Christmas in Washington DC

We spent a few days in Washington DC at Herby's sister's and brother-in-law's house on Capitol Hill. They live in a beautiful, restored house (they did almost ALL of it by themselves...meaning mostly Phil...) that's right across the street from Lincoln Park. Just beautiful and the city was all decked out for Christmas. Here are some shots I took...some of them were taken at sunset so that's why the strange light.

Award

I received this lovely award from my blog friend, Nobu. Nobu has several blogs but my favorite is his Funabashi Daily Cell Phone Photo blog.
He takes the most beautiful photos of Funabashi (Japan) every day as he goes about his life. His descriptions are interesting and insightful and I have learned a lot through his photos. He is a daily read for me.

Nobu also writes beautiful Haiku. Give his blog a visit and you may find yourself hooked like I am.
Thank you, Nobu

Madison's Christmas Dress

Madison's Christmas Dress 2008
Originally uploaded by Madison Avenue

I made this little dress from a picture I saw so it's not my original design. This was a little bit of a challenge. The dress you see here is my third attempt. It's fully lined, "fur" cuffs and a little snowflake design on the bodice. I hope to get a picture of her wearing it.
How do you like the icy blue color?

Christmas Inspiration

These felt Christmas tress are sorta cool. They're very colorful.
You can find the full tutorial - very nicely done I might say - over at the Thompson Family-Life blog.

I am looking forward to a couple of years from now when my grandbabies are old enough to know what's going on with Christmas and I can do really neat, colorful things like this. Right now I'm keeping it simple; here's my living room and living room mantle and here's my dining room. You can just barely see the branch I hung from the light fixture; here's a better picture here.
Maddie's only 17 months old and she's coming over today!! Yay! I made a dress for her; I'll post pictures later - that's a whole other story.

I would love some ideas on fun Christmas decorating for little ones so please leave me a comment if you know of something.

Do Not Open 'til December 25

I love the cards that Hilary Kanwischer creates.
This "Do Not Open" one is one of my favorites.

She also has some great ideas for packaging like this one for some sweet and salty goodies.
If you want to see a couple of the Christmas cards I did this year click here and here.

If you have some favorite Christmas cards or ones that you've made please leave me a comment. I would love to see them!

Christmas Card for Madison

Madison's Christmas Card
Originally uploaded by Madison Avenue
I saw an old vintage postcard of a little girl dressed in a snow suit holding a stocking full of gifts and a poinsettia.

It just struck me that Madison would look adorable in such an outfit. So I was lucky to find a picture of her that I could use. I just drew on the little snow suit around her picture. I put white glitter on the "fur" parts, gold glitter glue on the suit and clear glitter glue on her cap. I also added a few glitter snow drops.

Do you think she will like it? I am hoping to mail Christmas cards the first of next week. Do you still send Christmas
cards?

Christmas Kitty Card

Here is a Christmas card I drew in pencil. I drew this from a photo.
Obivously, it's going to someone who loves cats. I am not sure I am 100% finished with this card. I'm thinking of adding a little something to the white "fur" on the hat just to make the white stand out more and look more...furrier...what do you think?

12/12/08 Update: I did add a little clear glitter glue to the fur on the hat and the pom pom. It was just the touch it needed. Now it looks more Christmasy.

Decorating for Christmas

Here is some of my Christmas decorating for this year. I really wanted to cut my own tree and that's what I did. I also wanted to use a lot of natural greens wherever possible. I usually hang a lot of different ornaments on my tree but this year I wanted something simple, so I went with a red and silver theme in the living room and a green and gold theme in the dining room. Here are some pictures: