Christmas Stockings Continued

Here are some more stocking orders from friends and family. I hope they love them as much as I do!

Sock Monkey Nursery

This is another project of mine. A good friend of mine is having her first baby and found this adorable happening sock monkey fabric. She searched around for someone to make her bedding for her but only found people who charged $400 plus. So I volunteered for the job. Having never attempted anything like this before, I figured it was about time that I should. Plus it would save her loads of money and put some sewing experience under my belt. And speaking of experience, that's what it was. During this time my best friend was my seam ripper and in classic Sandi style, trial and error became my constant companion. All in all I was able to give her curtain panels, bumper, skirt, pillow, and painting and most of which was a new experience for me (especially the piping on the bumper and pillow. Eeek!) Here is the finished product.

Christmas Stockings

My current project is stockings. These are so much fun because you can personalize it to anyone. They can be as elaborate or simple as you like, and fun and frilly as you like, as large or small as you like. Plus they make great gifts. Each and everyone I make is different. Every time I start one, it's like starting a new puzzle. Hopefully I can get around to making my own before Christmas.




























I am now an Etsy seller! View my shop here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/SandiGrimmer

Story of Christmas Stockings:
By Rebecca Roberts

Like all good legends, the story of the Christmas stocking has many versions. The original story has evolved to allow for differences in culture, time period, and good old fashioned story-telling. So it's hard to pin down exactly how the Christmas stocking tradition started, but too much exactness isn't any fun, anyway. And certainly not in the spirit of Christmas. So here's our favorite version of the story:

Once there was a father with three beautiful daughters. Although the daughters were kind and strong, the father despaired of them ever making good marriages, because he didn't have enough money to pay their dowries.

One day, St. Nicholas of Myra was passing through their village and heard the locals discussing the plight of these poor girls. St Nicholas knew the father would be too proud to accept an outright gift. So he waited till dark, snuck to the man's house, and dropped three bags of gold coins down the chimney.

The daughters had spent the evening washing clothes, and had hung their stockings by the fireplace to dry. The gold coins dropped into the stockings, one bag for each daughter. In the morning, they awoke to find enough money to make them each a generous dowry, and all married well and happily.

As word of St. Nicholas' generosity spread, others began to hang their stockings by the fireplace, hoping for a similar gift.

Halloweeeny Decorations

Halloween is tons of fun. I always look forward to seeing the fun and creative costumes that people come up with. You get kudos if you made your costume or came up with something clever, if you didn't, shame on you. Halloween is a chance to rummage your closet, go through some old craft tackle left over from that project your never finished, hit up the thrift stores and get down and creative, and dirty if it calls for it. Especially if you have kids, allow them to pull out your old prom dresses. I was a genie one year thanks to my mom's pack ratting abilities. Going to the store and grabbing it off the shelf earns you no points in my book. Plus, it's cheaper. And speaking of cheap, same goes with your house decorations. Personally, I don't quit get the blow up air thingys, but that's just me. And it's a cop-out. I spent about $5 on mason jars, and $2 for webs and that was it for Halloween this year. I cut up a sheet for ghost, stuffed it with grocery bags, hung lanterns (mason jars) with wire, made spiders with pipe cleaners, and of course pumpkins. Easy sneezey. For my costume I was a 40's housewife, the era I feel I missed out on, and my husband was, well, in total Andy style, a stick of ram. Ah yes, if you haven't tried to use a power drill to carve your pumpkins yet, I highly recommend it. You can carve it lickadi split come out with something a knife can't possibly do. Plus, it's a blast! Humm, maybe the Drimal ....next year.

Furniture Fun...or Is It?

I'm also not an expert at refinishing furniture, but hey, I gave it a go. A "client" needed her raw wooded kitchen hutch finished and I volunteered for the job. I'm not completely ignorant when it comes to wood. I come from a line of wood workers, namely my dad, plus I took a wood working class for my degree. She wanted an antiqued look using a black and spanish red oil based paint. No problem I said. It shouldn't take more than a few hours. I primed it. Painted it black. So far so good, then red. Now time for the sanding. I've never used oil based paint before. This project came with a learning curve. Now I know your just can 'sand' oil based paint. You have to bust out the 60 grit with your sander and use your entire body weight to get through the stuff! I also pulled out the chisel. Then I had to go back over parts with the black, then the red and do some wipe away action with some finishing touches with a dry brush. All in all it took about 10hrs to do. I think it turned out pretty darn good, and now I know, oil paint is the devil.

Round Top

I believe this is a good way to start out a blog. I drag my husband to Round Top, TX every time the antique show appears. He obliges me with this trip in hopes for some good coin finds for him and some cheap and inspirational finds for me. We meet up with my mom and step dad, because lets face it, now they're hooked. This trip was incredibly rainy and stormy, which is completely awesome in my book. It was muddy and slippery and completely wonderful. I came away with some good finds, one in particular, a $45 antique hutch. Rainy day sale. Weather its "antique" or just really well used. I don't mind. It screamed Sandi and now it resides in my kitchen waiting to be filled with other good finds.

First Blog

Woo! First blog!