Sharing Their Creativity and Things I Worked on Before the Holidays

I completed another temperature spiral for 2023.  I originally bought larger beads to use on this but they were so irratic in size that I didn't feel comfortable using them although the colors were more intense.  There is size difference in these smaller seed beads but it isn't as noticeable as the larger ones.  2022's spiral colors were not differentiated enough so I revamped the color chart for 2023.  There are still some that are pretty close in color next to each other, but my choices were limited. For this one I attached the beads a little differently so that they would lay flat on their sides and I used the high temperature on the outer side of the line and the low on the inside.  The seasons are set off by the color of the base spiral - blue for winter, green for spring, pink for summer, and a light orange for fall.  Oh, and I did purchase a better cloth for the base this time.

I received some beautiful handmade cards this year.

This sparkling beauty from Lauren, one of the Jingle Belles.  

An sweet ice skating rabbit from Sabrina.

This vintage lovely from LeAnne.

Some gorgeous snowflakes and snowflowers from Sunshine.

This textural beauty from some friends in Maryland.

This stunner from Stephanie, our other Jingle Belle.

And this very special one came with a school photo from GS1.

Sabrina made me this beautiful ornament using glass microscope slides and a beautiful stamped bird motif.  I'll be keeping this out year-round.

My friend J made this cute little gnome in a toque who looked quite at home in the lemon tree with the little bell gnomes that I had made.

My cousing B sent me this darling little wooden matryoshka ornament, also happy in the lemon tree.

And J found another little gnome ornament to add to my collection.

I had some ideas about creating some trees with some of the things that I had lying around (and a few purchased additions).  

This first one is not done - only because 1) I ran out of tags, 2) I ran out of time, and 3) I couldn't figure out what to do with the top.  I'm thinking now that I might add some little greens and some jute to the top with a little wooden star to cover up that top.  What I had done was wrapped a styrofoam cone with brown paper and then used straight pins to attach the kraft colored tags in layers around it.  There are 100 tags on this now.  The cone was taller to start with, but early on I realized that it needed to be much shorter and sliced some of the bottom off.  

This one started with another styrofoam cone and I used the saved seams from old jeans I had cut up for a project a few years ago.  I did see something similar on Pinterest. Again, the top to this is not complete to my satisfaction, but may just need a little round piece of denim on top to finish it off.  The cones that had in my stash did not have pointed tops to start off with - something I didn't think about until I got almost there.

This one was a Dollar Tree idea I found on IG.  It started as a fuzzy white duster that I trimmed in a cone shape.  I took off the handle at the bottom and HWNSNBP supplied the birch base he had in his stash of scraps.  I just wrapped a set of battery-operated fairy lights around it.

  

I also came across a fun account on IG that had free felt patterns for advent and I printed off a couple of them.  The one that I did finish was this little European robin.  I actually did two of them and gifted one.  Check out @whatacurlylife for the free patterns - and she currently has a cute Valentine bear up for grabs now.

I've got some tangle projects that I'm working on this month and I'm debating whether to do another temperature spiral for 2024.  Oh, and I'll be showing off a little needle felting project that I finished soon.  Trying to catch up already.