Seriously, Christmas dinner here is the day after when my husband gets home. We eat at dinner time (5 or 6 pm). If you do show up (it is an invitation, after all), be prepared for a rude awakening as the dining room table is full of brug cuttings. You will have to sit in the living room & balance your plate on your lap. Doing this puts it at the perfect nose-height for a 150 lb Newfie (who drools & will steal shamelessly). We consider cat hair extra insulation for the winter & it is applied liberally to every available surface. You will be taking a free sample with you when you leave. Those of you who are "pee shy" had better "go" before you leave home & be prepared to hold it. We have 10 cats (I do fostering & will be encouraged to take one with you when you leave) & no one gets privacy (picture all those cats watching your every move). Also please be aware that homemade means there's hair in it (& possibly worse). In other words, you were warned. LOL Linda

I have a pattern I got free online for mini Christmas stockings. I think I knit them on size 1 dpns using scraps of sock yarn. They look best if the yarn has a little red in it (I used variegated/self striping). However, one other pattern I have seen is an all red mini sock with a white snowflake on it. I don't know if the snowflake is knit as the sock is knit like intarsia or if it is added after the sock is completed. Last year I had about a dozen of these tiny socks, and I hung them across the top of our fire screen with little ornament hooks. I think they would look cute at the tips of tree branches with hard Christmas candies in them and a mini candy cane too.

Here's a very easy one! It's a simple 9-patch in graduated colors. I cut them 3.5 x 3.5 to end up with 3" squares and 9" finished blocks. You can set the blocks in dozens of different ways. Use sashing like I did to separate the blocks or do it without sashing for a completely different pattern. This quilt uses the same fabric for the light square and the sashing so the blocks come out looking like hearts. It's my 2nd Quilts of Valor project and I'm sending it off tomorrow to be quilted. I finished piecing the top in 3 evenings - can't get much easier than that! My little helper here is McQueen (blond, with VERY blue eyes) Kate

Thanks all of you for your kind comments. These were just some things that I figured I could paint up quickly. I didn't make multiples of them, just these four. I still want to get a couple of patriotic things painted up too, but I'd better get with it if I'm going to get them done. Bebe, I do enjoy painting on the rough wood. I usually use my older brushes on these. I already had the two stars cut out and painted, so decided to use them on a couple of the signs. I love the grain of the wood like what shows on the green one, and I think it's perfect for outdoor signs. And I actually started painting because I was really into country and rustic back then, and had very little extra money to buy cutouts from the stores, so I did allot of painting on old boards that I scrounged up. Only later did I start getting into doing the more detailed painted items, and as you can tell from most of my projects, I still like quick, easy painting the best. Luvs