Christmishaps Part 2

Earlier this year, Mom and I made almost a hundred little snowman ornaments to sell at the courthouse. Needless to say we didn't sell them all. This Christmas, every member of my mother's family came from all across the united states to visit us. We had tons of time celebrating and visiting with them! Especially with all the kids! On the last day they were all here, we brought out our box of the many snowman ornaments. Each child excitedly picked one out and all the parents took handfuls for next years trees. We were glad to give them. When all had gone we put the box away, half emptied of it's frosty contents. Mom was happy to be relieved of some of the stock. The very next day, our Etsy store got an order for another several. Mom had been worried we'd never get rid of them! As it turns out, we may just have enough to keep for our tree next year!

Christmishaps Part 1

Christmas has always been my favorite time of year, and it is always the perfect time of year for Christmas projects! From gifts to goodies to decorations, the Christmas season is always busy busy busy! This year, we tacked on a few extra projects, which made things a little extra busy...

Normally, after thanksgiving we start decorating. Before November's over the house is covered in red and green bows and ribbons, garland and lights, and of course the tree! This year, however, my sister returned from college with a particularly nasty flu, and we are all sad to say she did not take it back. From the time she left to the time she came home for Christmas break, the whole family was up to our noses in tissues. Mom got it the worst, sick in bed for what seemed like forever! Of course we all recovered, but not before it was well into the Christmas season and our tree wasn't even set up yet!

When my sister got back after finals, it was easier to get things moving. We took everything down from the attic and spread it all out in the garage. Among the many boxes of Nutcrackers and Angles was a project my mom had started many years ago when we'd first moved into our house. See, the front of our house and our front yard are both on the bigger side, so it's both difficult and expensive to put up lights and decorations outside. The first year we'd moved in, Mom had come up with the amazing idea to use tomato cages covered in lights and garland as trees to put in the yard. She'd never finished the project though so I'd picked it up. The more we worked with it though, the more I realized why she'd given up on the project earlier. It was only weeks till Christmas and with family coming over, I wanted something to make the house look nice. Mom suggested we just decorate the porch.

On our porch we have three large pillars. With the lights and garland we already had we figured maybe we could decorate those. And so we started. First thing to do was string the lights on the garland! Wait... Back up. First first thing to do was untangle the lights. Then we could put them on the pillars. That was an adventure all in itself. We started by stapling on end of the garland to the wood porch roof at the top of the pillar while I held the rest in a bundle over my shoulder. Then while mom made sure each piece was in place, I went in circle after circle around the pillar, squeezing between wall and ladder to get around it. We couldn't stop laughing the whole time! That is... until we realized that of the strings of lights we'd brought out to use, only one still worked, the one we had up. the other strings had shorts in them, and the one we'd put up was so dim we couldn't put anything brighter up against it. We needed new lights. And fast. It was just before Home Depot closed that we ran in to find lights. All the Christmas stuff was being taken down everywhere. The last of it was in a little corner by the door. After almost thirty minutes of searching through every shelf, we found the last three boxes of lights, and thank goodness they were just barely long enough for what we needed. We happily hurried home with our purchase, but then had to unstring all the lights from the first pillar to put up the new ones.

It was several hours in the dark before we finally finished putting up each string of lights. (Mom had insisted we do it at night so we could...see what we were doing...?)

We stood back and looked at our work, and Mom turned to me "Ashley, we should go back to Walmart and get that wreath before it's gone." I agreed, so at two in the morning, we hopped in the car and drove down to Walmart, where they were busy taking down all the Christmas stuff. We just barely found our wreath and a nice looking poinsettia to finish off the look. Over all, we did good for one night. And we had fun. That's the most important part!

Market Days

Lots of crazy new things have been happening over the past several days. First of all, for those of you who've been following this blog since the beginning, notice the name change? Mom and I knew that when we started this blog it would be a sort of experiment, and we knew that as things progressed we would learn and evolve accordingly. The new name is the perfect example of that in that it now better defines what we want to do with this blog.

Second new thing we've been up to is making Christmas ornaments! Our city hosts this thing called "Market Days" the second Saturday of every month. This month was our first go at it so we've been busy! We teamed up with the girls at SewOldSeamsNew and shared a spot in the vendor line up.

Yoli and Elizabeth from SewOldSeamsNew at our booth

When we got there around 6:45am they were just setting up. Hardly anyone was there so it was nice to be able to set out our tent and tables before all the bustle of the vendors and costumers started. The girls at SOSN sold their beautiful purses and bags. I don't mean to plug here but they really are to die for! I'm planning on buying one for myself next time! They're beautiful hand made bags, made with upcycled jeans and seriously, they're so well done!! They sold several bags at Market Days but still have plenty more on their story at Etzy so check them out!

Just a few of their beautiful creations!
The little snowman necklaces are my faves. =)

Mom and I made ornaments to sell. We were one of only two people selling Christmas stuff this early but in my opinion it is never to early for Christmas! Mom made Gingerbread men candy cane holders. So cute! There were little boys and little girls. It was machine embroidery mostly so she was the one who did all the work. 

Little Christmas Couple. A nice lady bought them just as we were packing up.
Bitter sweet since these were my favorite. 

I made little snowmen. Well, we all did but these little guys are the project I had my hands on. Literally. There wasn't a single snowman we worked on that I didn't accidentally glue my finger to. Haha. My and the hot glue gun do not work well together! Over all, though, I think we made a good team in the end. The ornaments turned out great! 

"Adopt a Snowman" was Elizabeth's idea.
We "adopted" it and sold almost all our little baby snowmen!

The day was seriously windy. We started out with a tent, but by the end of the morning we had to take it down or else risk it blowing away or breaking. The sun was hot and the wind kept blowing off out merchandise. Several times we had to go chasing down bags and snowmen! By the end of the day we were glad to get out of the wind and heat. I even got a little sunburned! Still, the experience was great and I can't wait to be back next month! 

Since we made a lot of product and obviously couldn't sell all of it in one day, Mom and I created an Etzy account to connect to this blog. We thought it'd be a fun idea to expand our costumer reach and maybe get a little Christmas money! We'd love for you to check it out with this link here!