Making yearly dream boards had been a tradition with a few friends of mine since 2009. Life has taken over and we haven’t been able to get together the last couple of years, but it’s a tradition I’m not ready to let go of. I love having the stack hanging up in my creative space like a tiny snapshot from the years past. Love.

My favorite homemade gifts I gave this year were tea towels that I made out of one of my grandma’s recipes. I saw the idea on pinterest last year but didn’t have time to order the custom-printed fabric. After I cleaned up the recipe in Illustrator and sent it off to Spoonflower, the project was a quick one. Spoonflower didn’t print the fabric quite as straight as I had expected, but overall, I’m super happy with their linen/cotton blend. My family was THRILLED with the towels and I love them too. It seems super appropriate to have my grandmas handwriting hanging in my kitchen, reminding me of where I’ve come from.

Josh and I also made cutting boards for Christmas gifts. This was another project that I had planned for last year but needed a little help in the tool department to pull off. The wood is Pacific Island Maple and I think it’s beautiful. My favorite boards were the one’s with the most flaws. I still have a few in the basement that need sanding (not a small job) and I need to get down there and finish up one for me! I think part of what made these great was the coat of wood butter that I polished into each one. The wood butter was easy to make up and small jars of it made the perfect accompaniment to the cutting boards.

I also made sweaters for my nephews (although the sweater for the new baby is still in progress…ahem.)

And the kids teachers got jars of Peach Lavender Butter that Amy and I had the foresight to make this fall. (I just LOVE that recipe from Canning & Preserving by Ashley English.

When I told Christina I wanted to do black and white for the theme of this year’s holiday windows, she wasn’t convinced, but I think that I’ve won her over…

We wrapped empty boxes with newsprint, made giant dahlias out of newsprint and black card stock. Sewed new curtains out of fabric from the shop, and made paper streamers from newsprint. A little gold spray paint added some sparkle. Carnations hanging from the ceiling were from Amazon and the rose trees were from Target. As I usually do, I knit stockings to go with the theme. These are knit from Cascade Magnum and big needles (the only way I like to knit these days.)

I fell in love with this heart hat pattern and had to make it for Eden for Valentines day. With all of the leftover yarn, I modified the pattern (decrease two stitches after the ribbing) and made Honor a Minecraft hat which has been his obsession lately! I used Sublime baby cashmere merino silk which is soft, squishy and amazing. (Just don’t ask how much the hats cost me!)

[heart pattern] [minecraft chart]

The church is in the process of opening a coffee shop on Main Street, right next to their offices and across from the Avalon Theater where we meet on Sundays. I’m ridiculously excited about this idea and have helped out as much as I can with the design and plans. Last week I got to paint the logo on the windows and decorate for Christmas. I wish I could make a full-time job out of window decorating… definitely not gonna happen in good ‘ole GeeJay.

On Sunday Carrie and I threw a baby shower for our dear friend Danielle who is expecting her first baby, a boy. We hosted the shower at Tangle (which is a great place to have parties!) and it was so much fun!

Mama Danielle looking beautiful.

the goodies lined up on the counter

We served everything on stacks of old china. My collection is ever-growing.

Our color theme was aqua and orange.

Everyone, young and old, is always impressed with chocolate covered marshmallows.

Fruit filled waffle cones are one of my most favorite things in the world.

The straws are from Shop Sweet Lulu.

mason jar’s are my favorite

I didn’t get to take pictures of Danielle opening her presents from me so she was kind enough to send these to me. A camo baby sweater with my signature orange stripe.

And a super soft blanket made from a plush yarn.

Basically, at this point, everyone groans when I come up with a new idea for our windows. They seem to be getting more and more labor intensive. But… I kinda think it’s worth it.

We created these giant pinwheels out of knitting magazines. The large took 16 pages and the small took five pages. I also sewed new curtains out of Anna Maria Horner’s newest line.

Big thanks to Carrie for helping me pull the whole thing off.

I sewed this picnic quilt quite awhile ago and just finally finished the “hand-quilting” on it. I use the term hand-quilting loosely because these giant stitches with embroidery floss don’t really count (but are as close to hand quilting as I’m gonna get).

It’s a really simple blanket of quilting cotton and laminated cotton with batting sandwiched in the middle. It’s just like this one I made awhile back. I think I’ll keep this one in the car for all of those impromptu picnics I plan to go on.

In August, Eden and Carrie started writing a novel together, they would take turns writing a page each, building on the story as they went. They finished it up early December and had Honor illustrate it. We self-published the book through lulu.com and ordered copies of it as Christmas presents for our family and the kids’ teachers.

Eden wrote at least half of the nearly 10,000 words of the book and it is such a riot! I’m one proud mama.

You can order the book here.

Carrie tells me I’m an overachiever. I actually think the problem is that I’m addicted to crafting.

Here’s the wrapping I chose for all of my presents this year. Just simple craft paper and damask tissue paper, sewn with the machine and tied with green ribbon. For the kids stockings I used regular black and white wrapping paper because even I am not that crazy. It was so much fun.