HAPPY NOVEMBER FIRST!

Today, my Mom, My Uncle Jerry (back-which happens to be my Mom's twin brother), my cousin Vickie, me, and my Dad went to Four Winds Casino. 

  I know...we're bad. We wasted some money.  Just a little though. But you know what, we had fun!  We were losers but we had fun!  And is it any wonder that we had fun.  I grew up with my Aunts and Uncles getting together every weekend, having fun, hence, I got together with my cousins every weekend, hence, my first playmates were my cousins.  Hence, our family is my friends.

 You can never tell what these two are up to.  They were friends before Mom and Dad married.
Double Trouble I say!

 And when I got home, my Shug and I sat on the porch, for at least an hour!  It was 70 degrees outside!!! NICE and VERY unusual for Indiana weather in November.

 Gorgeous I tell ya!

And peeps, did you know Fall is a good time to plant trees.  One of the best times actually.  They can spend their energy on the root system, and not leaves and blooms.  And Fall, in Indiana, is a somewhat wet season. So BONUS, rain waters trees.   And then we go into winter, which is also wet.  Then summer and they have spent all that time developing their root system.  AND....BEST of ALL, 75% off these trees at Lowe's!  $2.00 each.  I did the math for you!

 It's a little late, but Happy November 1st!  What did you do today?

Cindy Bee

Make a Wooly tree!

 I've always been a nature girl.  Most people have little Christmas villages, I have a woods. 

 I try to add a tree every year.  I have these crochet trees my MIL made years ago.  She told me they needed decorated when she gave them to me.  I left them empty, and put them in my woods.

 

I've made these wooly trees several times, for different occasions and just love them. They all turn out different, and they are so cute.  You don't need a woods for them.  They look cute on their own.  The pattern came out of a felt book, called Fa La La La Felt.  Anything you can make with felt, you can make with wool.

 I made this bee with wool, and did some felting on the wool for the stripes and the hat.  It's my own pattern.

 Here's another woolly tree (top left) that I bought at a craft show. It was this year's addition. 

 This Saturday, from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm I am going to be at Groovy Girl Yarn with a wool stash.  For $5.00 you can make one of the above woolly trees.  They are great teacher gifts, hostess gifts, stocking stuffers, ornament exchange gifts, etc!  Perfect, easy and inexpensive.  Who could ask for me.  I have been hoarding wool sweaters and jackets for years.  I've been very busy this week cutting up the wool into pieces and  I will have the pieces for sale on Saturday.  I will also have felt books available for you to look at.  (I will not be selling or copying the patterns, but you will at least get a sneak preview of a book before you decide to buy it somewhere!)

The wool possibilities are endless!

 

Stop by and say HI!

Cindy Bee

Christmas decorating

 Before the tree incident, I had a post ready to go.

 I had the tree up and partially decorated Tuesday evening....

and as the week went on I added more decorations as I found them, until yesterday.  Yesterday is when the tree fell over.  We got it back up. I cleaned things up and now everything is back in order.  Only two broken bulbs. But there are a few special bulbs I didn't put back on the tree. 

The trunk on this tree is crooked.  How we didn't see it when we went shopping....who knows.  But apparently one of the bolts in the Christmas tree stand bent and that's how it fell.

Ok - so here's the post I had ready to go.

My Shug said we have no room in our house for a real Christmas tree, so I put this big, artificial one up, to prove to him that we do have the room for a tree.  Must us women always have to prove everything?

So, the day after Thanksgiving, we got a tree.

We had to find a skinny one though.

but if I had to settle for skinny, I wanted tall.

We found it!

My Shug helps with the lights, and I add the ornaments and other such stuff.

Our ornaments are old glass ones that I've collected over the years at garage sales and antique stores.

And a few were given to me.  I am still missing a box with a very special ornament in it.  It's around here somewhere.

This is one end of our room.

 And this is the other end.  

I got the place decorated in time for my friends I used to work with at Purdue to come over for a brunch.

 Good friends, good times.

Cindy Bee

Poor Miss Maple

Just a couple of short years ago, Miss Maple was a happy tree and the subject of a lot of blog 'gossip'

Miss Maple on the right.

Cindy Bee

The tree I didn't let go....

A year or so ago a couple of my friends came over and started packing up my house, telling me "this has gotta go, and that has gotta go....." This tree, they said, must go! You can read about it here.

I kept it.

Look at it now!

Just took a little bit of love!

Cindy Bee