I’m going to spread some holiday cheer by sharing with you some blogs you may not have found yet but that I’m sure you’ll enjoy.

The first person I have to share with you is Niki who is a faithful commenter on my blog. And I am a faithful reader of her blog. I love her projects, stories, and freebie links that she shares. Go check her out.

Linda is the second and last of my awesome commenters. (Do I need to do some more commenting myself maybe?) Her blog is fun and festive right now. I love her applique projects and her cats are beautiful. I wonder if there is truth to my observation that artistic people tend to like cats.

I would be remiss if I did not provide a link to Stacy Sews. She was my inspiration to start this crafty blog and try my hand at making clothes. Really, she was my introduction to this community of crafty bloggers where I fit right in. I love all of her projects, stories of building a house & moving in, celebrity fashion critics, and creative swapping. Great stuff.

Turtlog.com is not your typical crafty blog, in fact it is run by turtles. Which might explain why it hasn’t been updated for over a year. Oh well. It is still a great read!

Belinda over at Tutti Fruiti has given me a ton of crafty inspiration. I love her taste and style. Her daughters are cute as buttons too.

I’ve been told my friends that coming to our house is like coming to a library. Which is true. We love books. Especially my mom and I. Every where you go there are books. Above are two shelves of books found in my room alone. The first shelf is books I’ve collected and have available for swap at Paperback Swap. The second is a shelf full of books that I plan on reading or have read once and would love to read again sometime. Rereading books to me is like visiting with old friends you haven’t seen in a while but love to hang out with.

Another thing about books as far as posting about books I’ve read. I listen to a lot of audio books but won’t post a book review on those because I don’t feel like I really get as much out of listening to something as I do out of reading it. I get the gist of the story but feel as if I’ve lost something by not reading it and concentrating fully on the book. The other books that I won’t post a review of are Love Inspired paperbacks that I will read. Those books I read for fun and the quick lighthearted enjoyment I receive from them. But besides audio books and Love Inspired paperbacks I will post reviews for all of the other books I read, which hasn’t been many lately unfortunately.

The ornaments for 2007 are completed! I made twelve ornaments of different colors. Seven for me and my family + two for my grandparents + three for girlfriends. These took a while and are much more fun to make when you do a bunch instead of one at a time. I made one originally to see how it would work. It felt like it took forever because I had to wait so long for the glue to dry in order to work on the next part. If you are making a bunch you can do one step move on to the next ornament do the step again on down the line and by the time you’ve done that step on all of the ornaments the first ornament is dry so you can keep moving without delay. If you want to do this ornament next year you could bookmark the tutorial that I used, Pink Christmas Ornament.

Now, I wasn’t going to do this. Comment on individual episodes of project runway, but I saw a lot of designs in the first episode that I liked. I can’t wait to see what is coming next this season. Above are my top three. None of them made it to the top three but none of them were out either. The third one I like but I don’t think it is especially interesting. It is pretty and it looks like a dress I have in my closet. My dress has maroon accents and a square neckline but I like the blue. It looks like something I would wear if it was more modest.

I agree with the judges on the dress that was out (not pictured), but which of these dresses do you think won? One was the winner and one was in the bottom two. The gray dress won. Can you believe it? To me it looks like high fashion during the height of the Roman Empire. Can I wear it to a costume party with my date as Achilles? The blue is gorgeous and innovative. Just cut of the fabric scrap tail and you have an awesome dress. Not deserving of the bottom two at all. I loved it minus the tail.

First off, I will say I was so much more impressed with season 3 than with season 2 of runway. And I was thrilled with the fact that all four of those designers were chosen to go to fashion week. All four of them deserved to be there unlike both previous seasons where I felt like some of the designers should have been left behind. Above are pictures of my favorites from both Michael’s and Laura’s collections. I was rooting for Michael I think he’s great and have loved his clothing throughout the competition and his personality… but I admit I was under-impressed. Laura’s collection was predictable.

Uli and Jeffery were the top two for me as well as for the judges. I loved Uli’s collection but after a while it felt like I was seeing the same thing. Although, Uli’s collection felt the most connected from my perspective. From what I saw on the runway I do feel that Jeffery was the obvious winner as far as innovation and creativity. I still haven’t seen anyone top Jay McCarroll from season 1 though. I’m looking forward to watching season 4.

Anyone want to make some popcorn cake for Christmas? It is one of our family traditions to make popcorn cake and give it to different families at our church. We have to make some for ourselves too of course. Here’s the recipe/tutorial if anyone is interested.

Ingredients:
1 stick of butter
2 tsp. milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup of brown sugar
10 oz. pkg miniature marshmallows
5 quarts of popcorn

Melt butter, milk, vanilla, brown sugar, and marshmallows together in a saucepan.

Pour over popcorn and put into angel food cake molds. Let cool.

Popcorn cakes can then be decorated with candy. We have used gumdrops before. This year we forgot to buy gumdrops so we took some of our marshmallow mixture, added food coloring and flavor oils, and drizzled on our cakes. Then find some festive paper plates and some saran wrap to finish them up. They are ready to gift or eat yourselves. Enjoy!

Today we had our church Christmas program which my mom directed and I was her right hand gal. Above are photos of the “Christmas tree” we built for the “scene changes”. Each side has a scene and then it rotated when the scene changed. Our program wasn’t a traditional program but had four parts… the manger, the cross, the tomb, and the world. The overall program was very focused on the gospel and the reason why Christ came to earth as a baby. At the end we had a candle-lighting service that was beautiful.

I didn’t get to snap any pictures during the program since there were too many other things to pay attention to. But, I did get this picture of the “set” before the program. It was a long day but went so smoothly. We spent all day at church a total 14 hours. But it was worth it.

I opened up an Etsy Shop with a few of the projects I’ve had laying around. Hopefully in January I will put up some of the purses I’m planning on making. So bookmark my shop and keep an eye out for new products coming soon.