I'm obsessed. Thoroughly. My friend Carrie showed me a site, thepurlbee.com that has a bunch of fun ideas, plus links to other bloggers that have tutorials, etc. Since then, I've tried to look at every link (there are tons) for Christmas ideas. I have been fortunate to find a few purse tutorials, to help me with my quest. I have also had the great fortune to have found a couple that go around to different interior design studios collecting discontinued fabric. I've collected quite a bit of it, thankfully finding scraps large enough for bags. Left: The fabric for the brown purse was free, and the pattern/tutorial can be found HERE. Middle: Fabric was free, there was a price tag on the fabric noting that it had, at one point, gone for $160 a yard!! Cool. The pattern was modified from the above tutorial, I brought the opening in a couple of inches just to add a little dimension to the shape. Right: Fabric was also free, I love freebies. The Pleated tote pattern can be found HERE.

Yesterday I was on my way to my favorite cheap grocery store when I saw a sign at another favorite store of mine (Sigona's–a local farmer's market) advertising a sale on oranges, five pounds for $1. Oh yeah, it was my lucky day! One of my favorite things about winter/Christmas is orange season. I was in heaven. There were tons of beautifully ripe oranges right at my fingertips! So, I did what any smart shopper would do... I bought 20 pounds of oranges! 10 pounds of the oranges went to friends, and the rest to my kitchen to be consumed. Last night I tried out a citrus juicer that Chris and I got for our wedding. Yeah, it's been almost a year and a half, and it was the first time we've used the thing. It was great! I made some orange chicken, which turned out fabulous. I'm a little disappointed that I wasn't able to get a picture of the dish last night (the sun has been setting at 5:30). I do, however have a lovely picture of what we did with six oranges this morning, the orange juice was so good. mmmm...

Now that I'm home and only working part-time with no school in the way, I've decided that I have plenty of time to make things; particularly gifts. My goal this year is to make every gift for Christmas and birthday, in the hopes of a) saving money, b) expressing creativity and c) occupying my time with something other than Solitaire. This idea came mostly from reading Heather Bailey's blog and several others. About two months ago my sister, Emily, had a baby, and so I set to work making her gift. I decided to make a photo album (this was before discovering the baby booties). I'll be honest, I think this will be the last time I make a photo album and make any book with a padded front. I decided to donate my old suede leather jacket to the cause, because it would just add something that new fabric wouldn't have, plus I was also interested in finding out how thin the leather from my jacket was and how it would be to work with in bookbinding. I left the original stitching on the jacket which really added to the visual interest in the front, and I decided not to worry about the darkened spots from wear and tear. I really like what happened. The bind was a little more difficult so it took me a lot longer to complete than I had anticipated. It also didn't help that I kept procrastinating the project to the last minute. I finally finished the book the morning Ayden was blessed, a few hours before I ended up giving it to her. Anyway, here are the pics...

Thanks to Heather Bailey, I'm now obsessed with her pattern for baby booties. It's so fabulously easy, especially when not using leather. The leather booties took me so long to sew, so when I set to work on some felt booties it was a MUCH faster process. I almost think that I should've embellished the booties just a little bit more. The yo-yo embellishment worked out nicely. I actually had originally planned on putting buttons in the middle, but I couldn't find any buttons that looked cute with the shoes. I am really happy that I didn't do the buttons. The stars in the middle make them look like little tomatoes. oh so cute! These booties went to my cousin (in-law) Tara. She's about to pop, from what I hear. I was sad not to be able to see Tara (or Alexis) while in SLC, but I was able to see my aunt (her mom-in-law) and give them to her. I hope that she finds them useful. OH, also... the leather booties I gave to Alexis work perfectly! I was hoping that she was going to have a girl. The girly, green leafy pattern of the leather booties would have looked a little funny on a little boy. Alexis had a healthy little Olivia Jane (such a cute name btw) either late Thursday night or Friday morning! Congratulations to Alexis and Chad! Yay for babies and families!