Felt Ornament Tutorial

My daughter wanted to show you how to make these lovely Christmas tree ornaments.   She's 6.  I'm sure this project would not take too long if you didn't take as many breaks for pictures (we had to do it over 2 days due to attention spans.).  She says hopefully yours will look as pretty as hers at the end.

1) Cut two pieces of felt.  We used a plastic lid as a template.

2) Decorate! This is the fun part!  You can stitch or glue to attach things to your ornaments.

3) Put both sides together right sides out.  Sew most of the way around.

3) Stuff.  We used scraps from another project.

4) Sew the rest of the way around and tie a knot.

5) Add a loop of thread or yarn.

6) Hang your new ornament with pride and congratulate yourself on a job well done.

The ornament on the left was little sister's project - we didn't write a tutorial for that.  

I cut the circle and she cut and glued the decorative bits on.  Perfect for a three year old.

Eyes Wide Open - Now I Get It

I recently walked through a part of the city that I'd never before been to before. I was stewing on something so the walk was good. I realized how much you notice everything when you're in a new place. You see every detail because you take nothing for granted. And I got to thinking that there's probably lots to notice in the places I go and the things I do everyday. I think bloggers have been trying to tell me this for years but I'm just now getting it. I thought they were being blindly by optomistic when commenting about how beautiful the snow is when it's -30 outside, or how a tragedy can bring out the best in people. But no, they're just fully seeing what's actually there, and carefully choosing which parts to point out. I still don't agree with censoring your blog to only show the polished perfect picture, but I wonder if they don't all do it on purpose.

The picture above is NOT from my walk to unfamiliar places. Truth be told I had taken a wrong turn was embarasingly late for lunch. My coworkers all applauded when I finally got there. It was so sad. I even had a (working) GPS with me. I'm not kidding.

Sand and Sun

It's not hard to see the beauty in a place like Saint Lucia. Sand and Sun and Humidity. Oh, the humidity!

But it's good to be home. Going on a trip without your family is not nearly as much fun. It's good to be home cooking my own food, also. The restaurants didn't quite know how to feed someone with a wheat allergy, so there was a big pow wow each time I went to order something, approximately twice a day.