A Christmas Story inspired ornaments

When I first watched "A Christmas Story", I always loved the image of Randy, all bundled up in winter clothes! That's how I always feel during winter. To share that memory and the fun of this beloved movie with you, I made Randy Christmas ornaments in the same outfit!

There are only three of these this year, each is individually made and all of them are unique and one of a kind. Check them out at my store.

Christmas is coming!

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. 

Pinoy Santa

Moonies or not, my Filipino (Pinoy) Santa's finished. I like his face, quite pleased with it in fact, so I don't want to waste all that effort despite the annoying moonies.

Here he is, all painted and dressed. He is my interpretation of a Filipino Santa so he is wearing the traditional formal wear barong (or the closest I can to a barong), over a canvas undershirt (not really your typical shirt material but it was what I had on hand) paired with a red, velvety, very much Santa-like pants. I remember when we had to perform traditional Southern Tagalog dances in school, the male costume is a usually a white shirt and a pair of red pants, so I thought the barong with the red pants would look good on him. The velvety part is a nod to the season.

Collar needs to be adjusted.

Bayong is a bit small for all his toy goodies!

Of course Santa needs a bag with goodies, so I gave him a bayong. Bayongs are bags made with woven palm leaves. Nowadays, there are a lot of fashionable bags and handbags made with the same or similar materials in an updated style. 

Filipino toys

His goodies are also traditional Philippine toys. First we have taka (paper mache) horse. These are usually colored bright red with black hair and colorful line drawings. It was quite a sight to see those during Christmas or town festivals -- tons of red horses all lined up!

Next we have the slingshot or in Filipino, tirador, the top or turumpo, toy guitar or gitara, clay pots or palayok and the sungka. The clay pot is also colored red with white designs on it like the taka horse. This is also typical of toy clay pots sold during Christmas and town festivals. You can buy them as miniatures and boy, were those fun! The pot is sitting on another clay creation, which acts as the stove. You put the coal directly under the pot.

I don't know the English translation for sungka, but it is played by two players. The bigger grooves at the end of the board is assigned to a player and it acts as their "home base". They collect their "subi" here, subi is the shell each player collects when they pass their home base. Each groove, minus the home bases, has six shells or pebbles in it. Both players start playing at the same time by choosing one groove from their side of the board, putting all the shells in it in their hand and then dropping one shell or pebble in the consecutive grooves after. They will also drop one pebble in their home base but of course, skipping the competition's. When you get to the last shell in your hand, you pick up all the shells or pebbles in the groove where you were supposed to drop it. The player who drops a shell in an empty hole loses his turn. He or she can only continue to play when the other player loses his or her turn in the same way. The player with the most pebbles in his or her home base wins. Ooh, I hope that description is accurate! It's been ages since I last played the game. I do wish to have another sungka, but I want the more intricate carved ones with feet stands.

Wow, all these brought back very fond memories of childhood. I wish I could go back soon to celebrate a town fiesta or Christmas in the Philippines.

Just for fun, I also gave Pinoy Santa a fake beard with elastic band.

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year

I still can't believe another year has come and gone. It's Christmas again - so many things have changed in my life and I look forward to next year with excitement, because I know so many more things will change. 

And with every Christmas and New Year that comes, I wish and pray for love, peace and prosperity for all!

Personalized Santa hats

I have a confession to make: I have been a very bad crafter.

I have not made one new item in the last two weeks. Ideas play in the mind but non-crafting work keeps pushing them back.

But I did have time to personalize these two Santa hats for the new men in my life :)

I've been looking for letters or colored felt that I can stitch on these Santa hats but couldn't find any. The felt I found were not very cheerful in color (black and dark blue), guess the shop was out of stock. So when I made a quick stop to Fida's in Satwa last week, it was a nice surprise to find this cute chequered green ribbon.

If you don't know how make blanket stitches, I found this cool vid that shows how:


I used white thread and blanket stitches and tadaaa -- Santa hats with initials! I'm not great at sewing but I love the final look. What do you think?