Burford Designs

‘Tis the Season for Ugly Christmas Sweaters

Seriously, the house looks like Christmas exploded all over it. Even though the floors get swept and or vacuumed every night there is still tinsel everywhere and somehow Chewie and Spanky always seem to find that one stray piece of the teeniest tiniest bit of it. But that is not my reason for writing today.

Today it’s all about why the house looks like that… Ugly Christmas Sweaters!

Boy did Mommy and I have fun creating these this year. I wasn’t sure we would top the creativity of last year but I’m so pleased (actually down right giddy) with what we’ve created this year. There have been several sweaters that, once created, one of us (or the other) have stated “I don’t know if I want to sell it, I really like this one!”

This is just a smattering of some of our eBay listings.

(Deck the Halls – my image)

This sweater is from the Eighties with a vintage cloth storybook page... the colors matched so well.

(An American Original – my image)

This is one sweater that Mommy really wants to keep.  Somehow the photos just don't do it justice.  It is body hugging yet slimming and oh so cute in person.

(Grandma Got Run Over – my image) 

A little insider's secret... Rudolph was made out of an unfinished sock monkey!  I wasn't sure what I wanted to name this sweater, so many ideas, then I thought that "this must be how grandma got run over."

Of course, if you want to see more you can check us out on eBay – username Libbynell. 

Also, thanks for passing this along and sharing with anyone you know who may be in the market for an Ugly Christmas Sweater.

And as a post script – some people have been asking (and others didn’t need to ask) the live model for our pics is none other than Mommy herself. We love to joke that she’s not your typical 63-year-old grandma! You’ll know why if you take a look at our listings or wait for one of my follow-up posts.

Grosgrain Shoe Sugar Month Happening Now

This Grosgrain post is, amazingly enough, not about a giveaway (although I guess I should mention that Kathleen is having a major giveaway on her site… a Sizzix Big Shot).  I wanted to let you know that Kathleen is doing a month of posts titled Shoe Sugar Month.  Shoe Sugar Month is all about making fabulous adornments for and decorating your shoes (or your daughter’s or a friend’s shoes).  Right now she is on Day 15 (here is her Shoe Sugar Month Click on Squares to see all of the days that have been posted).

Last spring Kathleen began a Total Shoe Redo where she posted a few ideas for redoing shoes, this one is for adding cherry clusters.  To see the others simply check the link within below her post or type in Total Shoe Redo on the right hand side of her blog.

 

Kathleen recently finished Embellish Knit Month where she showed various ways to, ahem, embellish you knits.  Day 30 was one of my faves.

And just so you know, the winner of the giveaway (for the Sizzix Big Shot) will be announced (over at Grosgrain) at the end of Shoe Sugar Month which will be on Day 30.

Lovely Silhouettes from the Silhouette

Just about a month ago, on November 29, 2010 to be exact, I found out that I had won the Silhouette machine giveaway over at Grosgrain fabulous.  I was ecstatic.  Originally, I found out by someone commenting on my blog congratulating me.  Although I didn’t not believe the comment I still quickly jumped over to the Grosgrain blog to see for myself.   And there it was… congratulations to me. 

I have wanted a machine and debating over a Cricut and a Silhouette for quite some time but never got around to purchasing one or the other because I always choose to spend my money on other things.  Sometimes decisions like these are nicer when then are settled for you especially when they don’t cost me any extra money. 

 

I know that good things come to those who wait but it was difficult waiting for this to arrive.  I shot an email to Kathleen (Grosgrain) letting her know my info and anxiously waited to hear back about when I would receive it.  After a couple of weeks I emailed Kathleen again letting her know that I hadn’t heard anything and I hadn’t received anything either.  She let me know that she had contacted the person running the promotion and forwarded me the email letting her know that I hadn’t heard anything yet. 

Waiting when you know something is coming is one thing; waiting without knowing if it would really be coming at all is another thing.  Luckily and happily on Christmas Eve a package arrived and it was my silhouette machine.  I am very thankful to have won such a great prize and have many uses already planned for it.  Now I just need to put it to good use. 

 

Thank you Kathleen and thank you Silhouette!

Christmas Traditions

Apparently I have no problem keeping with some Christmas traditions such as finishing up gifts, wrapping presents and doing other activities while A Christmas Story plays in a continuous loop thanks to TBS.  It is now playing for my third listening/ viewing pleasure.  Regardless of what I am watching, I had to wait until just a couple hours so that I would have the living room all to myself.  Normally Mommy and Daddy go to a Christmas Eve party at my cousin's house in town but this year they decided to forgo that and instead have a nice dinner at home.

 

Mommy had decided what she wanted to eat but it was up to me to actually plan how to cook everything.  We had a fabulous dinner of Herb Roasted Cornish Game Hens a medley of Roasted Root Vegetables, homemade French Bread Dressing, Braised Swiss Chard and Collard Greens and fresh dinner rolls Daddy made that morning.  Mommy decided at the last minute that she wanted "stuffing" (she continues to call it stuffing although she never has actually "stuffed" a bird, she's too afraid).  Luckily we had some stale French bread and I just figured that I would figure it all out as I went along.

 

It was all so delicious.  We have enough to have a light lunch tomorrow but not too much that we will be eating it for days.  I'm so happy that  we started making all of the little treats and snacks for our Christmas celebration early.  Now we can just get up in the morning and enjoy the day.

I know that Mommy won't be reading this until after we open presents so I can share part of her gift with you.  I wasn't sure that I would have anything handmade for Christmas this year, which would be odd, then I remembered that I had some UFOs (unfinished object) and knew exactly what I wanted to finish for her.  The photo above is a pendant I made with a photo of her as a little girl (the other side is a picture of Daddy right about the same age as her). 

 

Now, with everything wrapped, I'm about ready to rest my head and hope for visions of sugar plums to dance in my head.  I will be back later today to share some recipes of the treats we will be nibbling on later today.

 

Merry Christmas!

Tricking and Treating with Martha Stewart

Although I missed the premiere for Martha Stewart’s Halloween special on the Hallmark Channel, “Tricking and Treating with Martha Stewart”, I am happy that I should be able to catch a repeat coming up on Wednesday, October 27^th at 10 AM and 2 PM Eastern and Pacific, 9 AM and 1 PM Central.

Here’s what Marthastewart.com had to write about the show:

 

“Create your spookiest Halloween celebration ever as Martha hosts a one-hour Fright Night special featuring guest Brendan Fraser. Set a haunting scene at home with a ghoulish mummy mirror, feast on a sinfully delicious spread of Halloween cookies, cupcakes, and creepy treats, and learn how to make a no-sew children's knight costume. Plus, find out what Martha's going to be this Halloween!”

 

Martha’s move to Hallmark Channel has had its ups and downs for me.  I like that there are new specials and that shows air throughout the day and week.  I also love that this time around Martha’s website has links to what they did in the special as well as some bonus footage, available exclusively online.

 

What I am currently disappointed in is that, from what I’ve (not) found while searching, neither Martha’s website nor the Hallmark Channels website list other days and times the program will run.  I’ve searched both sites, TV schedule sites, etc.  They just aren’t making it easy on me.  At least FLN showed airing days and times and I was able to relay that on this blog.  Maybe that is something both Martha Stewart (well, her staff) and Hallmark Channel need to look into before their next special.  It would be nice for those of us who like to watch and rewatch specials.

 

I’ll be tuning in this Wednesday though, hope to see you there too.

 

The one hour primetime special originally aired on Sunday, October 10^th at 9 PM ET/PT, 8 PM C on Hallmark Channel.

A Joli Paquet Halloween 2010

It’s not too late to join in on the fun and hopefully, possibly purchase a Joli Paquet Halloween or autumn themed kit for yourself.

The FALL 2010 event began October 5th with all new free tutorials being posted on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  The FALL event included Halloween and Fall themed kits for purchase. The original Kit Preview Day was October 12^th and Kit Sale Day was October 14^th but some might still be available.

 

There have been several cute projects and I’m set to make some up this weekend.  I especially like the Felt Folk Art Cat Ornament.  I can totally see that concept used for a jack-o-lantern, skeleton, and taking it on to Christmas with a snowman or a Santa (or even a Jack, skeleton, cat, or Sally if I was going to do a Nightmare Before Christmas theme).

 

Please be sure and visit their individual blogs. Just click on the artists' links below their badge in the side bar on the Joli Paquet site.

 

You can still access last year’s Joli Paquet tutorials either by scrolling through their site or by checking out my post from last year titled Silly Me.

 

For other Halloween tutorials you might want to look at this post from last year.  I hope to have some more links up soon.

New Creations

There has been a lot of creating going on at my house especially since the Aunt’s departure (I got my workroom back and now it is super clean a big plus for me).  With just over two weeks until the next show I am particularly happy to be making new and different product.

 

I haven’t snapped any photos of my most recent creations but new for this year, debuting at the June show, are these hats:

 

First up is a lovely yellow flower fascinator on a headband.  I’ve always had an obsession with hats even though I haven’t really made any before this year (probably two real hats and one alteration).  It was a lot of fun to make this head topper… everything from the flower to the frame.

Here’s another hat I made… a beautiful gathered leopard print.  I also decoupaged the display head.

 

Two more hats in the black and white series.  The sun bonnet is fun with that pop of neon green and the hat in the back is really retro when it’s on an actual person.

I’ve also made several different styles of these bib statement necklaces.  This is my nautical one.  I also have one in the same deep harvest yellow of the fascinator hat above, one in a combination of various blacks, whites and greys, and one in different pale golds.

 

Mommy and I also made these adorable little bird nests on vintage saucer plates complete with a ceramic bird.  They are very cute and each one is slightly different.

There is still a lot left to do and I will be having fun working on everything for the next couple of weeks in order to share it all with you, but that happens before and after Project Runway tonight.

 

Happy Thursday!

Treasures on Foxwood June

Last August Mommy and I participated in a local show advertised as a vintage, antique and handmade show called Treasures on Foxwood.  This year Jeanine (the proprietor) decided that she had so much fun during that show that she wanted not only to do the August show again but to add a June show this year.  Mommy and I decided to go along with it since this is one of the closest shows to our house and we really like Jeanine (and her husband Roger) as well as our location on the property (right in the front).  It is a young show but Jeanine is a hard worker and puts on a fabulous show (it would be difficult to know that this was only her second show on the property).  She travels all over the area and beyond to promote the show, hand pick vendors and do what she needs to do in order to have a fabulous show. 

Jeanine decided that she wanted a theme running through the booths and determined to give the show a tag line of “Lacey Days”, meaning that each vendor was to use lace somehow in their booth.   Not a difficult task for us.

This show happened on Father’s Day weekend and it was a little slow.  I think it was a combination of the holiday and weather-wise it was a bad weekend.  The week or so leading up to it was rainy, Saturday was decent, but rain hit again throughout Sunday, not so good for a show being held outdoors.

 

I look forward to the next show that is being held on August 14^th and 15^th located 35 miles north of Spokane on Highway 2 and 5 miles south of Newport, located just north of Diamond Lake, watch for the signs.

 

Hope to see you there!

Aunt Tees

One of the things that I busied myself with was altering t-shirts for each of the sisters.  I really only wanted to make shirts for the visiting sisters but begrudgingly made one for everyone so that they could each have a memento of their time together.  I have wanted to mess around with some shirts for a while now and even got a few for me to have personally, but I didn’t want to just go for it on my own shirts so I began with a simple white tee that I had in my “to alter” pile and began the process while I was watching a movie.  I cut, gathered and stitched everything by hand for my first try with this tee

 

I loved how it turned out and decided that my best path to crafting the shirts was to just go for it and let my creativity take over.  I sat down to complete them one afternoon but the power choose not to cooperate (I decided for the sister’s shirts I would do a combination of hand stitching and machine stitching depending on what exactly I was doing with each shirt.)

 

Mommy and I got a great deal on these shirts when we found them on sale at Michael’s in early June.  I picked out specific shirts for each sister choosing colors that I thought would look good on them or that I knew they would really like. 

 

Here is a photo of all of the shirts getting ready to be delivered to the sisters. 

 

One of the sisters is a little more subdued so I made the blue one with the rolled roses and smaller ruffle for her.  The other sisters are a little more outrageous so the colors and adornments got a little crazier, more fun, etc.

 

I did a little extra altering on Mommy’s shirt because she has lost a lot of weight and I like to make sure she is styled well.

 

I’ll share my shirts once I finish them. 

 

Happy Monday!!

Tulita’s Got a Brand New Dress

Baby Boy just emailed me some great photos of Tulita in her new dresses.  I am very happy to receive these pictures so quickly, especially seeing that they needed to be pressed after their flight back to San Francisco (cramped quarters between Tulita, Drew, their clothes and lots of cords and camera equipment).

 

Baby Boy enjoyed shopping in our neck of the woods because the prices are quite a bit better, particularly when vintage clothing items are involved. 

 

Here is a photo of Marla (the mannequin) and Tulita in their new to them frocks.  I love the green number Marla is wearing… all she needs now are some mod sunglasses, a stewardess bag and some white go-go boots (I guess I now know what I’ll be giving her for her birthday).  Marla is also sporting a new wig (one of two purchased this last weekend).  Her normal hair is very similar to Tulita’s.

This is Marla’s second look, I believe it’s actually a pants set.

Finally, here is Tulita in the wild print dress that Mommy made her.  It is reversible depending on if she wants the buttons up the back or down the front.

I’m glad that Baby Boy and the girls are happy with their new looks.  All of us, including Mommy, are still trying to recuperate from the weekend and need a lot more sleep.  I’ve sketched out plenty of ideas for new outfits but they will have to wait a bit longer since Mommy and I now have tickets to see some of Tulita and Drew’s relatives in Avenue Q this weekend.