A busy couple of days...the Christmas Teas have begun at The Center and yesterday was an enjoyable "Mary Engelbreit" luncheon.  We had a delicious lunch of "Oven-Fried Lemon Chicken", "Oven-Roasted Sweet Potatoes", salad and green beans, and then Pauline gave us a wonderfully informative glimpse of Mary's career and Lois had put together a wonderful slide show.  Then, it was off to the Log Cabin for some crafts!

This morning, I'm working on printing and adding more pages to my over-stuffed binders of pages and pages of this blog as I must delete some so that I can add more pictures to, what they tell me, is my over-stuffed photo storage.  Tsk-tsk...
But, I insist on keeping all these pages as a journal for my children...for some day... when they have time to read all this busyness of my life.  It is like a journal to me; if I don't write in my handwritten journal every day...there is always me documenting here, making each day important and meaningful.

Our Christmas crafts

Back again to the Christmas Retreat, one of the things we made were Advent Calendars.  Everyone's idea was different and they all looked so pretty on the tables.

Colorful felt!

Lori's little mouse already had his supper on one of her corners!

This is mine and, as you can see below, I decided to blanket stitch around the pockets.

Still sewing!

Two of the other crafts we did were this little felt tea bag holder.  I have to put a button on the front yet.  And this little "almond" birdie perched on a twig.

Here is the back of the tea bag holder (nice for a small gift) and that birdie again with his little felt hat.

This lovely little spool ornament was a gift from Angel.  She made it and gave it to me that night.  I just love it!

The Christmas Retreat

The first weekend in December is always the Christmas Retreat at The Center and we always begin by making ornaments to trim the tree in the fireside room.

I found this idea online and thought they were so pretty.  They're fast and easy and suddenly the tree was trimmed.  After supper, we had an evening of fun and crafts which I will show you later.

Morning came with a yummy breakfast and it was off to the woods to gather sticks, dried weeds and pine cones to make winter swags and bouquets.

The gathering.

Stopping for a picture, here is Julie, Diane (Jeanine's mom) and Julie's friend,  Jeanine.

Angel and Julie and their treasures.

Back to the Log Cabin to sort and paint and glitter...

and assemble our holiday masterpieces.

Next, more about our Christmas crafts...

Catching up...

In yesterday's class, I showed the girls how to make some sweet little ornaments.  I think they're pretty to hang on your own tree or to use as a gift tag or to hang on a gift bottle of wine!

Then in quilting class in the afternoon, I am still working on my Christmas wall hanging.  The top is finished so now I have to add the borders, batting, backing and quilt it!

I am on my way finishing these nice little table runners for gifts though.  These were some easy directions that I found a couple of years ago in a quilt shop in Door County.  So glad I did!

Back again to last week...

In my class last Wednesday, we made some special cards that you could give to special people.

First we made a kind of serendipity paper by gluing all little scraps of paper (each one concentrating on their favorite colors of the holiday) onto a piece of cardstock.

Next we turned the finished cardstock upside down and cut it into 1" strips, and then cut the strips into 1" squares.

After picking and choosing, we attached nine little squares onto a 5x7 folded card and added a stamped message.  Voila!  My thanks for this lovely idea to Jacqueline Sullivan.

Back!

Catch-up time!  Back to my birthday and Thanksgiving, we had three desserts!  Angel baked a fabulous banana creme pie and a chocolate pie and Julie baked pumpkin squares which was my birthday cake!  I don't know what the four candles represent?  ...

... and time to make a wish and blow them out!

Thanks to Anne's experience and Angel's expertise, I am back in business.  Pictures again!

Okay!  Are they there now?

Sunday

Back from the Christmas Retreat and I'm ready to put up the tree!  Still sinus-ey so, with help, I will drag it up the stairs today and see what happens.  Maybe the elves will put it up and then I can decorate it!  We made some fun things at the retreat.  A felt advent calendar that I am still finishing with a blanket stitch around all the little pockets.  A felt tea bag holder.  A little bird ornament made with an almond.  And, of course, we roamed the woods for pine, twigs and sticks, dried weeds and pine cones to make swags.  Hope to show you soon!