Christmas CAL

As I was just typing my post title, I had a happy thought: CAL...ifornia! I can't wait to be there for Christmas. Just a few more weeks of grey, wet, freezing cold and then I'll be home for Christmas!

                                 Source: dezeen.com via Jessica on Pinterest

Now, here's what the Christmas CAL (crochet-a-long) is really about. It's at A la Sascha. Anyone can join in. For each day of the CAL, she posts a pattern for a cute festive design. You can either use each one as its own individual ornament, or save them all to make a garland at the end of the CAL.

The first day showed how to crochet a Christmas Fawn:

The second day showed how to crochet a Christmas Bell:

So far, so good! I love these crochet ornaments because they are so quick and it's also a great way to use up yarn scraps. I'm excited to see what's next.

p.s. the sun just started to break through the clouds!

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I'm linking up to these fabulous parties!

Dairy Free Fudge

So, we recently figured out (in June) that my little boy has a dairy allergy. It hasn't been too difficult to adjust our diet or how I cook...until Thanksgiving when I realised he couldn't eat Libby's Pumpkin Pie! Fortunately, I found a decent dairy free pumpkin pie recipe. Phew!

Now, it's Christmas. We like fudge. All four of us. A lot. 

I got my mom's recipe that was originally my Nanny's so that I could make some fudge with the kids. Of course, it has dairy. So then I did a quick hunt for a dairy free fudge recipe and found this: Really Nice Dairy Free Fudge from Gluten Free on a Shoestring. I am still going to make my Nanny's fudge, but I wanted to make the dairy free fudge first so that my little guy wouldn't miss out. 

It took a little longer to firm up than stated in the recipe, but that is not a big deal at all. It is pure chocolatey, peanut-buttery deliciousness...at least I and my two kids think so. King Damascus can't stand it. He can't stand the taste of coconuts (unless he's just cracked open their shell) or even a hint of the flavor (like me with bananas). But he'll enjoy the next batch when I use my Nanny's recipe. For now, I'll enjoy this dairy free fudge with my two little ones. 

More for me...and my hips.

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I'm linking up to these fabulous parties!

Pinned It & Did It - Christmas Tree Skirt

My Christmas tree skirt...

Christmas tree skirt that I pinned...

Pinned via pinmarklet from curbly.com

I pinned a few Christmas tree skirts on my Christmas board because I knew I wanted to make one this year. The last few years, I've wrapped random pieces of fabric or table cloths around the skirt, but I really wanted a Christmas skirt that was special, festive, and one that we can use each Christmas to come. 

So, I followed this tutorial by CraftMel on Curbly. It was very clear and easy to follow. The most difficult part in making this Christmas tree skirt was choosing a snowflake design. I took about three days looking at differenty types of snowflake designs, and then cut out about ten (from our recycle paper) before finally settling on this one...

Cutting it out of the large piece of felt wasn't too bad and would have been much easier if I hadn't had four three-to-five-year-olds playing in the room, me constantly saying, "Remember, don't step in the hot lava!!" lava=felt 

I made one small, time consuming change to the method of making the Christmas tree skirt. Since I really want to use it year after year, and also because I have children running & playing around the tree from time to time, I decided to sew the white snowflake to the red circle. Lots of pins and three days of sewing for short periods of time and I finally finished!

We had our tree for two days without a skirt. It's much warmer now...and prettier.

☼

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Snowman & Santa

 I had so much fun crocheting these cute little snowman and Santa Christmas ornaments. 

 Some for Sunshine Makings...some for me! 

I just love the process of creating these little guys and watching them come to life when they were originally just a ball of yarn. 

I especially loved the crocheted snowman and took lots of pictures of him. 

'Tis the Season!

☼

I'm linking up to these fabulous parties!