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Pumpkin butter, pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie OH MY.

I love this time of year.  All the special dishes and deserts that are made.  The house smells so good from the holiday cooking.  It's the time of year where our family and friends get together for a bit of good food and conversation.  I am so looking forward to giblet dressing!  It's my favorite part of Thanksgiving.  I never tell anyone what is in the dressing, and I always get so many praises on how great the dressing is.  Why ruin a good thing for people who are afraid of gizzards!  To me, well you can't have a good dressing without them.

Anyway I know it's a bit early but I'm already getting ready for Thanksgiving.  Every year I made my special pumpkin butter, pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie (made using the pumpkin butter) for the neighbors.  Five of my neighbors get a loaf of the pumpkin bread with the pumpkin butter of course and a pumpkin pie.
I've made the pumpkin butter, you can also make this delicious treat too if you like.  The recipe is listed on the right hand side of this blog page along with the pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie recipes, all of which are so scrumptious!

Making your own thank you cards!

I don't know about you but I absolutely love getting handmade cards.  I rarely get them in the mail these days but years ago people did send letters in the mail and sometimes you'd be lucky enough to get a note from a creative friend that took the time to hand make the note card!  On the other hand there are people like my husband that when he gets a homemade card he will accuse you of forgetting to get the card from the store and had to make one at home....I laugh at this, cause it's so hard to believe there are people that don't have an appreciation for ALL things handmade!
Years ago, maybe 10 or so, a friend dragged me to a card making bee of sorts.  I'm ashamed to say I do not remember what friend it was.  We made three cards and that was my first group project ever.  I had fun but never have done too much with card making.  Since I have so many hobbies I only make thank you cards and the occasional birthday card for the most part.  Here lately I have been making note cards that I write little notes in for my niece who is currently deployed.
Well as the boutique workshops are winding down and the end of this year and a half long project is almost over, I decided to make handmade thank you cards for all the wonderful ladies that attended our workshops.  We have been so blessed with so much participation that I had many cards to make.  I found this video on YouTube for the cutest thank you card and decided I'd set out to make this card.
Here is the video:

The unfortunate thing was, I didn't have the Cricut cartridge "Country Life" so I had to go get that and I didn't have the cute rubber stamp "Thank you sew much".  I wasn't able to get that stamp because it was retired, but I made due with a "Thank You" stamp I already had. I also had to get a couple Tim Holtz rubber stamps, I was so glad they were not retired!  This project took nearly two whole days to complete.  I had 45 thank you cards to make! The little sewing machine took the longest to make because there are so many tiny pieces to it.  It would have been less time consuming if it wasn't a Cricut project, Sizzix dies would have been so much faster. Here are pictures of a few of my finished cards...I couldn't make up my mind on the design.

I ended up choosing the one on the left but using brown ribbon instead of the tape measure ribbon.  Adding thread and a needle to the spool was just too time consuming since I had so many cards to make.

Here are some more pictures and close up's of the cards.  Also a picture of the huge mess card making makes!  I had to use my spare bedroom for this project because I already had a project going in my sewing room.  It was a bit tight but with two tables it worked out fine.  The mess is cleaned up now but I've left the tables and machines in the room for when I make my Christmas cards in the next couple weeks.  (Hoping to find time!)

I used my printer for the sentiment on the inside of the card.

Here is a box full of some of the cards.

Here are the tiny pieces needed for the sewing machine.

Here is the mess....

This would have been a faster machine to use!  I did use it to make my niece a thanksgiving card with a pumpkin on the front!

Another pile of junk!

The good news, everything is cleaned up, all dies are back in their boxes and this mess above looks like I was never in that room except to set up some tables and my machines ready for a project!  :)  

This is hilarious!

If you remember, my son adopted a little Min Pin named Artemis.  Well of course he is spoiled rotten.  I get to dog sit often and have fallen in love with this crazy little dog.  He loves to wear cloths, he is the nosiest little bugger I've ever met and he is absolutely hilarious!  My son sent me these pictures and I nearly peed myself laughing so hard!  Here is Artie in all his glory...

Can you believe they caught a picture of him in his P.J.'s yawning????

WT HECK ????

Sleeping with his tongue hanging out????

So adorable!

He makes the weirdest faces...what is he thinking here?

Table runner in redwork

I did a post a while back showing some red work and some cross stitched items I've made.  Of course cross stitch is very very very did I say very time consuming but it has hit the scene again.  Red work on the other hand is a very fast satisfying art.  The red work on this piece is about 16x20 and took me 4 - 2 hour evenings in front of the TV.  I was thinking of doing a crochet edge and making it into a sort of doily but then I remembered the 10 minute table runner Carla Kennedy made at the retreat and decided to give it a go!  I am happy with it.  I am sending this to Donna so she can see how red work looks in all one color.  I choose a color that is close to her heart or at least I believe to be since her entire house is made up of this blue teal color.  Anyway another project completed....what to do next???