i have been caught up in the holiday fervor and need to strike a balance so i've made a decision to take some time off from blogging until after the new year.
in the meantime, i hope you will enjoy the digital card that i've left with all my best wishes attached.

aren't these mums wonderful!?! a very good friend gifted them to me. the growing number of cold and cloudy days combined with the shortening daylight hours has made for a lot more time spent inside but with this flowering plant in the house it feels like the sun is shining all of the time.

i've made these Christmas ornaments for a Christmas tree fundraising event that my guild is currently involved in. we will donate and decorate a tree and then it will be auctioned off at a community event along with other trees that have been donated and decorated.

these ornaments were made using tiny bits of my own hand dyed fabrics in a crazy quilt style. a variety of hand stitches on the seams, some peltex in the center as a stiffener/stabilizer and machine zig zagged edges. a fairly quick project.

i made a simpler felt backing for them so that if they get turned on the tree they will still be fun to look at. reversible is good ~ right?!

i've also been getting a small group of fabrics hand dyed. i hope to be making something Amish-like with them at some point in the future. the colors are showing fairly true except for the yellow one. that piece is actually a bit more gold/cheddar looking than appears in this photo.

i've received several more atc's and am so happy with my growing collection of them. i'm delighted to have these small but fabulous works of art as well as to be making my own.

these two are from Eileen Schwanke. you can visit her blog at: http://www.ruralwisconsin.blogspot.com/

the top one is called Serendipity. gotta love that~!

isn't that glued text background amazing~!?!

the stitched reindeer card came from Sweden. Emily aka flossbox (flickr) really knows how to work that needle~!!~ it's a very cute card and the back is also fabric with beautifully turned in and hand sewn edges.

she has a website called The Floss Box: www.theflossbox.com/

this next card - "Plate 51 - Oiseau" is also absolutely gorgeous~! it is from North Carolina in the USA.
made by Phyllis Terrell aka artchick501 (flickr).

the little teddy bear bed has finally been completely finished and is ready for my quilting guild's Christmas Bazaar. we do a table full of raffle items in which tickets can be purchased for a quarter. there is always a huge variety of items on and around this table from which to choose from. customers can choose to buy and place tickets into the designated containers (one for each item). then at the end of the bazaar a massive drawing is held for each container's winner. often people buy more than one ticket for each item that they would like to win and often they put tickets into several different containers. it's a popular fundraiser every year. i think we might be our own best customers though~! LOL

the proceeds from our "quarter raffle" table go towards an annual scholarship that we offer every year to one of the locally graduating seniors.

i think Ted here is ready for a snuggly nap . . .

btw: Emmitt has already managed to give this whole set up a test drive . . . leave it to the cat to find the newest, freshest, snuggliest bed in the house in which to rest upon. and imagine how delighted he was to find a special snuggle partner as a bonus!

i have been hard at work on the teddy bear bedding and my dh has been equally hard at work building the cutest little bed. the next step is painting the bed and making some linens to cover the mattress and pillow . . . the artist trading cards continue to be a highlight of my creative life and this is my newest card received. it was made by Joy/autumnsensation of (http://www.joytotheblog.blogspot.com/) it's a paper collaged card and it's slightly three dimensional. i love it~!!~and am happy to have it within my growing collection. in exchange Joy received my stitched MeMa's House/Joy card.

these next cards are ones that i made.

the Glyph Turtles is made using a metal tape on a gessoed background. i embossed the turtles and border design into the metal and then did some dye ink painting onto both the turtles and the background.

this turtle card is no longer available for trade.

the Skating Penguin card was made for a trade with another artist who also does stitched cards. i was pretty excited about the way that it turned out and it was perfectly sized until i got a little carried away with the "fluffy" edging. oooops.

i hope she doesn't mind but if she does i'm giving her the option to send it back to me . . . i might not even mind keeping this one for myself . . .

i'll be sure to post the card she's trading/sending to me (all the way from Sweden) when it arrives.