Another Finish ... & What a Lovely Day!

After this morning's heart-in-mouth experience I was leery about traversing through the rest of the day but it actually turned out to be quite pleasant!  First & foremost I finished an old CS project & it's a keeper for me   : )   This is one of the old projects I did in another stitching life (my second one) but for some reason I did not stitch one part of it ... the little stitched button on the right side.  I think I remember thinking I'd be "creative" & use a real button there but today I put in the 39 stitches to finish it per the pattern chart & now here it is!

  

I remember stitching this back in 2004 while visiting my husband who was working in Italy at the time.  The finished size is 10x16.  I am showing it with a snowman pillow I purchased when we lived in North Dakota & behind that is a quilted pillow purchased who knows where/who knows when.  You can't really see much of it but I thought I'd make mention of it anyway   : )   Back to the finished stitching ... this was a Special Edition Kit from Pine Mountain Designs.  I actually think it's still available.  I really loved doing it & I really love the finished product   : )

I also did a bit of decor tweaking.  Remember the old blue toolbox I came home with a week or two ago?  I thought I'd make it "festive" & so I put some greenery in it.  

   

Not really a good photo but I think you get the idea   : )   Adding a small string of lights would be a nice tough.  We shall see if that happens   : )

Also, not long ago my dear friend Robin at The Cranky Crow won what I think was her 56th giveaway in a month.  Yeah, that sounds about right   : )   She is one lucky crow!  This particular win resulted from a "get to know me" giveaway hostessed by Linda over at Hickory Ridge Primitives.  Robin won a pound of fixins, a pound of tarts, & room spray ... all in the Colonial Christmas scent.  Robin was so enthusiastic about how wonderful these things were.  In her own words, "...heaven, I tell you, has to smell a bit like this...."  Of course I had to go to Linda's site to order me some of this stuff!  I ended up ordering 3 bags of fixins (Colonial Christmas of course ... I wanted my home to smell a bit like heaven too) as well as 6 different scents of tarts.  I was not disappointed!  What's more, my husband ... who has told me when I burn the tarts I have made that they make him sick!!! ... went on & on about how nice it was smelling in here!  Sigh!  I had a plan for the fixins & this was it ...

I bought this little tray at a half-off sale a couple weeks ago & had the wax candle with the tea light from last year.  The tea light no longer worked so today I grunged a new one.  All's well that ends well   : )

I also spent an hour or two on the phone with a favorite aunt & cousin.  I don't get to do that very often so I really enjoyed visiting with them   : )

I made meatballs & marinara sauce for dinner.  John had a meatball sandwich & I just had a plate of the meatballs ... both with melted mozzarella.  Yum!  While we ate that we watched a Christmas special DVD from The History Channel which we both enjoyed immensely.

I did a bit of cleaning today & in between everything else that was going on I looked at 12,406 gingerbread items on Etsy.  Yes, I really did!  I think it ended up being 250 pages.  I'd look at so many pages & then walk away & do something & then come back & pick up where I left off.  Most of it I got to pass by quickly but I filled my cart with several.  Before starting this post I went through my cart & weeded out most of the 40 things I thought were "had to haves."  I'm still thinking on the others.

After dinner John & I went to Office Depot to buy our son a new laptop for Christmas.  Will be picking that up tomorrow after they tweak it a bit.  We got to see some pretty Christmas light on the way there & back.  

Had a cup of killer hot chocolate thanks to my wonderful hot chocolate maker which I mentioned in a previous post.

I also found a nativity I like & I ordered that.

And that was my day!  I hope your day was as lovely   : )