Winter Solstice

 

Today is technically the first day of winter. But it has felt like winter for a long time. You can read about the winter solstice here.  It's the shortest day and the longest night of the year. All I have to say is it's depressing.  I hate winter.

Oh Christmas Potato...

I finished the potato. And I got eight gifts wrapped. (Six are small paperback books, missing ones from a collection that I bought off Thriftbooks.) He got all the books in the collection used, so... I still have to wrap the golf club covers. Now I just need to bake some more. I don't know. I am not baking anything to give away to anyone this year. And I did bake some cookies. Maybe if I get in the mood to, I will. I feel relieved the potato is done. LoL.. I feel crazy saying that. (Almost as crazy as what I made the title of my post..) Do you think he needs a little Santa hat?

Only Five More Days Until Christmas

😬😬😬😬

I can't believe it. And has my husband even started shopping for anyone? No.....   He waits until the last possible second. I am not done either. But, I am 90% done. I still want to get more stocking stuffers, and candy for the snow glob jars. And I still have to wrap some things. I am crocheting the potato, too. I should be wrapping or crocheting right now. But I was in here dusting and I sat down. One thing led to another and I did a blog post. Okay bye.

Bags to Bows

I was wrapping a book this morning, and I thought, "I need a tiny bow".  And I don't have any.... It got me thinking of the bows I made out of chip bags before. 

Cheetos and Doritos bags...

I know this was for Eon's birthday, because of the date I posted it on Facebook. I could not find it on here. So I thought I would post it. The video that I linked in my post is no longer available. So, I went searching...... Searching..... Searching... UGH

This is the bag I used today.

Cut it open and washed the inside.

Cut about 800 little 3/4 inch strips 11 inches long. Well....  I didn't like the first one I made. At all. So I looked at the pictures of the ones I made before and I did it my own way. I cut the 11 inch strips in half. 

What a mess...

Fold each one in half.

                                      Using double sided tape, fasten down with right sides out. 

Do the same to the other side. 

  Did three of those. Then I cut three more one inch smaller. Same thing, then two more one inch smaller. Same thing. Then, I cut the middle piece about three inches? Taped it down in a circle and put it on top.

For the little bow, I cut three inch pieces and did the same as above but only cut the pieces a half inch shorter each time. Then for the middle piece I cut it an inch and a quarter. There's my little bow for Eons' book. 😚

And all of the bows. The one I did first is on the left. I don't like it. 

Now I have strips of chip and halls bags all over my desk. Ugggghhhhhhh.  But if I went out to buy a bag of bows it would cost $200 by the time I get out of the store. LoL But, you have to be in the mood to do this. It's a mess!! And it might just be worth it to go to the store and get mini bows... (If you only buy the bows!)😝

This was what started the whole thing...

The bow. I don't know why I do this... It's just going to get thrown in the garbage.  I have five more books to wrap, too. (I am not making any more bows, I am going to go to the store.) But, if you are in a bind and don't have any money.....  This could be useful. 

Another Crochet Christmas Present Done

Well, I finished the golf club covers yesterday. The one on the right, the pom-pom is not tight to the top of the cover and I already knotted it on the inside about 10 times. Ughhhhhhhh. I don't know how I'm going to fix that, except try a glue gun. And I have to weave in ends. And wrap them. The end on the one on the right is curling up. I think it's just the way I laid it down...  I think I will trim up the pom-pom on the right more, too.

I got the yarn for the potato and I want to start that today.  I still don't know if I will crochet the red truck gift card holder. I don't think we are getting him a gift card...  

 

Christmas Cookie List

 A blog post with no pictures? Yup.... I just wanted to post some recipes for Christmas Cookies. These aren't all cookies; I should say Christmas Treats...

~Cranberry Cookies  These have cranberries and white chocolate chips in them.

~Amish Sugar Peppermint Chocolate Chip Cookies

~Christmas Gooey Butter Cookies

~Christmas Wreaths

~Christmas Sugar Cookies

~Peanut Butter Blossoms

~Rocky Road Fudge

~Christmas Crack

~Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Ritz Cookies

~Christmas Chocolate Pretzel Bites

~Candy Cane Sleighs

~Christmas Tree Brownies (I make these with a regular brownie recipe and decorate with Christmas sugar and M&M's...

Wow, that's a lot of sugar..  LoL   I joined a "Christmas Cookie" group on Facebook. It is so lame! Hardly any posts, I was very disappointed. So I decided to compile all my favorites here. (Now my head hurts and I need to go back to bed LoL.) Actually my head does hurt. The past two days I have woken up with a sinusy headache. Probably because it is so bitter cold outside! Spuds seems warm in his spot (his fur is warm when he gets out.)

I will have to see what I have to make. It's going to be "Use What You Have Christmas Baking" Day...

Memories

Yesterday, I did some Christmas shopping with our youngest son. We were walking around Walmart (a rare moment he was walking with me, shopping). He went down the Hot Wheel aisle. I was thinking, "What are you doing?" He said he wanted to see if he could find a Ram (I can't remember what kind) truck for his friend for Christmas for a gag gift. 😅I was thinking about all his Hot Wheels when they were all little. I said "Do you remember that parking garage I made you for your cars when you were little?" (He didn't, so I went on my phone in Walmart, to my blog and found the picture..LoL)  He did like that. I remember it fell apart after a while. But it was fun while it lasted. They had Hot Wheel tracks, and the ramp where the cars would go flying off..  Seems like so long ago. Now they all have real trucks, and they are always breaking down or have to get something fixed. Cracked radiators, rusted out oil pans... I wish I could go back to when they were little, sometimes. 😍

I think the magazine I got the instructions from is no longer in print. It was "Family Fun" magazine. It's pretty easy to figure out, just looking at the picture though. Cut a cereal box, and we painted ours with spray paint. I think I covered the toilet paper "cement columns" with yellow paper and a glue stick. And used some electrical tape my husband had in the garage, for the parking spot lines..  

I wish we had kept all those hot wheels. We moved so much and there was so much stuff, though..  

Side note: I remember when you could get a Hot Wheel for 99 cents at Walmart. They are $3.49 now. For one hot wheel!! Oh that makes me so mad!! They were the special kind, but the regular hot wheels were not much less!

This was the post I am talking about..

Although I couldn't find the original Park and Play Garage instructions, there are a lot of ideas/tutorials online for different ones now (way cooler than this one, too). Here is one page with a few ideas.

This one is cool, too. If you go on Pinterest and look, you could be there all day trying to find ideas for a Park and Play garage.. 😍

I have to frog the golf club cover I started yesterday (I got the whole ribbing part done, too...) I learned what colors he likes. Not red. (Even though his truck is red..) I'm going to need to go get some darker green yarn... Darn it...  I hate going yarn shopping. 😁

Update: I decided to look through all the yarn I have, and I found the right color green and hopefully it will be enough. (Not pictured..)

So, here we go: Golf Club Covers, Round 2. 😂⛳  Get it... I didn't even plan that. LoL

There's only 10 days left until Christmas!! I at least got a few things this weekend, I just need to write everything else down, and clear my brain, and finish wrapping, and finish baking, and and and.....

Another Christmas Project

I decided to just crochet a golf club cover. (I will do two of them, he only has two golf clubs-he got them at Goodwill I think..)  Then I was racking my brain trying to decide what colors.... UGH. Just doing red and white. This is the first time I've crocheted since Spuds bit me. My hand still hurts..  I should probably go to the doctor... But. 🙅 Do I want to get Christmas presents or pay a copay...   I am actually using the Yarnspirations Golf Club Cover pattern, not the one I posted earlier. I think even I would rather be out golfing than what is outside...  Snow and cold. Poor Spuds. He keeps coming to the door. I am not letting him in. :( I can't...  I keep saying, "Go in your house". I will put food in there so he goes in it. 

 

I am so not ready!!! 😔 We're supposed to go shopping this weekend.

 

Christmas Baking Has Begun

I baked the Peanut Butter Blossoms yesterday. I put some Christmas music on, and baked Christmas cookies. It did not help cheer me up...  Sigh. But at least I got started on Christmas cookies. I almost froze to death putting them in the freezer in the garage. (It's not attached to the house... You have to walk outside, unlock the garage...) 🙄🥶🥶🥶 I do not know how my husband can stand working outside in the winter. 

I don't know if I wrote about how our son took a red truck ornament to put in his truck...  Well he hung it up. LoL  I did write about the red truck ornament... (Probably four times now..)

Are You Ready?

😭😭😭😭

I'm not ready!!! I hate that. I hate waiting until the last minute to go Christmas shopping. I guess sometimes it's unavoidable. Things happen. 

I did get some Hershey's Kisses to make Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies with. The recipe on the back of the bag/original recipe from Hersheyland uses shortening, though; not butter. I should start on my Christmas cookies/baking.  We also got some round crackers, I could make some chocolate covered peanut butter crackers.  😀  Here is an actual recipe for some.  I could also make some Christmas Sugar Cookies.  I want some Peppermint Bark but I don't have any white chocolate...  Not much of a blog post today..

~Well that's all for now~

Snow Globe Candy Jars, and Spuds Bite :(

These are the two finished snow globe jars for my husband and our youngest son. I should re-post the one I made for Melissa.. Here is the link to it. It's hard to get a good picture of them, the plastic ornament gets a glare on it. I think they are really cute.

Here's the snowman before I glued the whole top together. 

Here's a side picture of the "Red Truck" snow globe, I used the fake snow to cover up the wire part which I kind of used to prop the truck up so it would stand up straight. 

I'm editing to add a front view. I thought I uploaded the picture, but there's always a cat or dog, or two dogs in here distracting me. 

Here's a close up of it done...  

This is the "fake snow" I got at the dollar tree. I don't know if I shared a picture of it. So you know what it looks like.

These are the Red Truck Ornaments from the Dollar Tree that I used for the snow globe. The tree fell off the one, and that was how the whole thing/idea started... I just need to get some candy to put inside them. I might need to go back to the dollar tree for some, it cost $14.99 for a bag of candy at Meijers yesterday. That's just ridiculous. And they didn't even have any "Christmas" wrapped candy. 🙄 Not the kind I wanted anyway.  I did find more glue sticks, so I didn't have to go buy more of those. 

And, Spuds bit me yesterday. 😢 I will spare you a picture of that. It was not just a little bite, either. He bit down hard, and pulled. And somehow scratched me, too. The top of my hand was bit, the palm was scratched. Ughhhh....  That hurt!! It still hurts. It's a little swollen and a little red. But it's stopped bleeding. I washed and washed and washed it, and put antibiotic cream on and bandages. I don't know what to do.....  Everything online says "Get immediate care at the doctor"..  But, he bit my husband about a week ago. And my husband is fine (it broke through his skin, he said.) I don't know if it broke all the way through like it did with me, though. I guess I will just keep an eye on it. Doesn't he know you're not supposed to bite the hand that feeds you?  I was sitting on the chair on the porch, and he put his front legs up on my legs (with his claws dug in) and I thought he wanted up. So I tried to help him up. Well he did not like that. He probably thought I was going to hurt him.... 🙄 That's when he bit/scratched me.   I guess that solves if we are going to try and let him in the house... I don't know where we'll go from here. 

His And Hers Hats

 

I finally decided (because I tried to do a second, lighter blue but the yarn was a different weight than the dark blue and it bugged me) to do both hats just the same color. But put a pom-pom on Melissa's hat so they can tell them apart. I FINALLY mailed their Christmas presents this morning, what a relief. Now I can concentrate on everyone's presents/crochet projects here. I still haven't decided if I am going to do the golf club covers. Or the potato. Because, 1. Our son has only golfed once, maybe twice. He's not that into it. If he does it more next summer, maybe I will for next Christmas (hmmm that sounds like a no on that one), and 2. I don't know what my husband would actually do with a crocheted potato. For that matter, I don't know what our son would do with a red truck gift card holder.... 

Sigh.... I just talked myself out of everything. LoL  Maybe I'll just crochet my Penny's Santa Hat. 

Happy First Day of December

Happy first day of December, and there's only 25 more days until Christmas! 😱🎅🎄YIKES!!!!

I still need to finish Melissa's hat, before I can mail their box. I still need to finish wrapping all their presents and finish stuffing their stockings, too. 😭  I still have more stuff I want to crochet for Christmas, too. 

~A potato, for my husband. (Long story.... Every time we go shopping he gets potatoes. If they're on sale, he will get another bag even though we have a bag at home. I said "What are you obsessed with potatoes?" And I started thinking....  I can get him a potato gag gift for Christmas. Oh! I can CROCHET him a potato!! He doesn't even know the name of my blog or read it, so... I'm going to put it in his stocking. This potato thing also was why we named the stray cat Spuds.

~A Red Truck Gift Card Holder, for Eon. Because he has a red truck...  I still need to finish his Red Truck Snow Globe candy jar, too. Which will not be easy, with him home all the time now in the winter. 

~Maybe some Golf Club Covers? Eon went golfing with friends a couple times this summer.

Plus the Penny's Santa hat, for myself.. 

I wasn't even going to knit or crochet anything for Christmas this year...  Now I am so stressed out. 😭And I have to mail their box. And we're supposed to get more snow tonight. 😭😭😭 Oh! Spuds came back! My husband moved the heated pad out of the cat house, and when he went outside Spuds was asleep on the pad, under the blanket tent my husband made on our bench on the porch. 🩷 I worry if he shows up, and I worry if he doesn't show up. But, I am glad he is laying on the heated pad! Until we can figure something else out...