Treasures

I hope everyone had a very nice holiday. My birthday and Christmas were both quite nice and much better than last year!

I wanted to share the lovely gifts I received from several of my friends in blog-land. I first saw these on Cathy's blog and absolutely loved them:





I left a messagefor Cathy, telling her how pretty they are. A few days later, I received a package in the mail from Cathy. Needless to say, I was blown away. They are so pretty and such treasures to me. Thank you very much Cathy!

A day later, I received these gorgeous vintage lace cuffs from Freda:



Oh, I can see these with my black velvet blouse! These are lovely Freda, thank you so very much! They are in my treasure chest.

I actually do have a "treasure chest" that I keep my handmade gifts from my blog friends in. I'll have to share a photo of that with you. It's a box that DMC sent to me years ago and it's perfect for the special gifts that I've received.

I mentioned that Scott took me junkin' at the antique mall on my birthday. I hit the vintage embroidery transfer jackpot as well as the vintage cookie book jackpot:



2 of these books were $3.00 and the others were only $1.00. There's one from 1924. That is quite interesting. In fact, my mom had to decipher a few things for me! Oh, back in the day!

I promised ya'll a photo of my mom's therapy dog with her santa hat on. Here's Santa Chooch:



Isn't she cute? I took about a dozen photos of her and this is the only one that wasn't blurry. I'm going print a bunch of copies of this photo, then mom and I are going to make little cards to take to the residents at the retirement center. They adore Chooch and we thought it would be nice to give them a photo of her next time we go.

In other news, here's a quick update on my Block #4 of my Garden Quilt:



Just a bit more beading to do and this one will be complete.

I'm feeling a bit more like myself but still rather scattered. I can't decide if I want to stitch now, or start on a few Valentine's or sit here and update my Kitty & Me Banner a bit. As I mentioned a few weeks back, I'm going to expand my Etsy shop and I thought it would be nice to add some flowers to my banner. I think I'll have some tea and a Clementine first and then I'll decide!

Finally for today, this is what we dealt with on Saturday:



This is a view of my house & deck from my backyard. Scott felt we needed a photo to remind us of the snow. Ha, ha, ha! I think not!

Well, that's all for today. Like I said, my mind is kind of scattered at the moment. I need to find a way to focus on something. Scott is taking me to JoAnn Fabrics tomorrow for a little shopping spree. To be honest, that's all I've done for the past week! After tomorrow, it's time to sit down and use my stuff.

Quick note to Alayna - thank you so much for your message! I'm glad to know that you were pleased with the Gingerbread Cookie recipe. I've tried several different Gingerbread recipes and that one is the absolute best!