Zentangle Freebie

Everyone loves a freebie, right?! Well, here's a little Zentangle freebie for you. I made these bookmarks while I sat in a three day workshop this month. Yes, I did actually pay attention and learn even though I was drawing. I'm an auditory visual learner so drawing Zentangles helps me listen and attend. Not only did I learn new things but I left the workshop with these four bookmarks to share. I printed these on cardstock, cut them out and ran them through my little laminator. I made some for my local library and for the workshop presenter. Now I'm sharing them with you too.

The bottom design is my favorite. It has my personal pattern creation. I call it "fancy snail"(it's the spiral design on the left side of the bottom bookmark.) I'm hoping to draw out the steps and submit it to tanglepatterns.com. I thought that if I wrote that here maybe I'd actually do it. Anyway, Click HERE for a PDF of my bookmarks. I hope you will enjoy them!

Bits of Wool & Wine

By now everyone knows I love to work with wool. This year for Christmas I made lots of woolen creations to share with friends and family. You could even go so far as to say with was the year of wine and wool for me.

This little owl drink cozy is made from three recycled wool coats. I sent this to my friend Val as a Christmas surprise.

If I could make wool drink cozies why not wine cozies? So I made this tree trunk wine cozy complete with a little white owl. It's made from a recycled wool sweater and pieces of two wool coats. I hand painted these wine glasses to go with the wine cozy. These are my first ever painted wine glasses. I'm way better with a marker than a paint brush so I need to look into getting enamel markers for glass instead of using a paintbrush.

I made this set of glasses including little red birds and a tree trunk wine cozy for another co-worker. I should have added a little red bird to the wine cozy but ran out of time.

This wine cozy was created for our friend and daycare provider. She like prim decor so I though this was a good way to package up a bottle of wine. This one is literally a sweater sleeve with the cuff cut off and a bottom added. I was done hand stitching this one in 30 minutes.

These were a gift for my partner in our Secret Santa swap. This wool and angora sweater sleeve need something so I added some beaded ribbon that I received as a tuck-in during a swap. I think it added the right amount of embellishment.

Even with these wool creations, I've hardly made a dent in my wool supplies, so I need to make some more woolen creations before spring arrives. I'm thinking I need to make some new wool mittens and try making some wool slippers, since my feet are always cold.

I didn't just work with wool this Christmas. I also made a couple of bags as gifts for co-workers. I filled the bag with crafting and zentangle supplies. This one is made from the Burda Charlie bag pattern. You can print the pattern for free here.

This one is made from a printed duck cloth, using my own throw it together method. I started this last year but messed it up and ran out of time to complete it before Christmas. I had all year to fix it but didn't. Never worry, a year later I pulled it out of my UFO pile and fixed it. I gave it to my co-worker with a tag that said Merry Christmas this year and last year! She laughed and appreciated the joke. I'm lucky to have such great friends.

Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner

I won this adorable apron on The Distracted Domestic. The uber talented Regena made this apron just for me. I won it for participating in her Tie One On Apron giveaway. I made aprons for two of my co-workers for the official Tie One On Day. I greatly enjoyed doing this and I won this fabulous apron in the process! See it was a win - win situation! THANK YOU Regena, I LOVE it!

Regena sent me an e-mail entitled Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner to let me know I won. Of course I was super excited to win and every time I hear Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner it makes me think of a recipe I got a few years ago during a Wilson Reading workshop. Another workshop participant gave it to me. In honor of this occasion I thought I'd share the recipe.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

Ingredients:

! small roasted chicken or 3 cooked chicken breasts (shredded)

1 box stuffing mix

2 jars of chicken gravy

1 pie crust(pre-made or homemade)

Frozen veggie mix

Fresh veggies(mushrooms, celery, onion- or whatever you like)

1/4/to 1/2 cup merlot or red wine

3 tablespoons of butter

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350.

Prepare stuffing and set aside.

Saute the fresh veggies in butter. Add fresh rosemary or thyme if desired.

Stir together all ingredients in a casserole dish (I use a 2.5 quart dish)

Top with a pie crust. Cover with with foil and bake for 10 minutes. Remove foil and bake until golden and bubbly(approx. 35 minutes.)

Serve and enjoy!

And that's Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

Announcing the . . . . . Crafty Bits Swap Spot

Give a Hoot - Owl Swap

We are swapping Owls this time. Sign ups close January 30th and the ship date is March 1st. For swap details or to sign up, visit Crafty Bits Swap Spot.

Happy Owl Swapping!

Catching Up

December was a blur with school and the holidays. Now in January we're playing catch up. I have tons of pictures of Christmas goodies to post but to start our blog catch up, I'll leave you with this picture. This is Nature Girl - toothless, well as least having one less tooth than usual. She turns eight soon but this is just the third tooth she has lost. She was very excited!

More pictures and goodies to follow in January.