Merry Pinterest

Hopefully everyone has been enjoying the holiday season with family and friends. Lee and I finished up Christmas with our families yesterday with his parents. It was great to spend so much time with our families, as we have both been so busy lately. The Christmas holiday crept up on us very quickly. I only had time to make one gift for a friend this year, last year nearly all my gifts were crafty!

I got sucked into the pinterest cult about a month ago, which is great during class when lectures can't hold my attention. :) I love having all my inspirations for quilts and other crafts, along with ideas for finishing our basement, all in one place. If anyone needs an invite to pinterest, let me know. But be warned: it is addictive!

While browsing pinterest I added a few things onto my to-do list, and finished them. The first was a makeover of our front door to showcase our new picture frame wreath. When we bought our house it was a boring white color, with blue trim. We painted it a year later to a slate blue, with white trim but never got around to paining the front door, which I have wanted red ever since we moved in. When I found this holiday frame wreath on pinterest I had an excuse to finally paint it. Here is our holiday wreath:

I love how it turned out, and how easy it will be to change the item in the frame with changing seasons and holidays. I am going to work on painting a 'K' for non-holiday months (for our last name). Not sure if I want to do a heart for Valentines day yet (my least favorite holiday) but I will be making a four leaf clover for March!

Another item I added to my to-do list for the holidays were these melted snowman cookies:

The recipe is here. Aren't they adorable, and very easy too. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to snap a picture of my cookies before taking them to the cookie exchange for work. I had a couple though, they were delicious.

The last item on my holiday to-do list was the one and only homemade gift I did this year: a mini quilt of the Hogwarts Crest.

This was my first attempt at paper piecing, which I was surprised at how easy it was. The geek in me did a little dance when I discovered sewhooked.com has free patterns for many different Harry Potter themed blocks. The recipient loved her crest, and my husband was a little sad to learn it was a gift for someone else. I will be making another to stay in our home, not sure if it will be a wall hanging like this one, or a pillow for the couch.

Well, those have been my crafts from the past month. I was thrilled to find out I got A's last semester, hopefully I can keep my GPA up next semester too. I have two weeks before classes start, with one week before I go back to work, I love winter holiday break! A friend asked me to make her a quilt for her nephew, which I have sketched my plan for, then I have a few other quilts on my to-do list. My goal is to finish at least two quilts....I'll keep you posted. :)

 Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah, blog friends!