I didn’t do very much sewing at all for Christmas. What you see above is about half of it (the other half is coming up soon!). I made these little bags for my best friend this Christmas.

Her sewing, crafting, and knitting projects are very organized. She has a big basket filled with smaller bags, and in each bag is a little project. So she can grab the whole basket or pick and choose which project she wants to take to school or work or the doctor or any of the million places you end up waiting (for your kids).

I used the open wide zip pouch pattern by Anna from Noodleheads. I don’t often use patterns for bags, but I like the way this little pouch was constructed. I made some of the pouches bigger to accommodate larger projects, especially knitting needles.  Anna has a size chart to make color blocked zip pouches, but I of course didn’t follow that either. My proportions are off because of it. The bags have a big bottom (I cannot lie) and a lot of the fabric ends up there.  

It’s too bad, because I like the fabric I did use: bits of a butter soft leather jacket I bought at the thrift store ages ago and lovely little scraps of fabric. Each bag is lined with natural canvas. All and all I think they will hold up nicely and work well for little project bags.

How do you organize your projects?

This was meant to be two posts, but well then the polar vortex swooped down and cancelled school and any other plans I had.

Do you have all your Christmas stuff packed up already? If so (or even if not so) I have one more thing for you to put in those boxes: a letter to yourself. I stole this idea from my sister years ago. She would write a little note to herself about whose turn it was to put the angel on the tree, what things should be done early, and what things not to do at all. My twenty year old self laughed at her I’m sure, but my 35 year old self is totally in need of this.

Usually I write a quick note on the back of a ripped up envelope. This year I thought I’d get a little fancier. Click here to download this Christmas letter to yourself. Print it, fill it out, and slip it into one of those giant boxes in your basement. Trust me, you’ll be happy you did.

The let’s do better, get fitter, eat well energy in the air every January is amazing.  I love getting swept up in it. But I’ll be honest, resolutions where I have to change what I do every day are too hard. I forget, feel bad, and I’m back where I started. Something I have to do once a month, though, those are goals I can get behind.

I made up this handy little monthly goal chart that you can hang up on your fridge or slap in your journal. Click here to download the Monthly Goals chart. I already started filling mine out and I may need to print another. I might also need to stop making new goals, because those cookies are starting to look attractive and I only have a finite amount of will power.

I was going to do a best of 2013 kind of post, but when I looked through my photos I kept finding funny little pictures of my kids. Bloopers! For every picture you see on elsie marley there are at least 20, sheesh sometimes 50 crummy, blurry, crazy, crabby, ridiculous, weirdo, or otherwise unusable ones. [all links are to original posts]

So here you have it, the best of the worst 2013:

1. I made these shorts years ago and this summer they actually fit, but I never did blog about it. 2. anchors away! 3. I think his eyes were crossed in every single picture I took for this post. 3. a beetle and a smirk

1. my little ham 2. nah nah na boo boo 3. bring it! 4. meh

1. the hills are alive 2. hair! 3. ahhhh! wild animal! 3. the tiniest pocket in the world

1. this photo shoot’s got me all tuckered out. 2. walk like an egyptian 3. the headless horseman! 3.say what?!

1. dancing feet! 2. sir serious sticks his tongue out 3. oh, brother 4. blink and it’s over

Happy New Year, everyone!!

I probably won’t be back until after the holidays. I may pop in next Friday with our last (half) week of activities, even if it’s only so I can remember what we did :) I hope all of your last minute scrambling isn’t making you crazy. Even if everything doesn’t get crossed off your massive to do list, do have a wonderful holiday!

advent activities: week three

DAY 13: watch Polar Express

Friday is our movie night, but this one turned out to be a little too scary for the younger ones. It ended up being just my daughter and me snuggled on the couch watching a movie. We both cried, of course.

DAY 14: drink egg nog.

It was a busy run around kind of day and we needed to sneak an advent activity in quick.

DAY 15: wrap caramels

Every year I make caramels for christmas presents. Making them is the easy part. Wrapping 400 caramels is the hard part. Thankfully my family doesn’t mind helping. Actually, my daughter says wrapping caramels is her favorite part of christmas! This year I decided to make it even harder by putting a bit of washi tape on each caramel.  I also made a handy dandy key, so everyone can decode the flavors before they rip into the caramels.

DAY 16: make marshmallows

This sounds super ambitious, but it’s actually super easy and surprisingly fast. We made this recipe + peppermint extract + fancy swirls. We made it two times and ended up with about 250 marshmallows. Somehow just enough for all three of my kids’ classes. 5 for each classmate, packed up a pretty bag:

Not a bad gift if I do say so myself. And wow! homemade marshmallows are delicious!

DAY 17: sledding!

It started out well enough: beautiful day! fluffy snow! not too cold! But it ended with one kid slamming head first into a metal box, one getting whacked in the face with a flying sled, and last but not least one rather epic bloody nose. Oh well, we’ll live to sled another day.

DAY 18: coloring these cheapie wooden christmasy things I seem to get every year. 

We need something safe and quiet after our sledding fiasco. I pick up these coloring do-dads every year as an emergency advent activity. Now it seems they’ve become a tradition.

DAY 19: crack nuts

The advent calendar may as well have said “vacuum.” Still there is something old fashioned and christmassy about cracking nuts. I’m happy to say the kids loved it as much as I do.

I hope you all have a lovely holiday, or at the very least a nap on the couch! Merry Christmas!

I loved all of your advent activity suggestions on last week’s post. Thank you! Keep em coming. We are only halfway through advent. If you say it that way it feels like it’s a long time before Christmas :)

advent activities: week two

DAY 6: watch a Christmas Carol.

Friday is our movie night, so we watched an animated version of this Christmas classic.

DAY 7: go see the Christmas trains.

Does every city have this? Our Christmas train exhibit is in our local botanical garden. My husband took the kids, so I don’t have any pictures, but I hear the Christmas village was completely made out of candy!

DAY 8: make paper snowflakes

We make our paper snowflakes out of coffee filters. They are easier for little hands (and scissors) to cut. To make a coffee filter snowflake, first flatten the coffee filter, fold it in half, then in thirds, then in half again. Cut little triangles all over, or get fancy and look up patterns on Pinterest. I iron the snowflakes after we’re done making them. It sounds fussy, but they look so much nicer.  Then we fill up all our windows with snowflakes!

DAY 9: gumdrop sculptures

We did this last year and it was a bit hit. You have to brace yourself for the insane sugar high (and subsequent crash), but it is a lot of fun. There is a swing set in there somewhere and a dog and a booby trap. If you make gumdrop sculptures, be sure to look for short toothpicks. We had longer ones for some reason, and the sculptures were not very sturdy.

DAY 10: listen to Christmas records

Nothing better than listening to Bing Crosby sing I’ll be Home for Christmas.

DAY 11: make ice wreaths

The upside to living with sub-zero temperatures: ice wreaths. If you too live in painfully cold conditions, you can make this beautiful holiday decoration. Bundt pans work the best, but you can use any round cake pan. To make the hole in the middle weight an empty tin can down with rocks (or water). Don’t use glass! Ask me how I know.

DAY 12: dress up and go to the Christmas concert

We had two kids in the Christmas concert this year and my son even had a solo! All of us got our best clothes on and trudged through the cold and snow to hear adorable little kids sing adorable little songs.

Whew! That was our week in advent activities! Have you done anything Christmasy lately?