Christmas came and went!

Christmas is over! Already! It seemed to get here too quickly and then in a flash, it was over! The girls were so much fun this year! They were really into the Santa business and were very pleased that he brought them everything on their list (their lists were not that long, thank goodness!) They make us laugh so much when they're opening up gifts. They're soooo excited and also so grateful. After every gift Lydia opens she runs and gives the gift-giver a hug. She's so sweet! Arlene is just thrilled with gifts, no matter what. Here's a couple photos from Christmas, more are on my Flickr account, here.

Look at that grin! The girls got American Dolls this year - they are quite cute!

And here's a couple vidoes of them Christmas morning. Lydia is opening her Fur-Real Cat which was her FAV gift and Arlene was opening the Barbie Camper. She had been concerned that Santa didn't know how to make a Barbie Camper and that he wouldn't be able to fit it on his sleigh. Little girl, Santa delivered!

(yes, the scary scratchy voice you hear around 0:15 is moi ... I was needing some coffee, I think!!)

P.S. My mom made the girls' PJ's - and a matching set for their dolls too - cute!!

Tow! Tow!

It's TOWING! We got about an inch of tow* on Tatterday and they were toooow extited. They wore their tetters, coat and towpants and built a towman!

Mr. Towman has baseball bats for arms.

And then a towfight commenced. Arlene is a little tinker!

And poor Daddy was helping them out by adding a mouth to Mr. Towman and Arlene did the whole lift-up-your-shirt-and-stick-snow-inside trick on him! He already had tow on his behind from where Arlene was throwing towballs at him.

Aw, tow cute!

* The girls have trouble speaking their ST or SN sounds. It's a bit hilarious. It's especially hilarious trying to correct them.
Mommy to Arlene: "Say sNow."
Arlene: "Ttttow."
Mommy: "It's sssssnnnnnoooow."
Arlene: "Sssssstttttow."

Have you been good this year?

After the girls had their sing-a-long to Rudolph earlier this week, I recorded them as I asked them questions about Christmas. Their answers and the comments they have for each other crack me up! (FYI, that's Mr. Fox in Lydia's lap - she won him at Kings Island and looooooooves him.)

Is there such a thing as too much garland?

So. I'm a tad bit addicted to garland. Paper garland, fabric garland, felt garland. Love. I made a Halloween garland in October and decided to do the same for Christmas. I made one and hung it in front of our living room windows. In all honestly I'm not 100% in love with it (I should have alternated red and white felt for the flags but instead made it all white with red letters, ooooh well) but it's up and it spells Christmas cheer. Literally. It says, "It's Christmastime!" (or as my smart aleck husband - whom I love dearly, don't get me wrong! - said, "It's-upside-down-J-Christmastime!") ha HA that's supposed to be a CANDY CANE thank you very much! {clicks on pics to make larger}

Then I found a free online print-out for paper garland. Go here to get it. I stapled it together this weekend and put it on our banister, which already had a garland of star lights.

And if you look close, you'll see that on the banister below that banister, I wrapped it with red and white ribbon. Ribbon garland!

And then! I wasn't done there, oh no! Remember my simple wreath? It was too simple and it became apparent that it too, needed a garland. So I jazzed it up with a garland of buttons and felt!

Etsy Fav's Wednesday - the Blogger's Wish List!

For this special Christmas edition of Etsy Favorite Wednesdays, I asked five of my blogger friends what is on their Etsy wish list!

Amber wants this quilted bag! She says: "I've always kind of had a soft spot for quilts, but I've just recently realized that there's more to quilting than pretty blankets. The other day I got to pick out fabrics for a quilted project and had the best time! It kinda made my day when the 105-year-old woman working the counter said I did a fantastic job. :-) This bag caught my eye because it's brown, blue and green (pretty much the best color combo ever) and it's 'shabby'." I will add that this bag screams AMBER! It is perfect for her!

Mickey D wants this gorgeous Necklace! She loves pearls and loves the vintage look of the necklace; I concur! I love the filigree pendant. She also wants this plumeria-scented body cream.

Sassy Times wants this super cute camera strap, stating that it's a unique way to personalize your camera to fit your own style. Agreed! She adds, "I love that it just slips over your existing camera strap. You could have a few and swap them out at your leisure. I also LOVE that it has a pocket for your lens cap. What a useful and convenient idea. The Michael Miller fabric is adorable...my personal favorite in the shop, next to the classic black damask."

Two Pretzels wants this squirrel t-shirt! Hilarious! And also this gorgeous chrysanthemum necklace and this adorable kissing gnomes pendant!


Wrestling Kitties wants this retro apron! She says, "I have been looking for a sweet, retro style apron for awhile. Why? I just love aprons. I am sure I could make one, but why, when these are just so cute! There are actually tons of suh-weet aprons on Etsy, but this one is by far my favorite!" I'm nodding in agreement - there are indeed tons of suh-weet aprons on Etsy!

And me! What I want for Christmas is a whole lotta handprinted fabric. You see, after the craziness of Christmas is over (my little fingers are practically bleeding what with all of the sewing, making and crafting I've been doing as of late! - pics to come after the holidays!) I fully intend on casually sewing a quilted tablecloth for our dining room table. I covet handprinted & hand screenprinted fabric. I love the organic feel of it. I want to mix handmade fabric in with commercial fabric for my tablecloth. Pictured above is a cheery print to get me started. If you take a gander at my favorites in Etsy you can see lots others that I want.

Sing-a-long!

Say it ain't so!

10 days 'till Christmas! Whoah! Where did the time go?!

A sale! for my friends!

Dear readers, I'm offering a sale in my Etsy shop for you!

From now until next Wednesday, December 16, you may take 25 percent off any item in my shop!

Go to the Two Stars Etsy shop to start shopping!

With this sale, this lovely lady here costs $13.50!

This cutie here? $16.50!

This beauty? $24.75!

AND, if you purchase TWO dolls, I'll throw in free shipping! Which means that two regularly-priced $18 dolls would cost you $27 total, a savings of $13!

I may remind you, it's really hip to buy handmade for the holidays. Everyone's doing it. So should you.

Please, this is important! upon checkout from Etsy, write me a note in the "notes to seller" portion and let me know that you'll be applying the "COUPLE HOURS DISCOUNT" and I will refund you the 25 percent off as soon as I receive your payment. {If you wish to buy something from my shop but don't have an Etsy account, please leave me a comment with your email address and we'll get you all fixed up.}

~~ This promotion also applies to my Facebook friends and

friends of my Two Stars Etsy Shop fan page on Facebook! ~~

{This offer does not apply to custom orders!}

Etsy Favorites Wednesday - Letterpress Christmas Cards

Is there a particular date that is the proper date for sending out Christmas cards? I'm never quite sure when exactly to send my cards. I'm always stressing about this time in December because I think I should be done with them already. But I haven't even started! I have my cards purchased, but I need to get a good photo of the kiddies to put inside. This year I bought some cute cards at a big box store because last year I spent a pretty penny on my cards. See my post here for a picture. I loved those cards; I almost didn't want to send them out. I wanted to keep them all for myself! I decided that I'll buy letterpress cards every other year, because I adore letterpress so! and the years in between will be store-bought cards. I did find a really cute design this year, so I'm happy. However, if I were in the market to purchase letterpress cards, I'd buy one or all of these:

Peace - ahhh, the detail! The raised letters, snowflakes and dots ... ahhhh! Lovely.


Wish - so simple yet so pretty!


Snowflakes - oh goodness, those raised snowflakes! Scrumptious!


Bright - I love the use of bright pink and green.


Wonderland - check out the detail! This card is my favorite of all. I am tempted just to buy one set of these cards, to send to six of my most favorite people. But then I'd be stressing out about which six people to send the card to, feeling bad for the people that didn't get the "special" card! Best just to stick to my every-other-year plan, I think. But check out the three lines at the bottom where you write your message - clever!

DIY Gift Guide, Vol. 3

For this DIY Gift Guide, I'm featuring some snazzy little wreaths that you can make for your own home or make as gifts!

Gumdrop Wreath - I have always, always, always loved gumdrop wreaths. I. Love. Them.

Snowball Wreath - made out of foam balls! It would be fun to use spray paint to make it all red, or to color the foam balls different colors before putting them into the wreath.

Wrapped Yarn Wreath - these are neat and seem pretty easy to make too and you can add cute little scenes to them.

Pom Pom Wreath - I adore the vintage look of this one. And if you don't feel like making a ton of green pom poms you can make your own and buy it here!

Another Pom Pom Wreath - I realllly like this one a lot!

Paper Wreath - From vintage pom poms to modern paper! This one is just so cool. And you wouldn't necessarily have to use Christmas colored papers either. It would look neat with any color combo.

Why am I doing these DIY guides? Well because handmade is cool and you should either make gifts this year or buy handmade!

DIY Holiday Gift Guide, Vol. 2

Are you making any of your Christmas gifts this year? You should! Do it! If you're not making any gifts, are you at least perhaps buying handmade? You should! Do it! Search Etsy for awesome handmade gifts! Also check out Craft Cult, which is a sister site of Etsy. It features Etsy's Treasury Lists and other great collections of items available on Etsy. I've discovered some clever Etsy crafters from that site and I'll be advertising on there next week!

Last month I featured my first DIY Gift Guide; link here.

I found some more good ideas to share with you! If you end up making a gift from an idea featured in this or my other guide, or just anything at all handmade as a gift, please let me know, I'd love to see it!

Chic Wrist Cuff - How cute are these? Perfect for fabric scraps and unique buttons. Go to this blog to read the post about the cuffs and to get the downloadable PDF.

Moustache - everyone, I mean everyone, needs a good 'stache. These would make hilarious stocking stuffers! Click here to get the tutorial.

Sewing cards for kids - the girls played with a wooden sewing card at a friends house and really loved it. I never thought about making them myself! Check out this blog's tutorial for an easy way to make them.

Fabric scrap necklace - I love the playful nature of this necklace. It seems to be pretty easy to make too. Go here for the tutorial.

I found a tutorial ages ago for using teacups as candle holders - go here to see it. I made my mom a candle last year for Christmas and for the girls' birthday party this year I gave candles to the grown-up girls as party favors. They are so much fun to do! And they can be relatively inexpensive too - I found those teacups pictured above for 29 to 49 cents each at Goodwill. Get a 40% off coupon in Sunday's paper to Michaels and buy the microwaveable soy wax!

Give-a-way Day!

It's Give-a-way Day at the Sew Mama Sew blog. Go there to see the lists of give-a-ways of hand-crafted items. Most of the give-a-ways are open until Sunday, so you have time to wade through the blogs. I will be entering just about every one!!

Etsy Favorites Wednesday - Doilies!

As the seasons change or holidays approach, I like to change up our bathroom's color scheme. We have a small bathroom, so this is easily accomplished by switching up the shower curtain and towels. When I put up the Christmas decorations this past weekend I realized that our Halloween-ish themed bathroom was just that, Halloween-ish themed. I had a shower curtain with Jack Skellington heads all over it and yellow and orange towels. So I decided to holiday/winter it up a bit. I found a cute white shower curtain with a huge doily pattern and some light blue towels. I really like the shower curtain (The girls think the doily is a big snowflake!) but then I was laughing at myself once I got everything up because the combination of doily pattern and blue towels really grandma'd up the bathroom! But I decided to go with it. Take it to the next level! I pulled out my grandma stash of doilies and found a toilet lid doily. Awwww yeah! Check out pics (click to make larger, these are small):

So anyway (wow, this is the longest intro to an Etsy Favs list to date!) I realized that I do, indeed, really like doilies, because I do have quite a few around my house. Last year my mom made two white lamp doilies for me, which are in my living room:

And for the longest time I've had this delightful orange and yellow doily on top of my vintage sewing cabinet at the end of my hallway. I'm not sure but I think this came from the grandma stash as well.

Yes, I am a grandma. But wait! Doilies are hip! Proof! Check out these fantastic doilies that I found on Etsy!

Silkscreened doily tea towel - very delicate looking and at first glance I didn't realize they were from a stencil, I thought they were stitched right onto the towel.


Paper doily garland - so whimsical and fun!


Doily earrings - oh wow, I love these.


Ornaments - Doilies belong on Christmas trees, yes ma'am.


Pink doily - I've got a lamp that doesn't have a doily under it. I need this pink one!