Vintage Christmas

Some of you might know that I love anything that is vintage, I have a old Singer sewing machine in my living room that belonged to my Grandma Thomas, every year for Christmas I decorate it with vintage things I've collected over the years. I have a box of old ornaments, lights, candles, etc. I fill a small bowl with some hard tack candy to go along with the theme. Underneath the machine there are some things that belonged to Stuart when he was a boy, we have his original Twas The Night Before Christmas puzzle and a flip flop doll that was at his house when he was growing up. I also have a cute little red Santa boot that my mom had made on a Clorox bottle cut in half to hold holiday treats. I'm sure she had made it in Relief Society. It was always filled with chocolates that she purchased at Child's Bakery here in town. I can taste the crunchy coconut clusters right now, they were so good. Oh, I miss all those fun stores we had on main street to do our Christmas shopping. There was Forsey's, JC Penney, Christensen's, Talley Ho, Sonoma's, Gambles, Montgomery Ward, I remember my mom doing alot of catalog shopping from that store for Christmas. They were all fun to shop in. Wow have the times changed. I'm so glad I have some of these pricless treasures of days gone by. I love taking them out of the boxes year after year. Here are some cute vintage photo's I found on a friends blog, I'm sure they were old Christmas cards at one time.

Holiday Humor!

I saw this on a friends blog and I'm still laughing. Merry Christmas!!!! It's a romantic full moon, when Pedro said, "Hey, mamacita, let's do weeweechu. "Oh no, not now, let's look at the moon!" said Rosita. Oh, c'mon baby, let's you and I do weeweechu. I love you and its the perfect time, Pedro begged. "But I wanna just hold your hand and watch the moon, " replied Rosita. Please, corozoncito, just once, do weeweechu with me. "Rosita looked at Pedro and said, Ok, one time, we'll do weeweechu." Pedro grabbed his guitar and they both sang.....

"Weeweechu a Merry Christmas, Weeweechu a Merry Christmas, Weeweechu a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year." lol

Holiday Madness

Are you wondering where I've been the last little while. The holiday madness kind of got in the way of my blogging ritual. Kira wanted to know why I had been away for so long. All the parties, getting the sewing and shopping done kind of caught up with me. I promised her I would sit down and do something over the weekend and here it is Sunday already. I hope you enjoy the overload of holiday fun!


Christmas Club at Camille's. Look how pretty her table was. She had made the table arrangements that morning. She used to work at Olsen's greenhouse, she does a beautiful job on flowers. She had a cute litte Christmas pin on the napkin and a tea towel with a poem attached by each place setting.

Can you beleive how pretty her dishes are, and her silverware is just as nice. Here's the shocker, I picked up my silverware to start eating and their plastic! Yup plastic, oh and the plates are plastic too! These are the nicest set of throw aways I've ever seen. My mom would have wanted to save and wash this kind of stuff. So if your in the market for really nice tableware for your next holiday party she said she got them at Costco.

This is all that was at dinner that night, Camille Voorhees, Melanie Newell, Jan Andrews, Melba Romero and myself. Camille served a lovely ham dinner with all the trimmings. By the end of the evening Kaye and Sharon had joined in on the fun to. Thanks Camille for such a wonderful evening. We are all looking forward to another great year of fun get togethers. I get to start the new year off, I have the January club. I need to start thinking of some fun menu ideas, have you got any fun suggestions for me? Help me out here would ya.

Ho, Ho, Ho

On Wednesday me and the girls took the kids to the mall to get their pictures taken in their cute new Christmas outfits. After we finished up with that little "ordeal" we took the kids to see Santa Clause, what fun it is to see the excitement on their faces as they sit on his lap. Here they are patiently waiting for Santa to return from his lunch hour.

Santa, meet McKinley Kaye Mitchell. Look at the smile on his face, you can truly tell he loves his job and the children he see's everyday.

Karas, Thayne and Hatch meeting Santa and telling him what's on their list this year. Karas was just delighted to see him. She loved him.

Look at Thayne, can you imagine what he's thinking. He's wondering who in the heck is this guy with all the white stuff on his face! Too cute.

Have we been naughty or nice? Nice of course, look how cute this picture is, how could any of these cute kids be naughty!!

Special Delivery!

Last year I sent Kira and Kaitlyn something I call a Pajama Gram. So as a surprise I did it again this year. I don't think they were expecting it again. In the package I sent a new pair of p.j's, a short Christmas story, some fuzzy warm socks, foot lotion and some yummy treats. I mailed them in cute boxes that you get from the post office and mailed them from Santa and Mrs. Claus at 284 N. 400 E. Who doesn't like to slip on a new pair of comfy's to finish up wrapping or to get comfortable with a good book? I hope they enjoyed their surprise. I'm sure this will be a favorite tradition for the girls for a long time.

Some fun Christmas Aprons

Look how stinkin' cute these are! I made these for a friend to give away as gifts. I love the red and green one. This pattern is for the girl that has that perfect body! This is a fun one to make, and I had fun doing it in Christmas prints.

This apron is vintage rose and turquoise with a little of shimmering gold. The fabric is an allover print of holiday presents. Cute huh? I've made several more this holiday season but forgot to take pictures, dang they were cute too.

Parties Galore!

I'm sure you are all just like me with all sorts of parties to attend, these pictures are of the Corn Wagon Christmas Party, we had a potluck supper and did a fun gift exchange and took any of our projects to work on. What fun these ladies are! Their crazy in fact!
Here are some of them doing the exchange. There was lots of taking back and forth of the gifts.

Mary and Suzanne enjoying the yummy supper. Notice the quilt in the background, it is a class called Dear Jane and has been going on for two years, they will finish it up around March. It is unbelieveable.

This is Mary Ann, she is always so cheerful and sweet, she's alot like me she always has a project in hand. She is the instructor of the Dear Jane quilt. Look at the detail on that thing!

Megan and Marsha just cracking up at the wonderful Flamingo that Santa left Marsha, she just loves flamingo's, not! it was a hoot. I was the secret Santa by the way.

Diana, Suzanne, Marrianne, Margene and Lynette laughing at Marsha. Marsha is the owner of the shop. As you can tell we had a really fun night. This is why I love my job.

Some of my favorite things

Christmas time, it's one of my favorite times of the year. I love decorating the house with all the many fun decorations I have collected through the years. I have so many special ones that I can't let a year go by without using them all. I want to share a few of them with. Most of them have a story behind them. This picture of Santa Claus has been gracing the White house wall since 199o, it's very special to me becuase it was made by my kids. Kira was 9, Jacob 5, and Kaitlyn was 2. This Santa is made from scraps of a dyed mop I had been using to make mop doll Santa's for a boutique I was doing way back then. They were here with a babysitter which was Brooke Hales and she was 13 at the time. She had taken type paper and taped them together to make one big sheet, then she drew the outline of Santa and she let the kids fill it in with the scraps. They used some of my cotton balls for the trim around his suit and hat and colored his face with crayon, they even found some buttons is my sewing drawer and added those to his suit, and the sprig of holly was in the scrap pile too. They gave this to me and Stuart for Christmas that year, it was folded and put away with all the other decorations. So the next year I had it framed and matted for us to enjoy through the years. I included the little brass plate on the bottom which is engraved with their names and ages. This is the first decoration that goes up and it's the last to come down. The kids are already fighting about who is going to get it when were gone, maybe they will have to rotate it year after year! Just a thought.
Another favorite of mine started when Kira was a baby. We started taking the kids to pick out ornaments at the Hallmark store. The kids always liked doing this and we have had some fun ornaments on the tree over the years. This year Kira and Kaitlyn both decided they wanted to take theirs home to put on their tree. I knew this day was going to come so a few years back me and Stuart decided to start buying them for ourselves. We still have Jacob's ornaments on the tree this year, plus our new ones. This is what we all picked out.

Don't you love mine, it's a gift bag and it plays the song Santa Baby. There have been years that Stuart has given me diamonds of some kind, and this year we have a new car so it reminded me of that. As for the fur, no thanks I think I'll pass.

Stuarts all time favorite Christmas show is the Grinch, so he has been collecting the Grinch ornaments, this one plays part of the song from the movie.

Jacob chose the truck again this year. In the first few years of collecting he was choosing anything that maybe represented the year but 14 years ago they introduced the truck series and he has been getting those ever since. This truck is a 1960 Ford F-100. It reminds me of a truck my dad had that was just this color.

This fun ornament was a gift to my parents, it was the first year they had bought their trailer. We found it while out shopping for the kids, so one night when they weren't home we snuck down and put it on their tree with the note that said, "May all your travels be grand" Love, Secret Santa. So when we were going through Mom's christmas things I found this one along with another one that I liked that I had given her.

Mom was a collector of Precious Moments figurines. This little one said on the bottom "May all your Christmas' be White. So I brougt it home to put on my tree too. These will always remind me of my mom and how much she liked Christmas too. I was always fortunate to go help her with her decorating after mine was done. I miss doing that now.

Another fun thing I have done through the years is collect Santa's, these are a few of them nesting together on top of my entertainment center. The rest of them are spread out through the house.

My last on my list is our countdown to Christmas calendar. I made this several years ago for the kids. You tie candy bars all the way down the Santa to the bell. the kids would take turns everyday. Today it's me and Stuart or if Jacob or Hatch is around they will do the honors. It's fun to see the sparkle in Hatch's eyes as he see's how many more days til Santa arrives. I'm glad we can start some of these traditions all over again with the grandkids now.

So there you have some of my favorite things, did I mention Christmas is my favorite time of the year?

Fifty is Nifty!

Somebody very special to me is having a birthday. This "YOUNG" man is Stuart. I want him to know that in my eyes he's just as young today as the day I met him. Things haven't changed abit. He's still the man I married. He's warm and kind, he still makes me laugh. He's given me the life I've dreamed of. I have the beautiful material things of life, but that is not what I am talking about. I am talking about a man that loves me and our kids with his whole heart. I am respected, loved and cherished. Thank you Stuart and a very Happy Birthday to you today. Stuart at about the age of eight.

Stuart loves to hunt, anything from pheasants, deer or elk. This is him and John our son-in-law in South Dakota hunting pheasants.

Stuart likes the mountains, and camping with friends and family. It's a great way to get away and leave all the worries at home.

This is where Stuart loves to be. He likes taking care of the horses. He likes to go horseback riding and has even included me in some of those trips to the mountains. He is so knowledgable about the places in Spanish Fork Canyon where most of these horse rides take place. I love hearing the stories of how some of the canyons got their names.
He's a family man, he likes spending time with his kids and grandkids. This picture is taken at his birthday party Saturday night(a post for later).

So it's hat's off to you today dear, you deserve to do the things you enjoy most. I wish you many more birthdays to come. I love you alot. Shannon

Simply Stylish Totes

We're at it again. I had my Simply Sewing 101 class on Thursday night. We finished our tote bags in 4 hours! Whew was I tired, we started at 7:00 p.m. and we got all done with them around 10:30. But we had lots of fun and I even remembered the chocolate this time. Maybe that's what kept us going! Mary Ann and Nyla busy at work. Everyone had such cute fabric to make their bags. Some were making them for church bags, while others were using them for work. Amberly was making a diaper bag for her new little one that comes next month.

Gosh Amberly can't we find you a table!

We even had a visitor with us that night. Kira came from Santaquin to sew with us. She wanted to come make a bag for her Young Womens books. It was fun having her there and her tote bag was darling. Will we see you next month Kira?

This was a great moment, Carilisa's ric rac lined up beautifully on both sides of her bag. It looked liked she hadn't even missed a beat sewing it on. She was just tickled about it. Way to go Carilisa.
This is me giving some directions on the inside pockets. What's fun about this bag, you can design how big you want your pockets to be on the inside.
My sewing students with their finished bags. Amberly Collett, Brooke Betts, Me, Nyla Allen, Erin Lambert, Shana Boyack, Carilisa Bean, Dondy Chyneworth and Angela Escamilla. We were missing a couple of our faithful sewers that night. We missed you Chelsey and Aunt Dale. It's fun having new faces join us every month. I haven't even finished all my Christmas projects and I've got to come up with something for January. Some of the ladies requested self binding recieving blankets, sounds good to me. These are easy to make. I better get going on a couple to display.

"Calmness in our lives"

Someone sent this e-mail to all of us at the Corn Wagon. I'm passing this on to you because it definately works, and we could all use a little more calmness in our lives, especially this time of year.

By following simple advice heard on the Dr. Phil show, you too can find inner peace. Dr. Phil proclaimed, "The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started and have never finished." So, I looked around my house to see all the things I started and hadn't finished and before leaving the house this morning, I finished a package of Oreo's, the remainder of my old Prozac presription, the rest of the cheesecake, some Doritos, and a box of chocolates.

You have no idea how good I feel right now.

Pass this on to those who you think might be in need. Have a great weekend finishing all your unfinished projects you have started for Christmas, your time is running out. Shannon

A "Wooly" fun day!

About a month ago I was asked to judge the State Make it with Wool contest. This contest is sponsored by the Utah Lamb Growers. I didn't ever think I would be asked to something like this. What a great and fun opportunity for me. I went up on Wednesday, Dec. 3 to the Sheraton Hotel in Salt Lake. There were 5 other judges besides me. I knew two of them, they are from here in Spanish Fork. Janeen Olsen, also from here is the chairman over this event. She is the one who extended this invitation to me. They are doing alot of remodeling in the Sheraton so we had to judge in one of the rooms closest to the Convention Room. These were tight quarters but we managed to do it. I was judging the Sr. and Adult division. Can I just tell you how impressed I was with the sewing abilities of these young girl's and men. There were some amazing outfits including coats and jackets, dresses and pants, and even western shirts. This bright pink jumper was adorable and she did a great job with it. She was a runner-up in the Sr. division. We had over 40 in the Sr. and 4 in the adult division we had to judge. The girls' and some young men, would come in one at a time so we could get a feel of their personality, and to give us time to see how their outfit fit them. Then they were asked to line up together so we could see them altogether. After we were done with that, they were asked to change their clothes so we could inspect and look at them close up. This is where is got hard, they all should have been winners in my book.

About lunch time, we were brought in box lunches, we tried to judge as were eating but that was a little hard not to get the out fits dirty.

This is a pile of some wool that was going to be given to the the winners, but before they gave some away they let each of us pick out a 2 1/2" yard piece. What a nice gift, some of these wools can run up to around $32.00 a yard. I couldn't make up my mind there were so many pretty pieces. I finally decided on a brown tweed piece. After we were all done judging we had a few hours to waste, so I went and did a little shopping at the Gateway. We were to be back at 4:00 that afternoon for the fashion show and awards.

This is Karen Lamb and Michelle Boyack the other 2 judges that were judging with me. We had a fun time getting to know each other, and fighting over the wool. jk

This is Janeen Olsen, she is the lady in charge and was the MC for the fashion show. The show consisted of all the participants ranging in ages 6 to 30. I was sitting in a bad spot so my pictures aren't that hot but I did manage to get a few.

This is the gal who won the Adult division, her black hounds tooth checked coat was adorable, and the little black dress she had on unerneath was just as cute. She did an awesome job on the sewing. These pieces could be bought at Macy's if you ask me.

These girl's were the Jr. Division winners. All of their outfits were done so well. They were given such nice prizes.

And these are the Sr. winners. The little and I mean little girl in the pink jacket was the over all winner. Her outfit reminded me of something Audrey Heburn would wear in the show Breakfast at Tiffany's. Her shoes were even pink, and her accessories were so cute too. It was hard picking out the 5 best. I wish we could have picked them all.
This is me and the pretty wool I picked out. I don't know what I'll make out of it yet. Maybe a skirt for me or a vest for Stuart. I guess that will be a project for the new year. I really enjoyed my day and look forward to doing it again in the future, I hope!

Just a little piece of something extra. Kira was priviledged to be one of the contestants about 9 years ago. She was chosen as a runner-up in the Sr. Division. I remember all the hard work and time that she put into her outfits, so it was fun for me to go and see it again and see the work that goes on behind the scenes.