Post-Christmas Wrap Up

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope everyone had a good holiday. Here's my obligatory post-Christmas wrap up.

Firstly, some trees:


The 9 foot family room tree!



The 6 foot living room tree!



A bunch of nut crackers!



The mini-tree! And a pile of Christmas cards. I keep all my Christmas cards like a card hoarder.



Christmas was good this year. A little different, but good. My mom found a Hobbit menu online and shifted a couple of the meals around a little (mainly to spread out breakfast, second breakfast, and elevensies into breakfast and elevensies). So we had breakfast and opened a couple of presents each. We headed off to church for a mass that mainly consists of Christmas carols and confusion because they changed a bunch of responses a few years back. I only go to mass once or twice a year, so I haven't learned the new stuff yet.

Then we came back home and had elevensies and finished opening gifts from the family room tree. Then lunch. Then joking around and watching the Batman TV show marathon on TV while we waited for The Gabbers, J, and pups to arrive! Once they arrived, it was more gifting, afternoon tea, and a permanent puppy placement. My mom got a corgi! (I will post all about the little troublemaker soon!)

The Gabbers, J, and remaining pups had to leave, then the rest of us played board games, ate dinner, played more board games, had dessert, and conked out for the day.

All in all, it was a good time. Puppies, board games, and tons of food can't go wrong.


My parents spoiled us this year. My mom just got a new car because the van wasn't making it through a week with her job, so money's been tighter around the house. She gave us a theme list to give her this year: a) something we need, b) something we want, c) a book, and d) an article of clothing.

But she surprised us with stuff like this:



- 2 Star Wars Lego sets
- 2015 Road Atlas (after my siblings and I got horrifyingly turned around in New Jersey this past summer, we need them)
- Groot and Rocket T-Shirt
- Hawkeye Signs T-shirt
- Made by Mom alpaca cowl
- Books 2 and 3 in the All the Wrong Questions series by Lemony Snicket
- Faeries' Tales by Brian and Wendy Froud
- 2 4 oz braids of BFL wool for spinning
- 3 new bobbins for my wheel


And then my siblings got me these gems:


I still can't believe that Pickleface actually found a copy of D&D Clue. I've been looking for it forever.


Thanks to my folks for these fantastic gifts.

And thank you to my friends who got me gifts this year too! You folks are amazing. I got Bananagrams from friends' annual Christmas party gift swap and Cthulhu Fluxx, a sock loom knitting book, and a box of fancy teas from some folks! :D



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Goblin Hunting and Christmas Things

Look out, folks. This is going to be an image heavy post. Be warned.

1. Goblin Hunting Update
Remember when my dad and I went goblin hunting in my ceiling? Here’s an update before I forget about it!

The smell hasn’t come back at all, so we have successfully chased off the goblins for the time being. We’ll see what happens next winter. Dad and I put up sheet rock before Christmas, but didn’t get the ceiling mudded and painting until last weekend. So last weekend I was finally able to put all my junk back into the door corner.

 

As you can see, some of the wallpaper above my door didn’t make it through the hunt, but I turned the vinyl part into vinyl wall sticker key art. Or something. And the ceiling paint/popcorn doesn’t really match the rest of the ceiling, but that’s really the best place for something to not match. And the marionettes moved from behind my door to the opposite corner of the room.

It’s so nice to have everything in the right place. It’s a lot easier to remember a scarf when I don’t have to climb around the junk in the dining room.

2. Christmas Crafts

I guess I should post about my Christmassy Christmas things before I have to take them down. I’ll get to the stuff I made folks later. This is the stuff I made for decorations and stuff.

So, shock and awe, I love Christmas craft kits. I bought most of these back after Halloween because these things sell out so quickly, so I grabbed a whole bunch and made them. Some of these don’t have final decorations, but you can see those later in the post.

 

 

 

  

I also got a new mini-Christmas tree and my little bulbs couldn’t hang properly on it, so I made some felt ornaments.

  

I bought some felt shapes from Jo-Anns. I think they were hidden over by the needle felting stuff and not, actually, by the felt, which is where I would have put them. And I embroidered some stuff on the blank shapes because I have a lot of small amounts of embroidery floss left over from sampler kits as a small child.

And now you can see this stuff up and around my room!

3. Christmas Decorations
I know I posted those three photos of my room back before Christmas, but here’s a closer look at the new stuff and crafty things around the room.

 

 

   

Some little things around the room, including the little green felt wreath and the penguin. Almost all the others are crafts from last year.

 

There’s my little TV corner. The weird felt tree pillow ended up behind the TV because I ran out of places due to goblin hunting. But look at my little tree! And all my little felt ornaments! I am still ridiculously pleased by this little tree.

 

    

Banners, garland, displays, ornaments over the windows, Christmas cards… all the things.

Most of the display on the shelf is new and I bought each new thing for at least half price pretty close to Christmas. Santa, the deer, and the lantern snow globe were all from Jo-Anns. The snowman is from Walgreens. I’m pretty sure that candle was a gift last year, but it’s hard to remember that far back.

A couple of the ornaments hanging above the windows are new. The spools in the windows were bought in January 2013 from Christmas clearance at Jo-Anns. The little village houses (which light up!) are also from Jo-Anns that I picked up for 70% off. Those are really cool. My mom’s had a proper Christmas village with large houses for ages, but I just don’t have the space for something like that and I’m already looking to not kill my December electric bill when I move out.

The jar of Legos is from a 2012 Lego Star Wars Advent calendar I bought. If you want to check those out, I have them all posted on my Instagram.

And there’s Zip, helping. And boy did he help. I mean, you guys have seen my bedroom. He had to climb over my bedside table thing, the cabinet with the Lego ships (knocking over the big TIE fighter), and jump up onto the dresser in order to get at those hooks. He was determined to play with those. But yeah. He was pretty unimpressed with how I was organizing all of the Christmas stuff.

And that’s it for now. I was going to post my Christmas cards, but I have a sort of tutorial for how I modified them, so that’s a load more photos. I’ll do those separately. So that’s it!

(And yes, everything’s still up. We keep this stuff up for as long as possible. We only really start considering taking this stuff down when it’s getting close to my birthday on January 26th or if the trees are more dead than alive.)

Christmas 2013

I just finished decorating my bedroom for Christmas. Time, man. Time. But here's the room!






It was the little Christmas tree by the TV that did me in. I was planning those ornaments all month and finally got the felt for them this past weekend. Yep. But that will be discussed in detail later when I have time to post about my Christmas crafts.

Alas, there is no time now because of Actual Freakin' Christmas.

Happy Days to you! :D

Halloweeeeeen!

I love Halloween. LOVE. It's my favourite holiday.

And I managed to gather some new awesome for decorating my bedroom this year.


Here's some of the stuff that you've seen in previous years:


Candy corn towel used as a tablecloth on my little table.



Bat tablecloth and little jack-o-lantern bucket on the TV stand.



And there's my fake candles I grabbed out of the Jo-Ann's clearance bins last year. These have, of course, moved because I have acquired some new things!










Those little terrariums were really easy to make. I didn't even glue anything down because it's a jumble of stuff that works the way it falls. The hands being upright in the tall jar hold the fake moss and flowers in place and the little jar of skulls and moss and flowers pretty much looks great no matter how those things fall. I just nudged one of the skulls so that it's looking right out. That's easy enough to do next year if things get tossed around in packing.

The wooden tree, the Wool of the Bat jar, the glass jars, and the skulls/hands are from Michael's, all on clearance because that stuff is moving out of stores fast. The crow is from Walmart for a measly $2.00. The skull slate is from Jo-Ann's. The white owl pumpkin is from Walgreens. Each item is less than $7.00 and most of it was less than $5.00.

One day I shall move to a place of my own and it will be a fantastic thing to behold at this time of year.