I just took a break from sewing the buttons on my little gift card purses so I could pop in here for a bit of Crafty Tuesday. I have some last little bits to finish on the purses (they really are coming…this week, Aunt Laura!) and I snapped some photos as I was putting a few together so I can throw a little tutorial up for anyone who might need to put a few of these together for Christmas cards. I’ll shoot for getting that up for CT next week, so stay tuned.

We do have some other gifts today. My friend and I wanted to give all of our fantastic scone bakers and coffee sellers (from our First Friday Coffee fundraiser at school) a little something and we decided to treat them to a cup of coffee. So I rustled up some coffee cozys and we are going to put a Sbux gift card in each of them.

I used up a bunch of sweater scraps that I had from gifts last year and of course brought back my very favorite chalkboard fabric! I didn’t really embellish them besides the chalkboard fabric and a few of the pieces were just a little bit short so I ended up making a wrap with a button to keep it fastened around the cup. It works just fine and also used up some of my hair elastics that break whenever I try to put too much hair into them.

And for some sweet tasting gifts. Addie and I made these little mini pies in jars for Thanksgiving! We brought some over to our neighbors for dessert.

J. and I just put two in the oven the other night to warm the apple goodness all up and in five minutes, yum….our very own personal little pies.

I especially like that it is just enough pie to make you feel like you had something, but not too much…good portion control. Although in hindsight we should have spent more time looking for the shorter jars, ours were skinny and tall and kind of hard to get the crust down to the bottom. But I made little tags for the tops and tied a little twine around it and good to go as cute little gifts!

Filing that away as good little gifts to give…or keep.

I also need to find a way to file these little leaves away and keep them. We started a tradition this year by writing three things we are thankful for on these leaves we sort of freehand cut, about five minutes before dinner. Then the girls took turns reading them out loud (you can watch it here if you really want to see/hear them!). I am thinking I need to get a “Thankful” book, one that we can add to each year. For now the leaves are spread out on our dining room table, along with all the other projects we have brewing.

Do you all have some Thanksgiving goodies to share, or have you already left November in the dust and are on to Christmas, glorious Christmas crafts?!

Nope. Very little to share, I’m afraid. I have, however, lugged all of my sewing room upstairs for Addie’s old room is now my new sewing room. The bunkbeds and sharing a room seems to be sticking and the girls are still going strong on the roommate thing, so the other room is going to be a terrific place to leave my sewing all out. And it is ready…just not much crafty going on…yet.

I have been mending, fixing holes in jeans, putting in new elastic in pants, darning ballet sweaters, taking in choir robes, and trying to finish up some of those little gift card wallets. (They are coming, Aunt Laura – I promise!) And now those little things are almost done, hopefully I can start on some Christmas gifts.

I did, however, (as I might have mentioned here, or over on Facebook, or at least 20 times to different friends over the course of today) finish my Christmas cards! I’ll give you a sneak peek…I don’t think it’ll give too much away. This is one of the shots from the photo shoot over the weekend.

I love those two. They helped me make pumpkin whoopie pies to take to our neighborhood block party on Sunday.

I forgot to take a photo of the finished product! But the recipe came from over here. They were good, but with all things I seem to make, I’ll do a few things differently the next go-round.

Addie is loving the missing cabinet, as is her Mama. Now she can sit right up on the counter while helping bake.

And the light. The beautiful, beautiful light we now get.

I’m still going back and forth on the paint colors for the cabinets. I’m going to have my design posse over for coffee after Thanksgiving and hopefully have one of the old cabinet doors painted with some examples so we can make a final decision. That is our Christmas vacation project. But thanks so much for all of the paint advice and opinions!

Tomorrow I’m going to paint up the ceiling. Our gaping hole the cabinet left is filled in, spackled and sanded. It is getting there. Just ever so slowly.

Tell me are you getting some crafting on lately? Christmas gifts or house projects?