Saying Goodbye To 2021

The holidays are always rushed and I never seem to have time to do everything I want to do. This year was no different. I didn't have time to do as much decorating as I wanted to or as much baking (although the hubby and I don't need the extra calories) or as much holiday crafting. One thing that was not on my list this year was buying Christmas presents as we decided to opt for a family vacation the week of Thanksgiving in lieu of gifts (except for the grandkids). Because our kids spent their Thanksgiving with us, that meant they spent Christmas with their inlaws - which made for a quieter Christmas for the hubby and I, although my brother and family was home for the holidays.

To close out the year, I thought I'd share a few photos of some of my Christmas decorations.

This year I was very excited to get to use my new Fiesta Ware lightbulb dishes along with the "A Lightbulb Moment" placemats and table runner I designed last year.

This Santa pitcher was a new acquisition in 2021 and he looked so cute in my tablescape.

My Santa mug collection continues to grow. I just love them paired with my Fiesta Ware lightbulb plates.

Jars filled with vintage ornaments and vintage Christmas lightbulbs graced my tablescape.

A few of my vintage plastic Santas and a vintage candolier that I decorated with vintage plastic Christmas items. I love them mixed in with a few pieces of jadeite.

A jadeite dish filled with vintage ornaments. Press the red nose of Santa and it lights up and plays Christmas music.

More vintage Christmas ornaments in a jadeite bowl. Love this vintage Santa even if his nose is a little crinkled.

A few of my Santa mugs along with a few of my vintage milk glass Christmas figural lightbulbs, and of course, more vintage ornaments.

I found this string of Santa lights a few weeks ago at a thrift shop. They almost match my two plastic Santa head ornaments I found last year.

Since I had no presents for under the Christmas tree, I wrapped a couple of birthday presents that were in the closet. I didn't really miss the packages with all these cute blow mold Santas and Snowmen under the tree. My tree this year was filled with lightbulb shaped ornaments to go with my "A Lightbulb Moment" tree skirt, etc. I made last year.

This is my "A Lightbulb Moment" quilt that was published in the Best of Moda Bake Shop book last year. It's still available at Martingale Publishing if you're interested.

I even managed to get my sewing studio semi-cleaned so I put up a Christmas tree to celebrate.

I managed to get a couple of projects completed during the holidays. I bought four framed cross stitch seasonal scenes with the intention of making them into pillows. I got the winter scene made into a pillow, while the rest are on my to-do list.

The only crafting I managed to do was turning this cute little deer I picked up at a thrift shop for 25 cents and a vintage jello mold into an ornament.

Didn't he turn out cute? I had plans to make Christmas bells from some other jello molds I bought this fall but it didn't happen. Maybe I'll do it before I pack all my Christmas away so they'll be ready for next year.

As we welcome a new year, I wish for all of you a happy and health year filled with quilting, crafting and thrifting with friends!

Happy New Year!

~Sharla

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Miscellany

Just popping in to update on things in the Thistle Thicket Studio lately. It's been hard to find the my mojo but I have been working on my Moda Block Heads 3 quilt. I finally finished all of the 56 MBH3 blocks and made an additional 8 blocks from MBH2. All 6". What was I thinking!!! I swore after making the Farmer's Wife quilt that I would never make 6" blocks again. But don't they look so cute all laid out on my 'design floor'?

I'm working on the setting blocks for this quilt now. I'm going to use Lella Boutique's Mama's Linoleum setting so I have 120 6" setting blocks to make now. Ugh, more 6" blocks! Luckily these go together fairly quickly. Not sure I will get this finished before the end of the first quarter of the 2021 Finish-A-Long or not as I'm hoping to sneak away and spoil the grandkids later this month.

I updated my dining room table with lucky clovers for St. Patrick's Day. I had purchased wooden and tin hearts from Hobby Lobby and added cute candy heart sayings cut on my Silhouette Cameo 4 for Valentine's Day (see post here), so I was excited to find similar clovers so I had to get them for my table. I repainted the wooden part with a lighter green (which still ended up not being as light as I wanted) and then added the sayings in white vinyl. 

I'm really loving my blue and white themed table but thinking I'll get out my Pfaltzgraff Pistoulet dinnerware to do a spring table scape after St. Pat's Day is over. Can't wait to start playing.

This whole pandemic thing has really got me itching to go antiquing. I haven't gotten to do it much (or any in person anyway) this last year. So it was fun yesterday when I had to go to a neighboring town for a farm errand and made a quick stop at a thrift shop. I picked up this cute tea cup and saucer to add to my collection. 

I have done a little 'antiquing' on Instagram this past year. I have only purchased from one person but she makes it soo easy - too easy because it makes me want to buy all the things! Last week my latest acquisition arrived and he's so stinkin' cute. I collect Santa mugs but have never seen a Santa pitcher until my aunt and I were texting and she showed me hers. Then a couple of weeks ago, my one and only fav IG seller posted a photo of her booth at an antique mall and low and behold, there was a Santa pitcher sitting front and center. I responded that I was interested in it and it was soon on its way to me. Like I said, she makes it way too easy!

So what have you been up to lately? I'd love to hear what you're working on! 

Happy Sewing/Crafting/Antiquing!

~Sharla

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Road Trippin' Finds

This past week, my mom and I hit the road to travel to Texas for my grandsons' birthday party. Of course, any road trip includes a few quilt shops and antique stores, but the bonus this year was attending QuiltCon in Austin one day. Today, I'm sharing a few of my finds from our trip - from sewing notions to vintage Christmas decorations to china. 

My favorite finds are the Necchi toy sewing machine (#21 in my collection) and matching green handled iron. Of course, I just love the vintage green color and they fit perfectly in this display in my sewing studio.....

And then, I picked up a couple of new sewing notions at an estate sale - an Oliso steam iron and an 12" x 18" Olfa cutting mat. The mat is brand new and was only $2! The iron also looks unused and was a steal for $20.

I've been in this vintage tea cup kick lately and have been picking up cups and saucers when I find cheap ones. This trip I picked up a few mismatched plates and containers for a DIY project that's on my to-do list - 3 tiered serving trays. I plan to use dinner plates on the bottom, salad or saucer plates in the middle, and a container such as a sugar bowl or gravy boat at the top. I picked up all these pieces for less than $2 each (most were 75 cents!). I was looking for very inexpensive pieces because I'm sure I will have some breakage when I try to drill holes in the centers for the tiered hardware. Stay tuned for more on this later.

I also picked up a few vintage Christmas decorations to add to my collection. I just love that the label is still intact on the green handled Santa cookie cutter.

I also added a couple of vintage aprons to my growing collection. I'm working on a program for our quilt guild's spring tea in April on the history of aprons, so I'll wait to show photos until later. 

Of course, mom and I love to find unusual places to eat while road trippin', and this time we came across this cute tea room in Crowley, Texas. Lunch was wonderful and was full of beautiful pink flowered china and doilies. 

And no trip to Texas is complete without some BBQ - even if that BBQ was in Oklahoma on the way Texas. It was rustic and filled with native American relics - and this quirky salad bar made out of an old car, vintage window and longhorns.

I'll share more about QuiltCon in another post later.

~Sharla

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Auction Find - Vintage Super Stitcher

Last week I ventured out in the elements (ugh, I'm so tired of the snow and cold!) and hit up a local auction. Although I went for a cute little Midget toy sewing machine, I came home with this cute green hand held sewing machine instead! (It was much more friendly to my pocketbook!)

After a little research, I learned it is a 1973 Super Stitcher chain stitch, hand-held sewing machine made by Southbury Manufacturing. It will join my ever-growing toy sewing machine collection (I'm up to 17 now! Whoops, just spotted another one, make that 18. Lol!).

Who else can't pass up a cute little sewing machine?

~Sharla

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Friday Finds

Wheat harvest is just days away here on the farm and the hubby has been getting the combine ready for the many long hours we hope to put in harvesting the crop - which mean, a parts run to eastern Kansas was in order. Sure, we could have had the parts shipped to the farm but for the price of shipping we could pay for the gas to pick them up AND spend an evening with our son who lives in the Kansas City area. Of course we chose the latter. 

We arrived a little early (the son was still at work) so I made a quick run to a local quilt shop (Prairie Point Quilt & Fabric Shop) that I knew carried a fabric line I have been searching for - Painted Garden by Crystal Manning for Moda. Crystal lives in the KC area too and I first met Crystal on Instagram where I sent a few PMs asking some textile design questions (which she graciously answered), then I met her in person at Quilt Market last fall where she was introducing this line. I instantly fell in love with Crystal and her new collection - both boast warm and bright personalities. I'm excited to finally have a fat quarter bundle of Painted Garden but was disappointed to learn that I had missed Crystal by just a couple of hours at the quilt shop! 

We also hit up an estate sale where I did get one new addition to my vintage Christmas décor collection - this plastic church. I have a couple of other churches but nothing as elaborate and grand as this one. I just couldn't resist. They had a few other vintage Christmas ornaments and blow molds but they were priced higher than I was willing to pay. The church was not in their holiday décor section (yes - the estate sale was huge) but rather was tucked in an area with a few other religious items. Who ever did the pricing obviously didn't consider it vintage Christmas, but I do and am thrilled with my bargain!

Now to get busy making some freezer meals for harvest!

~Sharla

P.S. When we arrived home last night there was a secret package waiting for me. I can't wait to share it with you on Sunday. Hint - it may have something to do with the Moda Bake Shop Choose Your Own Adventure Mystery QAL that's starting soon (wink, wink)! Are you going on the adventure with me?

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Vintage Christmas Crafting

I think I mentioned that the hubby and I spent the last couple of weeks in Texas spoiling the grandkids. We also spent some time hitting up antique shops and estate sales and it was the perfect time to find some great vintage Christmas decorations. I love most things vintage, but I have a special passion for vintage 50's Christmas - plastic Santas, blow mold snowmen, candoliers, and all things Shiny Brite.

I found lots of goodies and I don't think I spent more than a couple of dollars at the most for anything, but it does add up! I was surprised at how much I accumulated when I unpacked it all yesterday!

I've been wanting to make some decorated candoliers and ornament box dioramas, so I concentrated on finding things to work into those two types of arrangements. And of course I had to jump right in and make some things, like this festive triple candle candolier. This little flocked Santa is so cute, and although new, I found the red flocked Merry Christmas and ribbon that are perfect for it. To tie it all together, I sparkled it all up with crystal glitter. Nothing says Christmas like glitter, right?

I decked this single candolier out in a monochromatic color scheme. That snowman is actually a plastic Christmas light bulb! And I thought the vintage buttons looked like snowflakes.

When I saw this box of old turquoise blue ornaments, I knew I had to get them - not so much for the ornaments, but for the box! I knew it would be perfect for my diorama. I lined the inside of the box with pages from an old book, then glued a couple of vintage Christmas postcards for the background. Although its hard to see in the photo, I put vintage greenery in a couple of corners inside the box to add some depth. I decorated the outside of the box with this cute Santa, sleigh and reindeer I picked up at an estate sale for $1, topped the tree with a star and tiny ball, and added a bubble light, ornaments, Christmas bulbs, and a Christmas pin. Lastly, I added the red velvet ribbon for hanging.

As you can tell from my first photo, I still have lots more to make! My mom keeps asking me what I'm going to do with them all. I've been wanting to set up an Etsy shop to sell some of my goodies for awhile, so maybe that will be one of my goals for 2018. Or maybe I'll just set up a Paypal account (yes, I know I'm really behind the times) and sell them on Instagram. What do y'all think?

~Sharla

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A Christmas Decorating DIY: Vintage Santa Mug Arrangement

Wow! Did we really just flip the calendar page to December? Christmas is my favorite time of year and I love to decorate, but this year I'm afraid it will be here and gone before I get my tree up. So to help me get into the decorating spirit, I decided to make a little vintage Christmas ornament project. I found a cute little Santa mug while antiquing this fall and it was just begging for me to take him home and deck him out. And today I did!

I've collected vintage Christmas ornaments for years, so I gathered a few supplies from my stash and made this arrangement in less than 20 minutes. Don't you just love that little bottle brush tree with all the glitter! And I really scored when I found four packages of that vintage tinsel garland this fall!

First I cut down a styrofoam ball to fit inside the mug and hot glued vintage tinsel garland on the top for the base on which to build the arrangement.

I used a wooden skewer to poke holes in the Styrofoam for the ornaments and hot glued them into place, placing the taller ornaments in the back and the smaller ornaments in the front. After placing the larger ornaments, I filled in the gaps with the smallest ornaments. Ta-da! The front....

And the back...

This makes the cutest little arrangement to tuck on a shelf to add a little Christmas cheer.

Ho! Ho! Ho! Just what I needed to get me in the Christmas spirit!

~Sharla

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