Meet Mini Murph

Oh my gosh. Do you ever make something for someone and then, not want to give it away? I suppose it makes the giving even more an act of love right? Man, it's a good thing I love my youngest nephew. Because, I really want to keep the softie that I just made for him.

Meet Mini Murph. Isn't he adorable? He's the very first 3-D softie that I have made with four legs and two ears and everything. I altered the pattern generously offered by Allsorts found here and sewed him inside out, then turned him out, as opposed to binding him like she does her dog.

His name is Mini Murph because my sister's dog's name is Murphy.

He's a black labradoodle and he wears a blue collar. My littlest nephew is crazy for dogs. (You should have seen the adorable dog birthday they had for him, complete with eating desert from dog bowls! Genius runs in the family.) So this little fella is destined to be loved.

And since I love my littlest nephew because he's adorable and tough and sweet and all, I will give away Mini Murph with a happy heart.

But, I am betting he's going to have a little of brothers and sisters soon enough...

A Gift to Give

I am pretty excited about this Christmas present. I am not making nearly as many handmade gifts this year as I did last year. (Though, I am buying many handmade gifts from other fabulously talented people.) But, the guys in the family are always hard to buy for aren't they? Especially little ones. And my nephew Jack has always been tricky to buy for because he's had a human growth hormone deficiency that took a long time to be diagnosed. (I'm not sure if I have mentioned before, but my sister is a killer mom. Seriously, no one fights harder for her kids. She's awesome.)

Anyway, he's doing really well right now. He gets shots almost every day, and he's growing like a weed. He gets therapy and he's making incredible leaps and bounds developmentally. We're all so proud of him! So, when I asked my sister if this idea that I found at Ruffles and stuff would work for any of the boys, and she told me it would be perfect for Jack, I was totally stoked. (Yeah, I'm a nerd like that.)

Basically, it's a cross between a flannel board and a Mr. Potato Head. All of the face pieces can be stored in a pocket on the back. I made the front of mine with fleece and the back with some black woven cotton. She has a great tutorial on her site if you want to make one.

I used some of her templates and some of my own. And I also made some of them reversible to add to the choices but not the number of pieces. Smart, no? I hope he really enjoys it. I know my kids were dying to play with it. I already promised to make them one after the holidays.

Variations on a Theme

I am not sure how many of you know this, but the fabrics I use to make my shoes are re-purposed, or thrifted. So, that means that it's difficult for me to exactly duplicate a design.

About a month ago, I received three orders for the same shoe design. They were after this design:

Well, I only had enough of that fabric for one other pair. I searched my stash and discussed alternative options with my customers. So, here is this one design four different ways. They each have their own personality, don't they?

Taking Better Tree Pics

Total disclaimer here, I am not a photographer. I do not have a fancy DSLR camera, even though I desperately want one. I have only a point and shoot Elph, basic little digital camera. So, I am not about to tell you how to take fabulously professional photos of your gorgeous tree. I am going to tell you how I figured out how to take marginally better pictures of my tree, so maybe you can have the guts to fiddle around with your camera and get a good pic or two of yours too.

Okay, it started here on PInterest, of course. She has a DSLR. So I knew I was going to have to do things differently. I can't fiddle with my shutter speed. I did crank my ISO way up as high as it could go. (I have no idea what ISO stands for.) And then I started fiddling with other settings, and the one that made a difference was my exposure setting. I didn't even know I could do that. I set mine to +1. Any higher than that, and it was just too much.

There you have it, the before and after. And for good measure, here's a little behind the scenes of the tree decorating.

These two are striking their, "I am so innocent and not at all touching things I shouldn't" poses. Especially the littlest one. She's fast.

This guy was pretty excited to be able to hang the breakable ornaments. He also complained a good deal of the time that the tree was in no way superior to our usual fake tree. But, in his defense, the tree was very pokey. And he loves tradition.

Speaking of tradition, every year while decorating the tree, we watch White Christmas. Oh, how we love that movie.

So there you have it, our first real Christmas tree, and a tip or two for taking good pics of your own tree.

Handprint Santas

Over Thanksgiving, I traced my three year old's hand and turned it into a turkey. He was totally taken with it, and asked me to do it, again and again. Today, he asked me to trace his hand, urging me once more to turn it into a turkey.

Since we're moving on to Christmas, I wondered to myself what Christmas symbol I could turn his little hand into  this time. It was obvious...

That was the first one we made. He of course asked for me to do it again. So this one was a little different. Can you tell what is different?

More Christmas Decorations

Isn't that a creative title? You'll have to excuse me. I am kind of a walking zombie. With a couple of sick kidlettes, and so much to do, sleep is just not happening for me.

Anyway, I am a little farther along on my decorating. This is something new this year, inspired by Emily Henderson's idea here. My husband loves old maps, so we have a couple of those antique map calendars hanging around.

And our walls in the dining room happen to be a bare mess right now because I just stripped off the wall paper and am waiting on new paint. So, I was easily able to do a large something here.

My oldest hung the ornaments on the nails, and I happened to really love that little touch. The letters came from Martha Stewart. A free download found here.

I bought these ornaments, (two packs of Martha Stewart shatterproof ornaments) at an antique place for a buck a pack. I love the colors and the sparkle.

So there we are. A little farther along. And still so much more to come!

The First Few Decorations

We won't be getting our tree till tomorrow night (our first ever real tree), but I thought it was still high time to get some Christmas decorations up and the Thanksgiving stuff down. So here is what we have so far...

Over the couch, I printed out these fabulous free printables from At Second Street. She also offers the same type banner in Merry Christmas. And on the other end of my screen...

is this free printable from Jones Design Company.  Can I just say how awesome it is to live during the time of blogging, with all of these highly talented and generous people sharing their creativity?

The whole thing looks like this:

Also, in the front window, I hung the paper stars that I made last year.

You can find the tutorial here at via Martha Stewart.

Last year they made me so happy. They framed our tree, and they just feel so vintage.

I have something new in the works inspired by something I found on Pinterest. Hopefully, I can share it in the next day or two. In the meantime, too, I am still making gifts as well as finishing orders. And trying above all to remember the reason for the season. Christ's birth.