MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I wish for all of you a Merry Christmas and lots of peace, love and happiness throughout the Holiday season.

A few weeks ago I posted a CQ Christmas Give-Away. I promised that I would announce the winner tonight... Christmas Eve. The contest was in honor of my son Erik's birthday and everyone was asked to take a guess at the time he was born. For the record, Erik was born on 12/13/70 at......... 10:13 a.m. Our winner was only 9 minutes off with a guess of 10:04 a.m.!

CONGRATULATIONS ......... JESSICASEWS !!!!!

Enjoy and be sure to post some pictures of some pretties you make. Many thanks to all of you who checked in to play and be sure to stay tuned for some new Give-Aways in the New Year.

Just thinking......about a miracle

With winter comes the beauty of a fresh fallen snow and the feeling like a blanket of white soft cotton has covered the earth. Yesterday we had a visitor, a beautiful red cardinal who, with its gorgeous color, just made the snow pop. For some reason, this beautiful red bird reminded me of love... the love of a miracle........

Over the past months I have kept pretty much to posting about my creative side and not much on the personal side. Not that I didn't want to share but I thought I would keep my blog just geared to things I love to make, colors I love and various projects I'm involved with.

Tonight I'd like to share with you a wonderful miracle. As some of you know, my son Jason and his wife Evy are expecting twins next June. I wish more than anything I could be living near them to experience this exciting time they are going through but me being in Massachusetts and they in California makes it a little hard. It's been a long struggle for them but soon they will be blessed with a beautiful little girl and boy. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am for them and for both sets of grandparents as it is the first time for all of us.

Jason and Evy just sent me the most wonderful gift - a CD of their ultra sound. Modern techonology is just incredible! I got to see my grandbabies for the first time and just sat and cried. I am going to be a Nana! It now is so real. My wish for them is to enjoy the next 6 months and to take in every aspect of this wonderful experience. I know they will both be wonderful parents and look forward to the day when these two beautiful babies call my baby, "daddy". Evy & Jason... dreams do come true.

Just call me "Nana Nicki"

CQ CHRISTMAS GIVE-AWAY

Can you believe it?! Only 11 more days until Christmas! I thought it would be so much fun to play Santa Clause for a day. So.... In honor of Christmas and the spirit of giving, I have come up with my very first Give-Away Contest. I have put together a little bag of Crazy Quilt goodies ... a little bit of this and a little bit of that. From glass beads, charms, gold & copper threads, buttons, polymer clay floral beads, trims, white laces, some extra bling bling and some of my hand dyed laces and silk ribbon to one of my cat food can pincushions. Now I know you are going to ask..."what do I have to do?"

Here's the fun part. My oldest son Erik just turned 38 yesterday (Dec 13th) and since he lives in Maui and I couldn't celebrate with him I thought it would be fun to do something around his birthday. All you have to do is leave a comment on my blog, you need to link my blog to yours and guess what time he was born. Mentioning the Give-Away on your blog would be great too! The winner will be announced on Christmas eve - the person who comes the closest to the time Erik was born, without going over, will be the winner of the goodie bag. Please be sure to check answers left so you do not duplicate another answer as there will only be one winner. If the same answer appears twice, the person who guessed the exact time first will be the winner. Good luck and may the best Crazy lady win.

Needlebooks & Pincushions for Christmas Art Festival

For the past two weeks I have been nonstop 24/7 sewing up a storm for the 32nd Annual Christmas Art Festival. This show has always been great and I really enjoy meeting lots of new vendors and seeing all the wonderful talent that is being created. Yesterday was day 1. Attendance was down quite a bit - guess the economy is keeping everyone home holding on to their wallets. All in all I had a pretty good day but it was very surprising what was selling. Who would have thought I would spend so much time sewing items for the show when my biggest seller were 3 pieces of my mosaics. I was so excited when one of the vendors came over and bought a large mosaic mirror even before the doors opened to the show. I sold a few of them but have a feeling they would have been better off at a Quilt Show.... funny... most people had no idea what a needlebook was.

Now, for my part in "going green" I decided to start saving all the empty cat food cans I was dumping in the trash on a daily basis and make something out of them......... ta da - my cat food can pin cushions. These were a lot of fun to make. Grab some felt, some beads, threads and silk ribbon and a variety of pretty velvets and just let the mind and fingers wander.
I don't know about you but whenever I'm out shopping around and I see something at a great price I always wonder... hmmmm what can I make out of that? Well a couple weeks ago I found some little address books at a great price and decided to see if I could dress them up. I had a couple extra string blocks hanging around so decided to see if I could make a couple of covers for the address books. Topped each one off with some dyed lace and a few beads to dress these babies up. And.... not to let anything go to waste I used the left overs from the string blocks to make little kleenex holders.......... now, can my fingers take a rest for a little bit LOL!

Since I think I might finally have some free time, I will be putting together a little surprise. Stay tuned as within the next week I will be announcing a "Christmas Give Away" of some goodies..... a little bit of this and a little bit of that.