went fishing. It was a work activity thing, and it was very very fun. I don’t remember the last time I was on a boat in the ocean, but it was just beautiful on Friday. It was lovely to cruise up the coast to La Jolla and then throw our lines in the water and catch some fish. I didn’t take my camera, unfortunetely. I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I didn’t want to risk its getting wet, so you will just have to believe me when I tell you that I caught FOUR fish! They were all just ocean whitefish, probably 12-16 inches each. They cleaned them for us right on the boat, and I took them home and we made fish tacos for dinner. Delicious! I would love to get a whole bunch of friends and family together to go out together and do this again sometime soon. I learned to tie my hook to the fishing line and bait the hook all by myself (with live, wiggling sardines, no less!). I was pretty impressed with myself for not getting all squeamish about it. At least none of them flew out of the tank at me.

I didn’t get to the cupcakes this weekend, sadly. I did manage to work a bit more on the chicken coop. and dogs were given baths, and cleaning was done around the house, but I was not feeling too good due to a very annoying bladder infection (TMI, I know, sorry!). Happily, when I last went to the doctor for bronchitis this winter the doctor gave me a perscription for an antibiotic and added a re-fill just in case I had a relapse. So it’s all good now. I cannot drink any more cranberry juice for a very long time or I may gag. 

I guess we can call this a lower-case grand opening. I’ve listed a few things on etsy, and have a little more to add and a couple other items underway and to be added over the next week or two. Please visit the shop here. I may try to take some new pictures of my glittery letters I’ll be selling, they didn’t come out very well. They really are much cuter in real life (and at only $6, which includes domestic shipping, quite a bargain :o):

I made lots of these last Christmas and used them as gift tags. I don’t know if anyone is still enjoying their gifts, but absolutely all of my gift recipients have their initials displayed somewhere, and they look at them every day.

One project that I finished up, but that is not for sale is this:

It’s a little craft/garden apron form my niece, so she can keep her tools and seed packets handy if she helps her mom in the garden. I’m working on one for her mom too. I think I like it, it’s hard to know if it’s really as cute as it could be without being able to put it on her. I hope she likes it.

I wrapped presents last night! Wrapping presents is one of my favorite things to do. When I was a teenager I would spend part of my Christmas vacation with my Grandma, helping her do her wrapping and making her famous dipped chocolate candies. She had 25 grandchildren, so there was a lot of wrapping and dipping to do. She taught me how to get the corners just so, so the wrapping looks nice and crisp and tidy. I think that was the Dutch in her that I inherited. Even when she was in the depths of Alzheimer’s, she would make her bed with perfect hospital corners, and help do the dishes, folding the dishcloth perfectly and hanging it neatly to dry. I miss my Grandma.

So, I made little gifts for co-workers. I made glass glitter initials for everyone, and I wish the photograph showed the colors a little better. Then I filled cellophane bags with Lindt truffles and knitted roses (I added pin-backs to the roses), and stuffed straw gift basket filler around everything. A couple of friends got properly wrapped presents. I love the pale blue paper I picked up at Target, the turquoise glitter looks so pretty with it.

I took a couple pictures of my tree, but I ended up with a frightening bug-eyed peacock, so I will have to try again tomorrow.

I’m doing my best to enjoy the next few days of holiday-ness, but it’s been rough. I took off work on Friday so I could decorate and bake and do fun Christmas things and woke up that morning with a cold that is still lingering. I have a frog-like voice and I’m going through the tissue at record speed. This morning the husband called as I was leaving for work, broken down at the side of the road. In the car that we just spent a lot of money fixing. Not my car that we spent large, vast amounts on, but the other one that we fixed up because it would be so much more fuel efficient to drive than his big old truck, which probably also need to have large amounts of money spent on it for new tires and such. So it seems that this year is just trying to knock us down and we keep getting back up only to be knocked down again. Please, 2006, could you go a little easier on us? That would be great, thanks.

I’ve started my Christmas decorating. Since I spend the vast majority of my waking hours in a cozy cubicle, I thought I’d start there, so I made a little gumdrop wreath:

I added a green polka dot bow, and made a swag for the wall with plain green ribbon and tiny glass candy ornaments. It’s harder than you would think to get those gumdrops nicely arranged. I pulled nearly all of them off once and started over. My fingers are quite painful today. It’s a nice little cheap project, though. The wreath form I got at Michaels for $1.99 and gumdrops were on sale for $1 a bag. I had the ribbon, so for less than $5 I’ve got a pretty little wreath.

I also won 1000 pom poms on eBay for $1.25. One Thousand pom poms! I’m counting them when they arrive to make sure I didn’t get ripped off. Then I’m going to make pom pom garlands.

UPDATE:
Comments are cracking me up. Everyone is concerned that the wreath will be eaten! The part I didn’t tell you was that I bought 3 bags of gum drops, they were red, green and white. There weren’t very many white ones, so I think I used nearly all of them from the three bags, but there were still plenty of red ones left, and I didn’t use a single green one. So really, I’m more worried about getting sick of gum drops before I will ever have to pluck one off my wreath. Don’t be so impressed with my willpower, I ate plenty while I made me wreath :o)