Christmas is Family

We celebrated with my family on Sunday. My youngest sister Julia and her fiance Mitchell (they'll be getting married in Hawaii next summer, woot woot) hosted in the home they bought together this year.

Clover was pretty stoked on her new Brave get-up. With that ear sticking out, doesn't she looks like a little elf in these pics?

With my beautiful Mom and sisters! From left: Shayna (8 years younger than me), Julia (10 years younger), Mom, and Val (2 years younger), yup, I'm the oldest.

Toss in some husbands (or soon-to-be), add some kids, and you've got the whole fun crew! Always a blast hanging out with my fam :)

Today we're spending time with Lucas' family and then off to gather with friends this evening. Things have been so busy lately, I haven't been around to the comments sections of all my best bloggy gals, I love you ladies, y'all know who you are!

From mine to yours, a very Merry Christmas full of love, laughter, kinship, and many magical moments!

She's Crafty

Last Sunday I had the pleasure of joining my dear, lovely, creative friend Angelina, as a vendor, at the Santa Rosa Crafts Fair known as Shop Party. Held at the Arlene Francis center, a wonderful old brick building in Historic Railroad Square, we were both excited to set up shop for the day in the little corner we shared with Angelina’s friend Cleo, another first time vendor and maker of beautiful knitwear.

Angelina’s handmade patchwork pillows, braided rag bracelets, and unique mixed media homemade holiday cards were accompanied by my own galactic gift boxes. I used nice thick pages from a 1970 Astronomy book, picked up last summer at a garage sale, to create origami style boxes. An old suitcase that Milla had given me made a perfect display case.

I can't say I blame the woman who fell in love with the beautiful waves of hand stitching on that gorgeous pillow. Needless to say, it found a new home.

I brought the bunting I made from vintage fabric strips for Clover's birthday party to spruce up our little space. It went so well with the pillows and rag bracelets! Speaking of which, Angelina and I did a trade and I LOVE my rag bracelet :)

Clover and Finn brandishing their own crafty scores of the day, purchased from a neighboring vendor.

The galactic gift boxes were quite popular with the gentlemen as it turns out, in fact they seemed to gravitate toward them (harhar). Girls were into them too, but not as without fail as the boys that wandered by, which was interesting and even a bit comical after awhile. That's our friend Nick above, deciding which ones he would be taking home.

As first time craft fair vendors, we had a fun time playing shop and even sold a bit of everything. I was able to turn my fifty cent garage sale book purchase into about 50 bucks and I really liked how the boxes turned out.

It was a good learning experience for us too. As friends who happen to be very aesthetically in tune, Angelina and I sometimes fantasize about the idea of having our own handmade and vintage shop to thoughtfully curate together. *sigh*

In other crafty news, I've been into making hand-knit washcloths as gifts for awhile now. I've used this basic pattern and played around with different colors and using knits and purls to add bumpy little designs. They're easy, quick, fun to make, and useful too!

My current project, as of yesterday, is one of these hand-knit dishcloths inspired by vintage tea towels. Lovely, no?

Are you getting crafty this holiday season? I'd love to hear what you're working on :)

Looking forward to seeing our niece Fiona dance multiple roles tonight in a full-length production of The Nutcracker Ballet. You know who is SO excited!

Kiddo Style

I could not resist getting a shot of Clover and Maiya this morning, heading off to school in all their mismatched pattern glory!

These two have lived right next door to each other since Clover was born and along with Maiya's younger sister Claire, if there was such a thing as common law sisters...

they would definitely qualify!

In fact, growing up with her thick as thieves twin cousins right across the street as well, she pretty much barely qualifies as an only child.

A few more snaps from last weekend. On Sunday afternoon we walked downtown and stopped off at the Luther Burbank Home and Gardens for their Annual Holiday Open House.

While the gardens are open to stroll through year round, this is the only time the inside of Burbank's historically preserved home is open to the public.

They didn't allow picture taking inside. I found that out as I was attempting to capture the light coming in through this lovely window of colored glass vessels... Oops :)

Happy Weekend!

Merry and Bright

Sweater: Thrifted

Cowl: Gift from Anne (she made it :)

Painted driftwood necklace: Gift from Anne (also her handiwork!)

Levi's: From Angelina

Boots: Thrifted

Not the most exciting outfit ever, but here I am!

With all this RAIN we've been having, these duck boots I thrifted last year are getting lots of wear. You can't really tell in this lighting but the color combo of my cowl from Anne and this little sweater matches the color combo of the boots perfectly. Ha, that sort of thing probably makes me happier than it should.

This weekend brought rain as well as the first day of December. With a certain little person who is VERY enthusiastic about Christmas this year running the show, we kicked off the holiday stuff a bit earlier than usual.

Free "gingerbread house" making downtown at the public library on Saturday afternoon, resulted in...

One very sugary little structure

and one grumpy little girl complaining that her tummy wasn't feeling too good by the end of it.

Hmm, I wonder why?

Saturday night the rain wasn't too bad, so we put on our raincoats, grabbed some umbrellas, and ventured out to the tree lot down the street. I know, not as romantic or eco-friendly as the local tree farm, but we did possibly end up with the most perfectly shaped Christmas tree that ever was, so at least we have that. Oh, and the guilt, we have the guilt. Just kidding, sort of.

Sunday morning, with the Vince Guaraldi Pandora station (much to Lucas' dismay) setting the mood, we got to decorating our tree.

I realized pretty early on in the decorating process that someone shorter than me had some definite ideas about how things should go down with the ornament hanging. I was going to have to set aside my perfectionist tendencies along with any talk of distributing ornaments evenly throughout the tree. There really was no reasoning with her.

My one attempt at showing her the error of her ways was to make a wide sweeping arm motion across the lower mid-section of the tree and say:

“Look, there’s too much STUFF.”

Her matter of fact response:

“Mom, that’s how Christmas is.”

Well played Clover, well played...

She was also concerned about certain ornaments having buddies to hang out with. Like the gnomes...

... and the sleeping babies.

"2007 Baby's First Christmas" This Winnie ornament was a gift from my mom. Clover wasn't yet 3 months old that Christmas, now look at her, bossin' me around, man time sure does fly.

Zephyr checking out the tree. This time last year he was just a wee kitten, who almost climbed his way to the top of our Christmas tree on multiple occasions. I'm not sure how it never toppled. Now he's this big fluffy white wintery creature. His thick winter coat has come in and he's so bright white that when he's out roaming in the yard at dusk or on a foggy day he practically glows, like an Arctic spirit kitty.

Clover and Buttercup, whose red nose got her a gig as stand-in for Rudolph :)

Annoying ornament hanging tendencies aside, it's pretty fun watching Clover really experiencing the magic of Christmas as her own autonomous little person for the first time. When this kid gets excited about something, her enthusiasm will light up a room. It's one of the things I adore most about her, and something tells me we're in for a very bright holiday season!