18 days till Christmas!

It's just 18 days till Christmas but there is still time to shop online for great handmade product perfect for gift giving!

We have very busy holiday season and lots of sales but we still have some good things left!

You can find different items: gifts under $10, gifts under $20, gifts under $35 and more, for men and women.

Please visit our socksandmittens shop to see the selection of warm gloves, mittens, scarves, socks and cup cozies!

Holiday gift exchange 2015

I know it''s beginning of February but I did not get chance to write about the Holiday gift exchange yet.

It was wonderful last year. It is always a surprise on who your secret Santa will be and who you will draw. So this year I signed up for 2 exchanges. I sent two gifts, one to Illinois and another one to Virginia and received 2 gifts, one from Ukraine and another one from Latvia.

It is so much fun to open gifts like this! Both of my senders, Anna and Natasha, did a great job on their presents, packing and presentation. I loved my gifts and felt very special with  their lovely hand written notes. Thank you so much, girls, for your wonderful, wonderful presents!

First parcel came from Ukraine. I received 12 (!) beautiful handmade jewelry pendants from Anna (CreationsOfTrueFairy). One was beautiful embroidered and the rest of them were resin & dried flowers. 

Anna gathered the plants herself, dried them and even makes the gold framed pendants without the mold! Truly handmade, isn't it? They are so pretty, definitely conversation pieces!

 

My gift from Natasha (NatkaLV) came from Latvia and it was full of Latvians Christmas treats! I got a bag of cookies, delicious chocolates and even a box of Christmas tea! 

It was fun to sample them and also share with my friends during the holidays. Natasha also added a beautiful silver crochet snowflake and, as a special treat, fashionable lace boot cuffs.

Thank you so much, Anna and Natasha, for your lovely gifts!

Merry Christmas!

Peace, Joy and love. 

Merry Christmas to all!

New at socksandmittens, crochet flower brooch

Just listed in my socksandmittens shop: cute crochet flower brooches! 

They will look great on your scarf, sweater or even hat! They are also great as stocking stuffers and small gifts. 

I made these in 4 colors: oatmeal, gold, linen and light grey.

Each brooch is crocheted from soft wool and acrylic yarn - choose the one you like or contact us for a custom order for a different color!

How to measure your arms for custom arm warmers

In addition to my previous post on how to measure your hands for custom made gloves or mittens, here is how to measure your arms for  custom knit arm warmers.

We will need 3 measurements to ensure a good fit.

1. To find out your arm warmers circumference, please measure your dominant hand (the right if you are right handed, and the left if you are left-handed) with a tape measure or a piece of string. If you are using a string please lay it on a flat ruler to see the result.

Place the tape measure around the knuckles of your hand around the fullest part, excluding the thumb (measurement A):

 

2. Measure the circumference of your arm about 2"  below the elbow (measurement C):

 

3. Measure your wrist circumference (measurement D):

 

Write down your measurements and contact us for your new custom made arm warmers. We are always glad to hear from you!

A Holiday tree cross stitch necklace DIY

This cross stitch necklace is a very quick project for the coming Holidays. I made mine in cheerful green and red Christmas colors but you can choose any colors you want.

 To make this, you need:

pre-made brass necklace with round pendant setting (I made my necklace together with Albina albinasjewelry)

white cardstock

white felt

linen to cross stitch

DMC threads

beads

Fabric/ paper and all purpose glue

embroidery and beading needles, scissors, i

How to make this:

Measure your pendant diameter and cut a circle from cardstock and another one from felt to fit inside the circle. Cut a 3rd circle from a linen fabric but make it overlap the cardstock circle, about 1/4" all the way around.

Fold the linen circle to find the center of the design and stitch your little Christmas tree. Carefully iron it and start to assemble.

Glue the felt circle on top of cardstock. Place the stitched design on top of your cardstock & felt sandwich and make some small vertical cuts all the way around the linen circle to fold the extra fabric around the base. Add some glue around the cardstock perimeter and fold the excess of linen towards the center to make a perfect round stitched insert for your brass pendant. Place it in between 2 sheets of white paper and put in under a heavy book for about 10 minutes to make it flat.

Glue your finished ornament to the pendant setting with all purpose glue. Place it under the book to grip for 10 more minutes. Sew the beads around the perimeter.

Here is a free cross stitch chart for you to make this, A Holiday Tree:

Happy Holidays!

Napkin rings with wine cork stoppers, wire and beads, DIY project

This project is absolutely great. It includes a recycling idea since we are using the used wine bottle corks.

 

This is a great practical idea (you can make them for any holiday dinner party and they are inexpensive) and they are a lovely piece of home decor. Albina (albinasjewelry) and I made this project together during our last get-together gathering and I am going to use my napkin rings for the coming Thanksgiving party. 

 If you like this idea here is how we made this.

Materials and Tools:

Pre-drilled wine corks

Wire 26ga and 20 ga

Beads of your choice

Mandrel, 1” diameter

Round nose pliers

1. Cut piece of 20 a wire, 2 ft long. Slide the wire through the cork’s hole, center the cork. Place a cork against a mandrel and start wrapping the wire ends around the mandrel, feeding the wire ends through the cork’s hole. 

2. Wrap the wire until you have 2” of wire ends coming out the cork. Using round nose pliers and chain nose (or flat nose) pliers, make spirals. Place the spiral so it is covering the hole.

3. Attach 26ga wire; wrap the ring, adding beads.

 

We made several sets of these using different materials and I've already given 2 sets as gifts to my friends.

 

They liked them a lot!

Pretty dolls at CherryGardenDolls shop

The search for Easter party ideas continued. I was looking for some pretty house decor and I found these happy rug dolls in the CherryGardenDolls shop on Etsy.

A couple of these would really add some charm to my home! I was also  wondering about their maker so I contacted Sveta, the shop owner, and asked if she would tell us 3 things  about her. Thank you for sharing with us, Sveta!

1. What is your favorite spring project?

My  favorite Spring project is the preparation of gifts for Mother's Day, because for me it is a grand opportunity to pay more attention to feminine, delicate gift ideas, fabrics and decorative elements.

2. What’s your favorite part of your job?

My favorite part of the job - it is inventing, designing and sewing clothes for dolls. When I was  a child I dreamed of being a fashion designer – so my dreams came true.

 

3. I've noticed you are donating some of your proceeds to the World Wildlife Fund. Can you tell us little bit more about it please.

I write free DIY lessons for people who wish to sew a simple beautiful things and I have created  some products  sewed as examples, I decided to donate the proceeds from the sale of some of them to WWF. I get great pleasure to make these things and somebody  will be glad to receive it as a gift, so two lucky person are very happy to help endangered species together.

More cute dolls and ornaments can be found at the CherryGardenShop on Etsy - please visit soon!

Hazelnut rugelach

We did not bake much this holiday season, just a couple of my favorite treats. One of them is hazelnut rugelach. This recipe seems to be complicated but it's really not and it's also a very delicious. 

I got this from Good Housekeeping magazine several years ago and I have baked rugelach every winter ever since.

I used some dried plums and cherries for my recipe and switch hazelnuts for pecans and it tasted as good as the original one.

 

For the complete recipe go to Good Housekeeping or follow the instructions below:

Rugelach Dough

2 cup(s) all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon(s) salt

1 cup(s) (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened

1 package(s) (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened

Fruit and Nut Filling

1 cup(s) hazelnuts, (filberts), toasted, skinned, and chopped

1/2 cup(s) dried pitted plums, (prunes), chopped

1/2 cup(s) dried tart cherries or cranberries, chopped

1/4 cup(s) (packed) light brown sugar

Spice Sugar

3/4 cup(s) granulated sugar

1 tablespoon(s) ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon(s) ground cloves

9 tablespoon(s) apricot jam

Directions

Prepare Rugelach Dough: On waxed paper, combine flour and salt. In large bowl, with mixer at medium speed, beat butter and cram cheese until creamy, occasionally scraping bowl with rubber spatula. Reduce speed to low; gradually beat in flour mixture just until blended, occasionally scraping bowl. Divide dough into 3 equal pieces; flatten each into a disk. Wrap each disk in plastic warp and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight, until dough is firm enough to roll. (Or place dough in freezer for 1 hour if using butter, 1 1/2 hours if using margarine.)

Meanwhile, prepare Fruit and Nut Filling: In medium bowl, combine all filling ingredients.

Prepare Spice Sugar: In small bowl, combine sugar, cinnamon, and cloves.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line large cookie sheet with foil; grease foil.

Sprinkle work surface with 2 tablespoons spice sugar. Place 1 piece dough on top of sugar; turn over to coat both sides. Roll dough into 12-inch round, turning round over a few times and sprinkling work surface with 2 more tablespoons spice sugar to coat both sides.

Spread top of round with 3 tablespoons jam, then sprinkle with about 3/4 cup filling, leaving 1/2-inch border around edge. With knife, cut dough into 24 equal wedges. Starting at curved edge, roll up each wedge, jelly-roll fashion. Place rugelach, 1 inch apart, on cookie sheet, point side down.

Bake rugelach 20 to 25 minutes or until bottoms are browned. Immediately remove rugelach to wire rack to cool.

Repeat with remaining dough, spice sugar, jam, and filling.

Enjoy!

Think holidays

I wish I would take some photos of colorful leaves and pumpkin patches but we don't have them here. Instead we are finally spending more time outside where the garden is in full bloom. The weather is really pleasant and comfortable now.

We count the plants we lost this summer. A beautiful apple tree and some vegetables did not make it through the 115'F summer heat. So we replaced the apple tree with pecan and also added a fig and pomegranate trees, hoping that these will tolerate the heat much better.

When the pomegranate tree was finally planted I went outside and immediately notice that even thought it's not the right shape and kind, it still resembled a Christmas tree. The red fruits were covering the tree and it looked like Christmas ornaments.

 This simple fact put us in a holiday mood so we created some new items for our shop. Some colorful socks, some soft fingerless gloves and cute bottle covers that we made this November and are listed in our socksandmittens shop on Etsy. 

Hope you will like them!

Gift wrapping idea, a wine bottle cover

This knitted bottle cover is available now at our socksandmittens shop. We think it will be a nice way to present your bottle of wine during holiday season. There will be parties and celebrations so the bottle of wine is always a nice gift for the hostess.

We knit these cozies out of acrylic yarn so cleaning them  is easier. They can be machine or hand washed, then lay your cozy flat to dry. These will fit standard wine bottles or any similar size round bottles.

 

We made several of them in different colors and I will be adding them to our shop shortly. They can be made in custom colors or yarn also, just let us know what you have in mind.

Gift wrapping ideas

These vintage colorful tin jars are so sweet. They are great to store some sewing supplies in and they will work wonderful to present your home baked treats during winter Holidays.

 Home made sweets are a very thoughtful gift by itself, but it is even sweeter when wrapped nicely.

You can also use other vintage containers like clear glass jars topped with a pretty handmade cover and hand written or printed label.

A clean cigar box can be washed and altered with acrylic paint and sealer for a personal look. Let your imagination be your guide.

I am always in the mood for Christmas so I will start my preparations early this year. I will be happy to share with you some ideas later.