New Year, Resolutions, And A Winner!

Happy New Year! After the excitement and busyness of the holidays, it's nice to get back into a routine. And first, as promised, I'm going to announce the winner of the assortment of six lace zippers.

The winner is Faith!

Faith, I will leave a comment on my previous post to notify you. Please email me with your mailing address and I'll get these cute zippers sent to you! Congratulations!

Now back to that routine. I haven't made too many crafty resolutions (and no regular resolutions!) this year. I do want to:

• Organize my overdyed floss better.
• Stitch every day.
• Quit looking at my phone during stitching time. I know, I know. That one sounds familiar.
• Go back to my WIP rotation.
• Try try try to stitch from stash.
• Finish something already.

OK, that's a lot of resolutions. But they're all pretty sensible and doable. That phone one though. Ugh. Why is it so important to keep checking my phone? It isn't. Do I need something like this to put my phone in while I stitch?

 

 Ha ha ha! Just a thought.

I have been stitching! I worked on "Bluebird Garden" by Artful Offerings.

Significant progress was made on his tail and into that blue checker-y area.

I also worked on "Life Tree" by Rovaris.

This is one of my favorite projects. I'm stitching it one over one on 25 count Lugana in the color Potato. I lightly tea-dyed it. Very lightly, just to give it an antique look. When this is done, I know exactly how I'm going to finish it, AND exactly where it's going to go.

I also did a little finishing since my last post.

This chart is by Little House Needleworks from the Farmhouse Series. It's "Horsin' Around". I finished the first in this series as a little pillow, but wanted to do something different with this one. I used the exact same materials that I used in the first one and will continue to use the same fabric and trims for all of the charts in this series.

With all of the Christmas decorations gone, the house looks a little..... bare? blank? stark? So I tried to liven things up a bit with some wintery decor.

I have found that the secret to decorating the three-tier tray is to not overthink it. I have a container that has all of the Christmas and winter decorations for the tray. As I put the Christmas things away, I took out the winter pieces. I think I arranged this in about ten minutes. Another tip: elevate small items by hiding small boxes (like the boxes that jewelry comes in) under fabric.

Thank you for visiting today! I hope you like the craftiness that I have to offer. Please consider following my blog if you haven't already. I hope that you have the happiest of new years. Come back and visit again. 

Three Tier Tray, Autumn Style

Recently I brought my three tier tray out of hiding and spruced it up for the fall. I thought I'd share some pictures of it in all of its autumn finery.

I bought my tray on Ebay, but a lot of stores have them now. I've seen them at Hobby Lobby, Wal-Mart, and Amazon to name a few. I lined the two bottom trays with plaid cloth napkins in fall colors.

Let me tell you a little secret. Most of the items in here came from the Dollar Tree. Yes, the Dollar Tree. These owl salt and pepper shakers, for example. The fabric leaves too - a pack of 50 for $1? I'll take it!

The glass turkey candleholders were found at an antique place, and that art glass pumpkin was something I had for a while.

Only one stitched piece?, you might ask. Yes, and I didn't even stitch that. I think I got it as an exchange, or maybe a giveaway. It's cute though. I will be working on some fall-themed smalls for future displays.

Who can resist a sparkly beaded pumpkin? Yep, another Dollar Tree find! And so is the mirror-glass one behind it.

And just because it's cute, a dough bowl filled with faux gourds and leaves. That little owl seems pretty interested.

I hope you liked this little three tier tray tour. Before you know it, it's going to be time to fill it with Christmasy things! Thank you for visiting, and thank you for all of your sweet comments! Til next time.

The Christmas Three-Tier Tray

It all started when a little ad popped up on Facebook. You know how it does that? Ads from different stores and websites show up on your newsfeed, all with the purpose of tempting you with their wares. This particular one was from Pottery Barn and it was their three-tier tray all dolled up with Christmasy goodness. It had Santa mugs, candy canes, sprigs of greenery, and festive fabric. Simply adorable. The first thing I thought is "I have Santa mugs!". Well, two of them. One big and one tiny.

I admit that I became a bit obsessed with this three-tier tray thing. It's not much to look at on its own, especially since it's made of galvanized metal. But oh, the possibilities! Off I went in search of an affordable version of it and found it on Ebay. Easy enough to assemble, it took all of a few minutes. Then I left it in my craft room so that I could ponder how I would make my creation a thing of joy and wonder! Here's what I came up with.

First, I wrapped each tier with some mini holly strands which I already had. More things I didn't need to buy: the Santa mugs, bottle brush trees, pine cones, tiny candy canes, a Santa polar bear, tiny Santa salt and pepper shakers, and some little figures I owned since I was a child.

I bought both reindeer at Joann's. I will also use these for my winter tray.

The little ceramic basket was a thrift store find! I did purchase the Christmas fabric and berry picks and the evergreen picks.

Another purchase I made was the larger size candy canes and the all white Santa mug. It found those at a local antique store. The white mug used to be painted, but almost all of the paint is gone. I did like the look of the paint-free Santa!

The whole thing just makes me happy.

It has a place of honor on the sofa table.

So here I was thinking that I was pretty clever doing this, all with just a little idea from a Pottery Barn ad. But nooooooo! It seems that the three-tier tray is a thing. Yes, I Googled three-tier tray and so many different photos of them came up! Well, at least I can say that I didn't copy any of them. I even found out that one of my favorite Flosstubers and blogger, Priscillas2000 (that's her blog name), decorates her tray seasonally. So no particular originality for me, but I do get points for creating a cute little scenario.

I already have plans to use my three-tier tray for winter decorating to cheer up the place during those bleak winter months. But there are still several weeks to enjoy my Christmas-themed creation.

So what do you think? Can you imagine the different things you could put into the tray for different times of the year? If this is something you'd like to do, just Google "three-tier tray" and "three-tier tray decorating", and you'll not only find different sources for the tray itself, but also wonderful decorating ideas! Have fun! I hope you enjoyed this little tour!