Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes . . . .

. . . .snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes, silver white winters that melt into spring, these are a few of my favorite things.....

Sorry, I couldn't resist singing the next verse. Of course, my lyrics are probably wrong, but I know it's something like that (or is that the verse with brown paper packages tied up with string??)

Anyway back to the point of sharing my favorite things.

As I mentioned in my last post, my Believe memory book from my sister Laurel is truly a treasured piece. Here's a peek at some of the pages.

My mom took my sisters and I to NYC 2 years ago in December. While we were there, we visited this silly Charmin (yeah, the toilet paper company) 'event' and posed on this tobaggon. Look at the vintage image she found - can you believe that?

I love the santa at the bottom of this page.

A menagerie of memories......

I love my sister!

...these are a few of my favorite things.....

...when the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I'm feeling bad,

I simply remember my favorite things and then I don't feel so bad......

oh come on, tell me you just sang ! and if you didn't, you are not a Sound of Music nut, like me :)Anyway, I was just tooling around the house and came across so many things that just make me smile. I thought I would share them.

A trio of dolls from my sister Laurel.

I love my perennial garden, so this was a birthday gift one year.

Her skirt reads "Flowers have the sun, Children have their mothers"

This one is fashioned from an old quilt of my Gramma Toms.

Emotionally, Laurel had a hard time cutting the quilt apart. She consulted with a textile expert and they assured her the actual quilt was beyond repair. And this way we all have a bit of it, as she made not only one for me, but also her my other sister and my mom.

Old St. Nick

A snowman from Meghan

And lastly, always remember to . . . . .

This is a beautiful memory book my sister Laurel made for me last year. I will share more of that with you later - it's so special it deserves its very own post. But for now, I need to stay on task and keep working on a Christmas surprise. I have made fabulous progress on my socks too and I will bring you all up to date on that soon - it is so cool the way the pattern works!

Savor the spirit of the season while you can and please don't let the 'stress' of Christmas bring you down. Take a drive at night and look at the Christmas lights, listen to old Christmas songs, bake and eat as many Christmas cookies as you possibly can and

Believe.

Renee's Wallet

I'm really loving Renee's wallet. Here's a side view (obviously !) I did my favorite wallet edging in fancy black, taupe and copper. It really pulls all the shades of the velvet together.

The flap edge is a 2-bead edge that I first had done with all taupe beads for the top 'picot' bead, but it was too much, so I alternated the taupe and fancy black and it was much more effective.

Here is the vine on the back (I'm not sure why this picture looks so washed out). The leaf beads are so pretty - one side is olive green and the other has a gold finish. I wish I could remember where I got them.

I always try to incorporate my little signature bleeding heart stem. This time I placed it on the inside money flap.

I can't believe Christmas is two weeks from tomorrow. Where or where did 2008 go?