Glitter glitter everywhere-

Another area I enjoy decorating through out the year are the wreaths hung on two doors of my home and then at Christmas time especially - a spray is hung over the garden gate doors.
I have a system in the garage for storing all of my seasonal wreaths since it's quite an investment and it's easy to decorate hen they are not all dusty and squished!  With pulling out the December items, they needed attention.  So I started un doing and redoing and made a couple of purchases with more items than I needed as long as I could return what I didn't need with a recent being asking during the transactions.  As long as the items are returned before the Holiday I was told.  No Problem!

The one that was there was so DONE and had served us well for the 15 years it's been there! The photo above on the left shows how bare the decorations were after years of weather, wind and time.  The ribbon started as a burgundy but was so aged all the sparkle was gone, what to do, revamp all of them!
First the front door with the little counted cross stitch pillow was removed from the wreath and all the other bits, then it was decorated with new bows, ribbons, and red and lime Christmas tree balls of different sizes.    The wreath now has white lights allover with a lit red bow.  Adding plenty of candy cane striped doodads to make it even more festive makes me feel wonderful seeing it on the front door.  Very traditional looking scene with the typical red/green colors of the Holiday sign on the outside porch and the Birch wood Reindeer with a coordinating red bow around it's neck welcoming all.

Now for the family entrance side and on the driveway entrance Fuchsia was the color theme.  The spray over the garden gate will be up all winter.  So luckily I found a silver gold ribbons, pearls, fuchsia ornaments, glittery doodads, and varying ornaments made this one really unique.  What do you think?  I think it could easily segue into the Mardi Gras season and beyond!    It truly is OVER the top!  pun intended...

Using many of the same style of decorations for the wreath that hangs on the kitchen door that had to be revamped.  I used plenty of bows,  multi-sized ornaments (some dangling), different flower picks of glittered drums and sprigs, as well as the same "cow udder things" (as DH mentioned last year that were recycled)  to add movement each time the door is used.

It looks really nice and am so happy with those results!  

It's a blessing that even with the recent snow squall that came through, it's holding up perfectly!

This is the system we use to store them.  All of the wreaths fit into monthly marked containers.  The swag and Christmas wreath with those ball hanging down thingies are stored on the garage rafters in plastic bags which require a ladder.   DH and I built two shelves over the garage doors.  One for summer stuff and the other one for winter items.  

System in the garage for storing all the door wreaths.  DH bent some garden hooks and put up a suspended left over  curtain rod.  I can get at these without having to use a ladder, just a nice little hook on a long pole
makes it easy to get down and easy to get back up!

Just had to share with the grands being here last week while school was out, here's a giant Furby cleaning off the car when he arrived at 7:30 am in his pajamas.  That boy runs HOT! and doesn't like to wear a coat.

PGS#3 arriving with here during the school's  Christmas break.  Just turned  7 on 12/8 and is in the first grade.

He's a great little worker.

 Editing this on 1/3/16 since December flew by!

What's around my Home,

A glimpse of several past projects that are displayed for Thanksgiving and during  the Fall time.

 

I can't remember the name of this pattern off the top of my head. 

When I run across the pattern I'll come back to share which one I used. 

The batiks collected to do this project were so much fun to shop for and I remember well the efforts of machine appliquing around those curvy leaves.   The horror of slicing them in half . 

But also the satisfaction when they were reassembled and placed back together. 

 

For the table / candle mat, I used an eyelet yarn to fringe the outer binding after using my favorite Kona Cotton Black to enclose the quiltlet edges.  Would you believe I used 2 bolts of Kona Black so far in my life time!   Both of these pieces are still a favorite of mine.   Another favorite is the pottery face planter made by a local potter artisan, Vera Vivante.  

 

A painting of DH's that is left up year around.  The colors in this are so deep and rich. 

 

The photo does not do it justice. The frame is one I picked up at an auction for $12.00. What a deal! Needless to say the mat boards to finish it off were about 5 times that price.

 

Still, The Elk was named because of my continuous response.  Several years ago, while hand quilting this wall hanging my friends would inquire what I brought to work on.  My answer always was and thus the name just happening for it,

"Still, The Elk". 

 

 

I quilted a puzzle piece outline through the center of this piece horizontally

but when it came time to do the vertical cross pieces I just didn't have it in me.

I did outline quilt the leaves in the leaf print border and did a bit of assymetrical diagonal lines in the inner borders.

When I called it good enough to exhibit for the fall, my thought was to quilt some more on it during the winter, just not sure yet which year I may attempt that! Perhaps some year.

The outline of the elk, foreground and tree is Ultrasuede and was easy enough to work with. The most difficult part besides the hand quilting was finding strips of the sky fabrics to flow with the fiery sky look I was attempting.

I'm happy with it. 

 

Enjoy your Black Friday weekend.  I may go shopping tomorrow before that beading class.

 

Jane

 

 

 

 

Christmas is Soon!

This Cactus is absolutely gorgeous this time of year. It just starting with it's floral burst and soon it will be smoothered by fuschia blooms. I just love it sitting next to the front entryway. A nice festive welcome.

Jane

So many giveaways and some of my past projects

Want to win an accuquilt GO! There are several giveaways on the net. I mentioned one my friend, Micki over at Irish Muses was hosting in my last post. I just came across a couple more here, Alderwood Quitls and at Quilt Taffy. Good Luck all.


Check out this festive candle PGS#2 and PGD#1 made yesteday afternoon.


Here's a peek at one wall in the Dining Room:
We decorated with crows, spiders and rats throughout the house but they're most densely accumulated in this room.

This is a little quilt was made years ago. Some friends wanted to use the fusible grid and make wallhangings. Since it was in the fall, I thought of using a witch's silhouette with a moon background for my project so I went to my scrap basket and found whatever golden colors that could work for my moon and viola! Found aclip art of a witch and made it work with Ultrasuede. The quilting is done with a glow in the dark thread that I wanted to play with when they first came out, that's how old this piece is! I haul out each year for every Halloween.


Next is Greta the Witch who is about 20 years old. She is made from painted wood, spools, blocks, rope, hardware and to finish her, a cloth outfit and quilling paper hair. Her hair seems to be getting "rattier" each year (No pun intended with the silhouette over the door), but she is still looks festive enough.


This wallhanging was finished last year and I love it. The cutting on the fusible pattern was labor intensive which of course also became a labor intensive machine quilting but so worth it, IMHO. The pattern is still readily available, I got mine from Keepsake Quilting.


This wall hanging was one I did about 30 years ago and is done by needlepoint. At the time it seemed to take forever, but looking at it now it seems like it would be quick enough to stitch, guess I was really busy back then with a growing family and too many distractions. Remembering back, the hardest part was finding the whiskers and a pefect nose button for the cat. She too comes out once a year to play.




As for quilting, I have my alien invasion ready to press so I can get to the quilting. I'm a thinking I'll try to rent a long arm and try my hand at it. So when I know I can use that machine, I'll have it pressed and ready to go. SO, I guess I need to clean up my cutting area and start piecing the backing for my Patience Corners quilt. The top measures 106 x 106" and I found a wonderful digitized pattern that a longarmer with a computerized system purchased for me explicitely for this quilt so I need to stop putting it off! What is that mantra I had a bit ago, "the dreading is worse than the doing". Enough already, Get to it.

PGD#1 got here late today. Usually she is here for an hour which gives us time to have breakfast, watch a little tv (SpongeBob Squarepants)and then clean up to catch the bus. Well, she arrived 35 minutes late (Mom and Dad overslept) and then she told me her doll, Darla has a birthday today, could we make cupcakes? So we did as Emeril says and kicked it up a notch and got them done. Phew! All in a half hours time. While waiting for the bus and I looked down and surprise, she still had a little smear of chocolate cake mix on her chin. Glad I caught it, off it went and then the bus arrived lickity split. OMG I am soo bad. LOL

Enjoy your day,
Jane

PS: Oh that reminds me, I still have the "Jacko Lantern" Chinese Lantern floral arrangement stored in the garage over my work bench I need to haul out. Now where am I going to display that?