Felt Bird Ornaments with the AccuQuilt Go! Baby Machine

I recently was given an AccuQuilt Go! Baby machine. It was perfect timing because I had a church activity in December that I was helping put together a small craft project for all the ladies to do.

We were making felt bird ornaments, which would have taken EONS to do by hand, but with the AccuQuilt it took maybe 20 minutes to bust out like 300 birds (2 birds per ornament).

We could do 2 layers of felt at a time and there is 3 different bird shapes on the die, so it went fairly quickly.

 

Here's our stack of felt ready to go through the machine.

Then we had to cut out all the wings (We only needed one wing per bird and it cuts 6 layers of cotton at a time, with 2 different wing options, that only took like less than 5 minutes to do those).

 Check out all the scraps!

The night of our activity we had everything laid out so everyone only had to select the color and type of bird and pick up the other necessary things to sew together the birds (wing, bead for the eye, batting to stuff it, thread to sew with, ribbon to make a hanger, etc). We had over 100 ladies at our church event, some ladies made more than one bird ornament.

Some people whip stitched, some did a blanket stitch, and some just did a running stitch. They all were cute. There was all levels of crafting ability, but I felt like everyone had a good time working with their hands and creating something they could be proud of.

 

These cute little ornaments could be geared toward any holiday or season, just switch up the colors of the felt. I was thinking about doing a small tree with pink, red and white ones for Valentines Day, with cute little buttons sewn on to embellish.

 I made the larger one last year from a pattern I found on a blog. The smaller one I made this year using the AccuQuilt die. Love them!!

Thanks to AccuQuilt for making our night so easy and enjoyable!

Christmas Blogger Social

I was so excited to be invited to the Christmas Blogger Social that was held at the Alice Lane store and put together by Kirsten Krason of 6th Street Design School.

It was an event beautifully put together in a fantastic setting!

I really liked the "Merry Christmas Darling" theme

There was a handmade flair to the whole event. 

We each brought a gift to give away, and of course with all the talented ladies most were handmade gifts.

Look at all these beautiful gifts people brought!

 (I brought the pillows with the blue snowflake on the wrapping, that is coming in a future post)

I didn't know anyone at the event except Kirsten, but I did spend my time mostly talking with Wendy from Shabby Nest, Michelle from 4 Men, 1 Lady and her guest Erin Miller from Designer Blogs, and I got to know Kimberly from Third Floor Design a bit. There were so many others that I didn't get around to!

And, of course, there was a gift to take home that, let me just say, Amazing!

Homemade (of course) Biscuits and Jam (Strawberry Basil, So Good!)

Glitter House Village

Weeks ago...like before Thanksgiving and all, I was at Home Goods with my mom and we saw all these glittery Christmas houses and I fell in love with them. I snatched a bunch of them up (at a Awesome price) and had big plans to make a little village with them.

I wanted the vintage look which I think I achieved.

I used paper doilies and folded them over a string. I had a vintage mirror given to me from my mother. I used my Linen Pin Board and hung a couple glittery snow flakes and a glittery postcard, I loved this as part of the backdrop. I used various things to elevate some of the houses, bowls, cake platter, tray sitting on glass blocks, vase, etc. And, I knew I wanted my vintagey Santa ornament to be flying in the air. I had a stand that you hang a glass vase from, so I just removed the vase and used it to hang the Santa. I love my village....My girls don't try to touch it anymore which is a good thing.

Christmas Music Playlist

On my iTunes Christmas Playlist I've got the usual Bing Crosby songs and the Mariah Carey songs, the silly kid songs like chipmunks singing and dogs singing. But I love to get some new artists renditions of classic songs each year and grow my collection.

This year I found Meaghan Smith's "It Snowed" "Silver Bells" and "Christmas Kiss"

Also Mindy Gledhill's "Patapan" "The Christmas Song" and "Silent Night"

I also bought a couple George Winston 

and Jon Schmidt piano Christmas Songs

&

I just love folk artists like Mindy Gledhill and Meaghan Smith...What are some of your favorite new songs that you have added recently to your Christmas music play lists?