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!