Infinity Scarves

Happy new year, friends! I hope 2016 is off to a good start for everyone. 

My last sewing finish of December was a pair of infinity scarves.  I had a gift card to one of my local quilt stores, and I used it to treat myself to some beautiful Kokka double gauze.  This is Monochrome by Ellen Baker, Circles on Mint. It is deliciously soft. 

There are plenty of great infinity scarf tutorials out there. I used Imagine Gnats' double guaze infinity scarf tutorial. These scarves sewed up really fast. As far as I'm concerned, one of the best things about making these scarves is that you can make two scarves out of 1 and 2/3 yards of fabric. One for you, and one for me! 

In this case, it was one scarf for Lauren and one for me. Unfortunately we forgot to take matchy scarf pictures at Christmas. So instead, I offer you a cute photo of Halley modeling my scarf. In my defense, it was snowing that day, and therefore perfectly reasonable to dress my dog in a scarf. Perfectly adorable too. 

Birdseed Ornaments and Popcorn & Cranberry Garland

Hello friends! Happy 2016!

This year, our family chose to have an old-fashioned Christmas, and rented a cabin for the holiday season. Since we didn't have a traditional Christmas tree inside the cabin, we made plans to string popcorn and cranberries, and make birdseed ornaments so we could decorate a tree in the forest for the local wildlife.

Cranberry and Popcorn Garland

Jen and I have talked about wanting to make popcorn and cranberry garland for years, but the holiday season flies by and we never end up having time. To string the garland, we were planning to use fishing line. After doing some research on the ornaments and learning how dangerous fishing line is for birds, I purchased some natural twine from Amazon. For the cranberries, we used upholstery needles and the twine. Since the popcorn was more fragile, we used Jen's embroidery needles and baker's twine. The popcorn was popped several days ahead of time to make it less crumbly.

Birdseed Ornaments

To make the birdseed ornaments, I followed this recipe. In all honesty, I had about two identifiable ornaments. The rest became crumbled blobs. I'm hoping the birds didn't care. I'm not sure if my solution wasn't sticky enough to hold the birdseed, or if I took them out of the cookie cutters too soon. Hopefully next time they'll stick better!

Not only was this a perfect holiday project, but fun to continue to make throughout January and February when it seems like supplemental food by local wildlife is appreciated!

Here's the finished product!

Our family loved this project, and I'm sure it'll become a new holiday tradition.

Happy Holidays

Happy holidays, dear friends! I hope you are all enjoying this wild and wonderful season. Lauren and I are going to take a little blog vacation through the end of 2015. We wish you love and happiness, and we can't want to reconnect in 2016!

First Aid Kit Pouch

Our family has a tradition of exchanging gifts on December 6th. On St. Nicholas Day, good old St. Nick brings presents for the children of France. Our adorable Mom, who is both a Francophile and an enthusiastic celebrator of holidays, started the tradition when I was young.

As part of this year's St. Nicholas celebration, I made a first aid kit zippy pouch for my favorite nurse. 

I used mushrooms from Emily Isabella's Everyday Party fabric collection for the inner lining just because it made me giggle to put fungus inside a first aid kit.

Happy St. Nicholas Day to all who celebrate it, young and old, French and otherwise! 

Birthday or Holiday Gift Alternative

Maybe it's just me, but trying to dream up the perfect birthday gift year after year can become a real challenge, especially for those friends you've known the majority of your life. With one of my friends, we've started giving each other the gift of time, rather than "stuff" and it's made celebrating our birthdays a whole lot less stressful, and much more meaningful. This year, I made her two home cooked meals that could be eaten immediately or frozen for another day. This concept works well for a holiday gift too! Who wouldn't love a home cooked meal during the crazy holiday season?

I tried one new recipe Zucchini Pizza Casserole, and used an old stand-by, Northwest of the Border Enchiladas.

My process, in pictures, for the Zucchini Pizza Casserole:

A few pictures of the enchiladas below. These have the perfect amount of spice, and the sauce has incredible flavor.

To maximize my resources and time, I doubled both recipes to have extra meals on hand for late nights or unexpected guests. Total preparation and cook time was about 2 hours per doubled recipe.