Advent Calendar Blog Hop: Day 21!

Hello, hello~  Are you here for Jo's Advent Blog Hop on this fine Winter's Solstice?  Sure you are!

Ooo we are so close to Christmas; are you ready?!  I can safely say all the Christmas cards are mailed and so are all the cookies!  I am now working on the "local" cookie batches, mostly the cookies that I love to make but would never survive mailing (decorated sugar cookies, etc) or that my husband loves and I have to make another batch of (thin mints).

Here is what I've created for you behind door 21!  I can assure you it took an awful lot of work to assemble this intricate piece.

almost staying still

Wait, that's not a craft...

Okay, okay, enough with the silliness and on to the Real Stuff.  Every year I've been trying to make something for the tree and this is 2017's contribution.

baby, it's COLD outside

I bought this little kit in a thrift store. I really like brass ornaments so finding a cross-stitch one was awesome!  There doesn't seem to be any images of this particular kit online, but there are stockings and wreaths out there somewhere.  I enjoyed the easy finish of it but it was a bit rough "seeing" the beginning stitches; I simply couldn't process the squares!  I just started at the bottom and worked my way up until it made sense.   Plus the 3-over-1 was remarkably tough despite the the large holes.  Back stitching required a thimble just to stuff the needle through some places!

Technical Details

• Brass Stitchables "Snowman Mitten", a kit by Bucilla.
  
• 3 over 1 on 14-count brass.
  
• Finished Size:
• Started: November ?, 2017, Finished: December 8th, 2017. Unknown hours.

I added a bit of red felt to the back to hide protect the stitches.  I thought I'd get all fancy pants and attach the felt with gold metallic floss to match the brass.  Trying to do that blindly and neatly....... Nope, not happening!  Glue gun to the rescue hah.

And because I felt this was a pretty sparse post, I will share two previous ornaments I don't believe were ever on the blog.

naughty or nice

delicious house

Both of these little kits were picked up in thrift stores (of course).  I believe the gingerbread house is the first Christmas ornament I've ever made in cross-stitch; I scribbled a date on the back of August of 2009 which is the year I started.  It was a fun stitch, although I obviously needed a bit more practice centering in a frame!  Santa  was stitched closer to Christmas that same year and was finished by being glued to cardboard, and then of course that looked ugly on the back, so I cut another piece of cardboard and used Christmas wrapping paper and a fat ribbon for hanging.  I do remember designing the M and C myself because the plain font looked too, well, plain!

Christmas... worm?

And this little guy was made when I was a tiny Rosey in kindergarten.  Our teacher cut out the little pieces of felt and we assembled them into these ornaments with glue.  Then we "sewed" around the edges and stuffed the bottom with a bit of fluff.  Such trust with a needle!  I'm sure nowadays someone would demand that children are too young and would eat the needles or some other disaster.


Jo asks: How do you plan to spend Boxing Day?  Do you have any traditions associated with this day?

Welp, like a few others on this hop, I'm also American and have no specific traditions associated with this day! My husband does actually have off the day after Christmas though, but this is more of a fluke of the days lining up just so.  It's a day for lazing around, eating cookies (and I guess leftovers), and playing with any new toys that Santa deposited under the tree.  Although after reading all the hops so far, I feel this might actually fit in haha.  I could pretend to be a milkgal and you could slip a note under the door on the way out. ;)

Okay, that's enough from me.  Thank you for visiting!  Your next stop is a Double Delight.  Please knock on Craftartista and A Snapshot of my Life's door tomorrow~

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* MERRY CHRISTMAS! *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

As usual with these blog hops, I've scheduled this post to appear overnight here so the people in the future (read: the rest of the world) can have the post in a timely fashion.