A Bit of Holiday Catch Up

The last day and we will be finished with January 2024. It doesn’t seem possible but here we go into February. Are you feeling like I am, that time has danced its way through these 31 days as if it’s in a race?

Wishing time would slow down and thinking back on the holidays, I thought I would share some of my journal makes today. For me, sometimes the holidays are a blur of activity and I don’t really get a chance to enjoy and reflect on what I have created. So with that in mind, I decided to take a moment and look back.

This past year was the year of Angels. I made quite a few with this theme. In this pocket journal card I used lots of vintage lace and a sari silk ribbon on the spine. You can see in the first picture it is held shut with a strip of Christmas fabric. Inside were lots of journaling cards for writing down a holiday memory, an intention, a favorite bible verse, a prayer or something you might be grateful for.

This next journal card is a tri-fold pocket card. It also has vintage lace bits along with a more rustic feel.

This netted ruffle is from a little girls dress. When I am out thrifting, my first stop is the children’s clothing section where I am looking for dresses to cut up and use for embellishing the journals.

This card included a vintage tally card, that bright red poinsettia along with a holiday article. I also added some gold glitter to the halo around Mary and Jesus.

Through out the year I am collecting vintage and antique postcards. One of my favorite things to do with them, other than adding them to the journals, is to do a little genealogy sleuthing if there is enough information. If possible I try and find a family member and return the card. This card was a particular favorite as the message on it really gave me that old world feeling. Sent in 1913 from sister to sister Mabel tells Ellavine “you better begin making chains out of pop corn and cranberries for the xmas tree”

I hit the jackpot at our local antique mall and was able to pick up a bunch of vintage Christmas cards to add to the journals. The cards with $1 each. I even went back a second time and picked up some more. Two of those cards became the covers for mini journals that went out. The carolers at the top and card at the bottom with the angel.

I had lots of fun with mini’s. These fit and sit perfectly in your hand. Some went by themselves, others tucked into larger journals.

I worked a lot with pink this year. These are journal card flips. They are bound with a ring at the top, then I glued fancy lacy ribbons with pearls fastened to them. I layered graduated sizes of mostly pink and blue holiday pictures, each card with it’s own lacy border on the bottom.

Below are from my postcard collection. I photo copied the cards, the backs are also the original copied card. I bound these with a ring as well and added the ribbon embellishments. I put 10 cards in each bundle. These were fun to make and I am currently working on making some similar to this with birthday postcards for gifts.

There isn’t really one project I enjoyed more over another however this is one of the tall document type journals I worked on and she is definitely a favorite.

Thank you so much for visiting with me today, please join me with welcoming February

HQAL: A New Start

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be making this post. Last week or so I discovered the dreaded ‘white screen of death’. First I had no idea there was such a thing until I began google searching what had happened. I had a total blank white screen, nothing, no headings, no tabs, nothing to click on to retrieve. It started a deep dive with you tube videos, google searches, lots of tears and no results. A consensus was to clear the cache but all those complicated instructions couldn’t lead me to how to do it. I even hopped over to blogger and thought this was my only option for the time being. When my SIL arrived from Alaska this spring I was sure he could fix this. Then a last ditch search on my on just hunting and pecking and I found the clear cache button, it was so easy and right there under the ‘develop’ heading on my mac – empty cache and not one search told me that. So I am here and ready to update you on my next project.

At our last posting I shared 3 possible starts for Christmas quilts for my great grands this year. I have started with the puppy dogs.

I am using the mini polka dot material for the backing. There are a heck of a lot of puppies on this but my plan is to quilt around all of them and turn a binding with the backing material.

Here’s Waylon who will be receiving this. I am in WA state and he is in N.C.. Do I love and understand technology and the ins and outs of its workings? No, but I can tell you this I am so thankful for video chatting. Everyday since he was born I have started my day with a chat with this little sweetheart. Eventually he was able to peer right into the phone looking and listening to me talk to him. Now he grabs the phone to hold it (with assistance) and even tries to initiate calls to me. (the blessings of technology)

Thank you for stopping by and visiting with me today. Below you will find the links to the others in this HQAL. If you have the time, please take a moment to stop in and visit with them. There are some wonderful projects in the making.

Hand Quilt Along Links

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Margaret, Deb, Nanette, Sharon, Karrin, Daisy, and Connie

SAL: Late Current Christmas Card Update

Oh boy what a start to the our new year of SAL posting. I’m late but for a good reason. I won’t bore you with to many details except to say when I tried to post I had the dreaded “white screen of death” I had absolutely nothing I could work with or do to post. This sent me on a deep dive of youtube video’s and google searches with endless attempts to fix. Fearing this was hopeless for me, I even went over to Blogger and set up a new blog. The short of it as you now see is ~~~~~ I fixed it! One last attempt on my own just hunting and pecking thru my computer and I found a button to empty cache and here I am. (that was a hint from all my searches but nothing they told me to find that button had helped)

I finished my last Current Christmas card I had been working on when we last posted. You may remember it looked like this with the frogging of the mint outlining removed.

I chose the same floss as the bottle for the outline this time and I think it worked perfectly. Here she is

I have another project lined up to begin work on. I will share it with our next posting and close for now.

Thank you for visiting with me to today. Wishing everyone a great start to the new year.

Below are the links to the members in this SAL. If you are not in this SAL please take a moment to visit some of these amazing crafters

Avis, Claire, Gun, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan,

Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, Cathie, Linda, Helen, MaryMargaret, Cindy

Our next updates will be posted on the 4th February 2024. 

About the SAL

Please note this SAL is not accepting any more new members until further notice but this is what it’s all about anyway. This SAL (Stitch Along) is slightly different to other SALs in that we don’t all stitch the same design at the same rate. We choose ONE unfinished project, or ONE new one, and show progress of its completion over a series of three weekly updates. There are no deadlines and no set amount to stitch. The result is that the space in our drawers full of WIPs (works in progress) is gradually being freed up to store lots of new crafty goodness. It’s surprising how much motivation I’ve gained from being in this SAL.