crafty mcgee

Friendly Family Crafting

Here's a present for my brother that I was working on while I was unintentionally away. They are, of course, the main characters from his show Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. I'm really happy with how they turned out. Craig liked 'em too. The beautiful background is by artist Carol Wyatt. You can see more versions of the house here. I'm partial to the black one, but I thought the snow was more appropriate to the season.

Here's another family project I was working on.  Yes, it's only a tiny vest, but it's the first knitting pattern I ever designed on my own!

Happy Christmas from a Bad Blogger!

Whoops! I certainly didn't intend for weeks to go by without posting but my trip really threw me off my game. I promptly caught a lingering cold, was trying madly to get the holiday together, and basically just collapsed at the end of the day without even looking at the computer or responding to comments (sorry....). But the image above a big reason why I still keep blogging - it's my Tree of Craft, filled with ornaments from fellow crafters in swaps and such. It's one of my favorite decorations, and I hope it continues to expand until one of these years I'll need a second one. Thanks especially to everyone who I received things from in Amy's ATC and ornament swaps. I got so excited when the box arrived that I hung everything on the tree without first checking for emails. I love everything!

My cousin Di (you'll see why I totally dig my family if you check her post and see what her husband got her for Christmas) tagged me for a "5 things you don't know about me" meme, so here's the holiday version:
1) I still write a letter to Santa every year - on Christmas Eve, and then I burn it (gets there faster that way) It works! That's all I'm sayin...
2) The melancholy Christmas songs: "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas", "I Wonder As I Wander", "We Three Kings" (the list is pretty vast) put me the most in the Christmas spirit.
3) The only thing that can make me grumpy this time of year are the people who kvetch about how much they hate all of the decorations and such.
4) I really, really miss snow at Christmastime. In the 25 years I've lived in the Northwest, I've only had two white Christmases.
5) I wish all of you and your families whatever kind of Christmas you dream of in your heart of hearts. OK, that's cheating, you knew that already....but I mean it!

Back to Crafting

Right back to business with no real vacation update, except to say I had a marvelous time. You'll just have to take my word for it, because I forgot my camera!!!! I couldn't believe it either, but c'est la vie. While vacationing I worked on these eight tiny reindeer that I printed with my gocco before I left:

They are embellished with embroidery, and can either be hung, or stand (my preference) with the aid of the little cards. Five of them were sent of to Amy's fabulous ornament swap. I've got a couple left to trade for other ornaments, so drop me an email if you're interested. Gone already! You guys are fast! Amy was concurrently running a Christmas ATC swap, and here's my contribution:

I like to refer to them as "how to turn felt into cardboard". After I embroidered them, I printed the swap info on inkjet fabric, and glued them together with some watery glue. After a night on the heater vent they were nice and stiff. I should have tested it first, because I actually didn't know if it would work, but they turned out fine.

Thanks to everyone involved in and visited during our trip. It truly was a wonderful time.