Decorating in bits and pieces.

It's been a slow start to December around here.  The 70 degree weather on December 1st threw us all for a loop, and it was hard to believe that Christmas was really coming. Our gloriously fragrant tree finally got decorated this week.  We pulled out the owls and birds that were handmade last year, and they hang on the tree as dear treasures already.

The handmade birds are mixed in with the Hallmark bird ornament series that start six years ago, which we only became aware of four years ago.  And those are mixed in with the hand sewn felt garland from a tutorial found on the Anna Maria blog.  Were it not so painfully time consuming, I'd start making a new strand to mix with the old strand so that it could go the whole length of the tree.  But that might be for another year.

Because already this year I decided we needed new Christmas pillows in the spirit of the Halloween pillows, with a flower petal pillow (as seen before made by Liz), reminisent of a poinsettia.

And a Christmas Tree Forest wall hanging that I saw last year on The Purl Bee Christmas craft round up, and have not been able to get out of my mind all year long.  This would be a project best suited to slow and steady progress.  Not the all out blitz that I approached it with.  Perhaps if you didn't think you needed to make it in a 36 hour span of time, you might more carefully pick out your greens, rather than just raid the scrap bin.  But whatever, it's a treasure now, and it will forever remind me of our first Christmas in North Carolina when the sudden urge to CREATE came on with a most powerful force.

 (please ignore the unpatched bit of wall where a flat screen TV hung for the previous owners)

And a little strand of Christmas tree garland.  This too was a tutorial I found this year on Sew, Mama, Sew.  For some reason, I don't love it right now.  But I hope as the season wears on, it will grow on me.

And that's it so far.  There are still decorations lining the floor of the attic, waiting to be noticed and placed somewhere.  But after the recent sewing marathon, I seem to be dragging, just a bit.  I hope to get to it all, before it's time to put it all away?!