heylucy

Wrapping Party

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.

Christmas Cheer

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)

Back to Our Regular Programming Schedule

I think I'm back to regular posting after this week. November was one of those very stressful months that come along every now and then in life. My car is back, and I am quite a bit poorer. Thanksgiving weekend was very long and not very fun, but it's done, and while I could rant for paragraphs about negativity and tiresomeness, I think I will just let it go and move on.

Christmas is coming, and I'm already behind, but I am re-thinking my decorations a bit, being inspired by the colors of these old ornaments I picked up at a garage sale this summer for 50 cents:

I have bright blue peacocks and chartruese green glitter-encrusted bird's nests to start with. I think I may add some turquoise and pink to the mix somehow. It sounds deliciously garish, doesn't it? I hope to have my tree by the weekend.

I've got a sweater for myself well underway, in a really lovely wool/alpaca blend. It's not quite as fuzzy as the original sweater, but it's very soft and I think very warm. I like the crocus stitch, and the fact that it's knitted in the round. I also knit a few more roses in different yarns, they're so fun. I've been sewing roses on my pillow. Maybe I'll finish that up tonight.

Plush Rush was this weekend, there are some pictures here. You can see my little guys hanging out with some robots, a rain cloud and big tooth, among other things. The shop isn't up yet, but soon I hope!