My days since December stepped in are divided into making products for my Etsy shop and preparing for our early Christmas celebrations.
So shop talk first. I've included Philippine folk art inspired Christmas tree ornaments to my offerings: painted red horses. These horses are usually seen during Christmas and town fiestas back in my tropical island home. They are traditionally made of paper, which in the Philippines is called "taka", shaped into horses and painted bright red. Then it's finished off with simple but bold and colorful patterns.
And in the bright and cheerful category, I also have these adorable pet miniatures - dogs and cats that would make wonderful gifts for pet lovers.
For the non-traditional, I have creepy eye pendants that can be worn as a necklace or forehead accessory.
On the home front, I've been scavenging! It was windy a couple of nights ago and the fir trees were shaking in fright. Lost a lot of their branches and leaves they did. So when I drove past those poor lonely branches, I had an idea.
You see, hubby's Mom and Grandma usually go up in the mountain before the big holiday to get fresh boughs. Grandma would put it up on her fireplace mantel and add Christmas ornaments to them. This inspired me to pick some of the fir tree branches and create our own Christmas boughs!
I also decided to add Christmas stockings to this year's decorations. I went full circle on this one. First I thought I'd make them, then I decided to save myself the trouble so I can concentrate on making gifts. I went to Daiso, the only dollar store or close to a dollar store I know in our vicinity but I did not like what they had. They were surely affordable at $1.50 a piece but I did not like the materials nor the design. They looked too cheap.
Next door was Joann but even at 60% off, which brought the prices down to $11.99 (if I remember correctly) multiplied by three came up to an amount I would rather save than spend on some nice looking stockings.
But, when I saw that their fleece and other furry fabric were up to 60% discount too, I knew I had to make our own. It was the only way. I wanted our stockings to be bright, furry and plush and there's no way I'm gonna get it cheaper than $5 (which might not have been a realistic target to begin with for ready made items). So after a few minutes of wandering about, deciding on color, I left with $11 worth of fabric: half a yard of some cream, plush furry thing, half yard of red fleece and another half a yard of checkered green, brown and cream fleece. Two days later, I am happy to report, I have homemade stockings that I feel pretty good about.
Made letter clay buttons to add a little interest to the stockings and placed them against little fleece ribbons.
So that makes the final Christmas decor for the year! Now I need to go back to making Christmas gifts! Gotta rush, there's only a few more days to go.
So shop talk first. I've included Philippine folk art inspired Christmas tree ornaments to my offerings: painted red horses. These horses are usually seen during Christmas and town fiestas back in my tropical island home. They are traditionally made of paper, which in the Philippines is called "taka", shaped into horses and painted bright red. Then it's finished off with simple but bold and colorful patterns.
And in the bright and cheerful category, I also have these adorable pet miniatures - dogs and cats that would make wonderful gifts for pet lovers.
For the non-traditional, I have creepy eye pendants that can be worn as a necklace or forehead accessory.
On the home front, I've been scavenging! It was windy a couple of nights ago and the fir trees were shaking in fright. Lost a lot of their branches and leaves they did. So when I drove past those poor lonely branches, I had an idea.
You see, hubby's Mom and Grandma usually go up in the mountain before the big holiday to get fresh boughs. Grandma would put it up on her fireplace mantel and add Christmas ornaments to them. This inspired me to pick some of the fir tree branches and create our own Christmas boughs!
I also decided to add Christmas stockings to this year's decorations. I went full circle on this one. First I thought I'd make them, then I decided to save myself the trouble so I can concentrate on making gifts. I went to Daiso, the only dollar store or close to a dollar store I know in our vicinity but I did not like what they had. They were surely affordable at $1.50 a piece but I did not like the materials nor the design. They looked too cheap.
Next door was Joann but even at 60% off, which brought the prices down to $11.99 (if I remember correctly) multiplied by three came up to an amount I would rather save than spend on some nice looking stockings.
But, when I saw that their fleece and other furry fabric were up to 60% discount too, I knew I had to make our own. It was the only way. I wanted our stockings to be bright, furry and plush and there's no way I'm gonna get it cheaper than $5 (which might not have been a realistic target to begin with for ready made items). So after a few minutes of wandering about, deciding on color, I left with $11 worth of fabric: half a yard of some cream, plush furry thing, half yard of red fleece and another half a yard of checkered green, brown and cream fleece. Two days later, I am happy to report, I have homemade stockings that I feel pretty good about.
Made letter clay buttons to add a little interest to the stockings and placed them against little fleece ribbons.
So that makes the final Christmas decor for the year! Now I need to go back to making Christmas gifts! Gotta rush, there's only a few more days to go.
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