2023 Advent Calendar Adventures

We always get together with our friends for a joint Yule and Christmas celebration. We hang out in our pj's or other comfy clothes, have a potluck of soups or order take-out, and exchange gifts with each other. We try to make the holiday as low stress as possible because we all know how stressful family get-togethers during the holidays can be. No one wants to add to that.

This year for our gifts, my wife had the idea to make each person an advent calendar. She actually brought the idea to me last year, but at that time, we didn't have enough time to pull it all together. So, we reserved the idea for this year keeping in mind that all calendars needed to be completed before Thanksgiving in order to be able to gift them to everyone before the start of December.

Let me just begin with, we had no idea what we were getting into.

We spent a couple of months looking for design ideas for each of our friends that suited them specifically. I found a lot of the patterns/instructions on Etsy and was able to purchase the cut files for my Silhouette Cameo. I was not well versed in using the paper cutting machine at the start, and now I am extremely experienced with it. Once the patterns were decided on, there came the task of finding suitable decorative papers and cardstocks for each project. It was fun but also a big task. It took a while to sort.

Then, the cutting and construction began...

1) Baldur's Gate III Video Game Sleeve Advent Calendar

The first advent calendar we started on was a Baldur's Gate III inspired calendar made to look like the game packaging from the outside and like a bookshelf on the inside filled with books holding each advent item. They each had titles of books actually found in the video game itself. The larger drawers at the bottom are supposed to represent the crates you can smash for loot in the game, and I 3D printed a potion bottle dice holder to represent the urns and vases that are often on the bookshelves and in the rooms.

                       

2) Baldur's Gate III Double Library Advent Calendar

We also made an expanded version of the Baldur's Gate III themed advent calendar that looked like a wardrobe cabinet from the outside and revealed a library within full of books from the video game.

3) Bag of Holding Advent Calendar

We made a Bag of Holding Advent Calendar by making boxes in the shapes of polyhedral dice (used when playing Dungeons and Dragons and other D20 based role play games. The recipient also crochets, so we found a nice craft bag to use as the holder for the advent dice.

4) Princess Castle

For our friends daughter, we made a pink princess castle. The hardest part about this one was finding fun kid items that fit in the tiny boxes. I was particularly pleased with the pack of scrapbook papers I found in all shades and patterns of pink.

5) Beer Barrel Advent Calendar

A lot of our advent items and calendars were themed toward gaming things. We have one friend who does not game, but he does like to spend quite a bit of free time in the summer at our local Renaissance Faire. And he likes to bake. We combined those two things and printed and painted a cookie jar in the shape of a wooden barrel to be the calendar storage. We wrapped individual advent items and placed them inside.

6) Water Dragon Advent Calendar

Another friend really loves dragons and I found a pattern for a super cute dragon advent calendar on Etsy. She also (as dragons do) loves sparkly things, so I chose glitter scrapbook paper in various shades of blue and green for the dragon scales. I giggle every time I look at his dragon face. It's probably my favorite of the calendars.

7) Witchy Library Advent Calendar

One of our friends shares my interests in both gaming and metaphysical things. She also, like my wife and I both, has a love of reading and books. I made her a wardrobe library similar to what I mentioned above except I chose mystical and witch related scrapbook papers to decorate the books so that they looked like old leather bound mystical tomes I really loved the papers I was able to find for hers. She has pet snakes, and I was even able to find some with a snakeskin pattern and others with a drawing of the snake.

8 and 9) Medieval Castle Advent Calendars 

For two of our other friends, we made medieval style castles (one red, one blue). D8 (8 sided dice) boxes held each day's advent items. I put 1 inch grids on the castle ramparts and in the center section of the castles so they could actually be used with miniatures to play D&D.

 

 

Christmas / Yule 2018: Who Needs to Buy Presents When You Can Make Them? - Part 2

Part 2 of this tale is everything else I made while taking little breaks from working on Darth Vader (because my eyes can only take so much black thread ... don't laugh ... when you see the other projects, you'll understand).

I made a wolf silhouette skyline piece for our friend, Chris. I know he likes wolves, and we live in Minnesota. The night-time winter skyline called to me.

I actually started on this one before DV. I hadn't done any cross-stitch in years, and I wanted a smaller project to start with. It is not super complex, but I think the simplicity really is part of its beauty. I love how it turned out, and I wouldn't want to change anything about it. I am particularly pleased with the matting choice. I think the bright cobalt blue really makes the blues in the stitching pop. Clean, simple, beautiful.




The next item isn't technically a Yule gift, but I wanted to include it here. And it's my blog ... so I am. Two of our friends, Cass and Torrey, moved into a new house, and we finally got to go visit them at

the end of the summer. I wanted to make something special for them, and they are both big fans of Zelda. That's what inspired me to do this piece. I so wanted to do one of the big map pieces, but I was afraid to jump into a project that large with a shorter timeline. I have never cross-stitched any word art before, but I would definitely do another in this style.

Framing and matting was the hardest decision for this piece. I knew right away I wanted to do a simple, black poster-style frame. I have used a similar frame on several of my artwork pieces, and I really like that it doesn't compete with the art. I wanted the outer mat to a charcoal gray or a little lighter to bring out some of the variations of silver and gray in the weapon and shield. I just couldn't find an inner mat that I really liked. It also looked kind of squashed. I decided to play with it and cut out two vertical mat pieces to create the borders on the right and left sides. I think it turned out nicely. I like how it accentuates the length of the cross-stitch piece and brings out the lighter grays/silvers in the stitch-work. Cass and Torrey both seemed to like it, so that made me very happy.

The next piece is NOT a cross-stitch. My friend Tami loves the Disney Villains, especially Ursula, so I wanted to make her something featuring the villains we all love to hate (or hate to love?). It's cold and blustery here a lot of the time. I wanted to make her something cozy that would be just for her. No blanket or shareable. One of the pattern groups I am a member of (Stitch Upon a Time) posted a hooded poncho pattern last fall, and I fell in love with it for this project. It has POCKETS! I wanted it to be warm but not too warm, so I opted for cotton on the outside and polar fleece on the inside. I scouted out the fabric selection that Joann's released around Halloween and kept an eye on it hoping against hope that it wouldn't disappear before Black Friday. And it didn't! They still had one bolt of the villains print that I had in mind when I went shopping on Black Friday. So, I snagged it along with some lime green fleece and set to work. To the left is Tami modeling it because I forgot to snag a picture before gifting it for Yule. Doesn't it look great?! I just love it.

The last item was for my wife. Steffie very rarely asks for anything handmade, so when she does, I
make sure to make it a priority. When I was first learning to knit, she asked for a hat like one her mom made for her as a kid. Her requirement was that it be able to stand up on its own. I think I almost broke my fingers knitting that hat (and did break a few knitting needles during the process). She loves it though and wears it on puppy walks during the winter. It keeps her head nice and toasty even when it's windy.

I was showing her some fun crocheted items on Pinterest right around the holidays, and we saw a fun Grinch scarf that she really liked. She wanted it winter colors (white, blue, silver) instead of red so that it would not be as Christmasy. I couldn't find the pattern anywhere. I found out later the creator had to pull it because of copyright issues even though she was offering it for free. I looked at a lot of pictures, went and bought some yarn, and thought, what the heck ... I'd give it a try on my own. I'd never done any C2C (corner to corner) crocheting before, which is what the original pattern was. I watched about ten YouTube videos on how to do it and set to work. Once I got the hang of how the C2C worked, it went really quickly. I found some free snowflake patterns on the Red Heart yarn site and added those to break up the blue. Getting the eyebrows and eyes just right were probably the hardest part. I am very happy with how the finished piece turned out, and it looks so nice with her hat that stands up.

Christmas / Yule 2018: Who Needs to Buy Presents When You Can Make Them? - Part 1

For Christmas / Yule 2018, I decided I was not going to buy any holiday presents this year. I was going to make all of the presents myself. Before you go all, "Girl, what were you thinking?!" ... I did start making the items in April because I knew it would take quite a bit of time for at least two of the presents. 

I made a Darth Vader wall hanging for one friend, a landscape wolf wall hanging for another friend, and a Disney Villains hooded cape for another friends. I also took a couple breaks during the summer to make another friend a Zelda themed house warming present and to start up a block of the month quilting project.

I am almost done with all of the darkest blue sections.
The Death Star looks like it has a boob.

The Darth Vader project was definitely the most challenging and rewarding of the group. I bought the cross-stitch pattern Needlework #002-10 on Etsy from StitchLine. I decided to stitch it out on a light gray Aida fabric I bought from JoAnn's. There were only about seven colors in the pattern, and almost all of them were shades of dark blue, gray, and black. 

Early on, I was pretty sure my eye-sight would never be the same. With the colors being so close to the same shade, it was easy to  miscount. I cannot tell you the amount of times I had to take out stitches because I was one square over from where I should be. I kept at it though, and things started to come along.

I was so sad that my hoop size was just shy of the full width of the cross-stitch pattern. Before I do another this size, I want to purchase one of the scroll type holders for the fabric so that I do not have to re-hoop and also so that it does not leave hoop marks on my fabric.

I started with the green and light gray shades and slowly worked into the dark grays, blues, and black. The black is the last color I did because it allowed me to mostly just fill in without any sort of counting at that point. I spent a couple of hours a night, maybe three days a week working on it from May until November. I spent so much time

So close to being done with this section.
Just filling in the black.

working on it that last week that the muscles in my hand started cramping any time I tried to hold something smaller than a fat marker. My hands ached and my wrist hurt. I ended up using a compression wrap to finally get it to not be painful.

The fabric looked kinda dingy when it was all done, so I consulted one of the local framing shops on how best to clean the fabric gently. The owner said she always used dove soap, so that's what I did. It did get out the unfortunate Dr Pepper stain and cleaned the general hand grime that always ends up on a project that takes this long to complete. 

Unfortunately, the process that fixed the stains caused the green thread to bleed. I have made at least a dozen wall hangings, and I have never had something like this happen with one before. I always use name brand thread and am careful about using only cold water. It looked like a small creature had peed on the fabric. After some research, I made a fast dash to the craft store for some Carbona Color Run Remover and followed the directions exactly to *cross fingers* remove the color bleeds. When I pulled the fabric out of the chemical solution, the whole design was dark chocolate brown. I was on the verge of the panic attack and a blind rage all at once but something made me decide to rinse it out as the instructions said to anyway. As the cold water washed over it, the colors slowly started to show through. The brown disappeared after about five minutes of rinsing. The flood of relief was real. I was almost crying. That product should REALLY warn you that is going to happen.

I got it dried, ironed out the wrinkles, and ordered a nice frame and mat set  for it since the framing store wanted way more than I could afford to invest this year. I think the finished product turned out quite beautiful, and my friend seemed to really like it. That was the most important part, and it made the aches, pains, and almost tears completely worth it.

First Testimonial on Purchases Made in my Etsy Store!

Meg (user eccomeg) purchased a 5 piece custom set of Christmas stockings from me on Etsy (please see the previous   post about flip flop stockings for pictures of her order), and with her permission I am posting what she had to say about the stockings when she received them in the mail. I had sent her a message the day after Thanksgiving to confirm receipt of her order since the USPS tracking info indicated that it had been delivered that day. This is what she replied:

Yes! Thank you!! We just got back from being away for the Thanksgiving holidays yesterday.

The box was waiting for us and I could not have been happier when I opened it. They're already hanging up! The kids loved theirs and the dog's and my husband was tickled by the hairy toes on his. My is wonderful as well!

I can't believe you made these and with such speed! Thank you so much! Every year I say I am going to make our stockings and every year I have a bag of materials that I feel guilty about so thank you!

We love them - they are too darn cute.

Take care and I hope you had a wonderful holiday with your friends and family and we wish you a relaxing and joyous holiday and New Year.

Meg

I am so happy to hear that she was so thrilled with the results of our collaboration. I always enjoy the creativity and on the fly problem solving that goes into a custom order of an item that I've never made before. I think the purchase ended well for everyone: Meg has five great stockings for her and her family and I have a new pattern to add to my repertoire.  

Christmas Stockings for Tropical Climates and Those Who Would Just Rather Be On The Beach

As a lot of you know, I have an Etsy store where I sell a lot of things that I post about in my blog here. Around this time of year, after the hand full of Viking hat orders that I get just before Halloween, I start to get requests for Christmas stockings. I don't make just any Christmas stockings. I like to make ones that are a little outside the ordinary. Some of the ones I have made in the past include monster feet, dragon feet, mermaid tails, pirate boots, victorian boots, high heel boots, ballerina slippers, wolf paws, puppy paws, and bare feet. I even made a monster ballerina stocking for my wife.

I love the challenge of coming up with designs that are new and different, and I put in all my ads to message me for custom orders. So, I wasn't altogether surprised that during the first part of November I got a message requesting a special order. At first we were discussing making bare feet stockings for a husband and wife as well as maybe a pirate boot and ballerina for a daughter a son and a puppy paw for the family pet.

 As we exchanged emails back and forth establishing exactly what was wanted, the customer sent me a picture of a stocking that she saw online and asked if I could make one like it. Pictured to the right is the original photo. I checked all over online, and I couldn't find anywhere selling them. From the blog article where the photo was posted, it looks like the person may have purchased them on a trip to Hawaii. I had seen the photo before, but I had never seriously considered how I would make the pattern.



Of course, it being me, I said, "Sure, I'll give it a go!" I spent the next week working up a pattern eyeballing the photo and making my prototype. I then sent a picture of my mockup to the customer to see if it was what she wanted. It turns out, it was. She ordered one for herself, her husband (with hairy toes for him), and her son and daughter plus the original puppy paw for her dog. It was a fun back and forth deciding on colors and themes and embroidery for the names on the cuffs. It's the first time I've gotten to use the text option on my embroidery machine. I was really looking forward to testing that out too.

I think they turned out really, really well. It's a design that I will definitely keep in my pattern book. I have never claimed to be a great pattern maker, so I'm rather proud of myself for how well they turned out just from looking at a photo.  Below are the stockings that I made for the family.
This one is for the dad, Chris.    .

This one is for the mom, Meg.

This one is for the son, Wes.

This one is for the daughter, Sophia.

And this one is for the puppy, Ozzie.

Monster Stockings: The Dragon Foot

I've been making different monster themed stockings for a while now, and this past Christmas one of the new ones that I made was a dragon foot monster stocking.

I found this awesome, metallic silver snakeskin fabric at Hancock Fabrics and was inspired to make something with it. It ended up looking great, but the fabric was really problematic because it frayed quite a bit as I worked with it. The hang tab and claws are made out of black felt. I also made a lining of black felt as well to give it shape because the silver fabric was very limp and didn't hang very well on its own. I stuffed the claws and the toes with recycled cotton batting that came out of some old pillows that I keep around for just that purpose. Here is how it turned out when it was finished.

No two of my monster stockings are exactly the same, but I do have a basic pattern that I began with.  I used the Bare Foot Christmas Stocking pattern from the Disney Family Fun website and made some adjustments to it. Instead of cutting out all four toes, I used the edge of the toes as a guideline to make more of a webbed-toe look. I then took away the cuff and added on the claws for a rawrrr look. I think it turned out pretty well.

I posted a picture of this one on my Facebook page after it was completed and one of my high school friends said he wanted one too. I swear there was a whole bolt of this fabric two weeks before that, but when I went back for more there was none at all and no one remembered seeing it ever. I checked around at all of the fabric stores in the area, and no one had anything even similar. 

That was in December. While I was traveling in Iowa just a couple of weeks ago for a renaissance festival I found some even better snakeskin / dragon scale fabric. It was at Hancock Fabrics in Ankeny, Iowa. The fabric is a black, stretch knit with red metallic snakeskin print on it. Since it's a knit, I didn't have the awful fraying issue that I had with the silver fabric before. Also, what really adds a nice pop to this fabric is that the surface is scaled with tiny clear squares of a plasticy material that creates an awesome scaled look and feel.  I will give a heads up if you find any of this fabric and decide to use it. Sewing through the plastic scale material gummed up my sewing machine needle after a while, and every now and then the needle would just slide across a scale rather than through it, which caused a few skipped stitches that had to be fixed later.

Rather than do the webbed toes on this one like the silver one, I took the original pattern and connected toes two-three and toes four-five together to form three big toes. I made the claws more conical in shape. The claws, the pull tab, and the cuff were made from black pvc material purchased from Joann Fabrics. I lined it the same way as the first one with black felt and stuffed the claws and toes to fill them out more. Here is a picture of the red one.

I'll be posting up more of my stockings probably closer to the holiday time to share how I made those. So far I have in my repertoire a ballerina, monster ballerina, high heeled boot, victorian boot, pirate boot, ice skate, furred monster,  wolf, fox, mouse with cheese (for my kitty Buster), and elf stocking.