Merry Christmas!

Luckily I got a lot of decorating done pre-vertigo. The snowstorm we had definitely helped put us in the mood to deck the halls!

My aunt Marcy and uncle Tom gave us this beautiful pan dau handmade by Hmong women in their community.


Dan and I have a new favorite store. We found our stockings there.
AND he surprised me with these. Aren't they cool? We snipped some boxwood to place in them.

Since we're both Nordskogs now I thought it's be fun to have a Norwegian tree!

My aunt Andrea and uncle John gave us this gorgeous German pyramid for our wedding.

The great snowfall of December '09:

Thanks to Val!

As a gift for our wedding, Red-Haired Shannon's mom made us a quilt. She was very patient working with me as I decided that I wanted a design that didn't have a pattern to follow. She listened to me and figured out how to do it and IT'S PERFECT!





I love our new bedroom.

Vertigo Crafting

I've been couch-bound with vertigo for 5 days now.
Luckily I've been able to do a couple of craft projects that don't give me the spins!

Martha Stewart had a needle felted penguin that was too cute to pass up. Thanks, Martha, for inspiring me to make this. It gave me ideas for other creatures to create.

Sentimental Sweater

A co-worker asked if I'd be willing to create a creature out of her daughter's sweater. She loved the sweater but the daughter had grown out of it. This was a fun challenge! I admit I was a bit nervous making the first cut into the sweater but I'm thoroughly pleased with how she turned out.

Monkey-a-Rama

As always I have a monkey in every state of creation.

Here are a few of the ones I've been working on.

A visual representation of my greatest skill—starting projects without finishing them:

Jinger, Julie and I had a monkey making night! I think Jinger was inhaling the polyfill . . . Jinger?


Every year my place of work has a silent auction for the United Way. This time I donated "Stripey Striperson" and "Dottie McHottie." A co-worker won them both and gave them to his 2 kids. Fun!


My aunt commissioned me to make monkey finger puppets to go along with the story "Five Little Monkeys." Dan is modeling the first batch of monkeys. The second photo is of the doctor monkey who is crucial to the plot line of the book. :)

Oh, Baby!

In October I hosted a baby shower for my good friend Shannon whose baby boy was born just a few weeks ago!
Here are some photos from Levi's baby shower. I went with a theme of elephants because Levi's room has this adorable bedding!




Clockwise from upper left:

• Wrapped candy bars for guests to take home. • The invitation • All of the decor in my dining room waiting to be hauled to the party spot • Guests took home my favorite chocolate mint cookies along with the recipe • My first attempt at a souffle (and it was successful!) • Silverware wrapped with paper labels • Details of garland, confetti and all of the fun things that made this a great celebration!