Gingerbread Houses, Boys & Girls + Snowmen

The last couple of weeks have been one of juggling between home, kids and creating.  It has been difficult.  Lots of sleep was lost but I have caught up (somewhat) on sleep in the last few days.

I decorated my home for Halloween later than usual; however, my family and I are pleased with our Halloween decorations, including our Spooky Candy Jar display in the Kitchen.  Although Halloween is over, I will keep my home's Halloween decorations for a few more weeks before I switch to Fall/Thanksgiving decor (crazy but I really love Halloween).

When Amy, from the Pink Attic Cat, asked me to sew items like pillows and stocking from vintage materials,  in time for her annual Christmas Open House sale, I was happy to do it.

Amy also invited me to have my Christmas hand-crafted items at her Christmas Open House.  I helped, along with her friends and family, to get the shop ready for the open house.  The transformation was truly magical and I was happy to be a small part of it.   It was nice to met many of Amy's loyal customers and friends on Friday and Saturday as I helped write sales tickets or wrap purchased items.

A few weeks ago, Amy gave me a cream wool sweater to felt and create a felted wool pillow.  Imagine my surprise when the cream 100% wool sweater came out of the washer thicker than you can imagine.  It looked and felt like a rug rather than usable material.  After my initial shock, I decided this was just a creative challenge.  I decided to look through some books and Pinterest for inspiration.

I  came up with two options.  Triangle shape trees and houses.  I will take a picture of the trees later this weeks (they are at the Pink Attic Cat shop) and add them to this post.  Here is a picture of one of the houses.  This one is blue but most of them have red trim (will post that later next week).

Felted Wool House created by me for Pink Attic Cat

After I created the felted wool houses and trees for Amy, I created some houses for Isa Creations. This led to creating felted wool snowmen/girls using vintage trims.  They were a part of the Pink Attic Cat's 7th Annual Vintage Christmas Open House this past weekend.

Houses & Snowmen created for Isa Creations

You would think this would of ended here, but no.  This only led me to find my Gingerbread Sizzix die.  Creating the gingerbread boys and girls was fun, although rather time consuming as it took more time than expected to add all the ric rac trim.  The trim is front and back but well worth the effort since ornaments tend to rotate somewhat.

After I created the Gingerbread boys and girls using many vintage trims, including the ric rac; I decided I had to create gingerbread/sugar cookie houses.

Honestly, creating all these felted wool ornaments was not part of my plans 2 weeks ago.  I am always amazed at how my creativity happens; sometimes,  it just happens.  These felted wool ornaments came about in probably the most organic manner.

They will all be available at the upcoming sale at the Checkered Corner, November 15, 16 & 17th.  Along with Sugar Plum Bazaar November 30 & December 1st and Rue de Noel, A Paris Street Chrismtas Market December 6 & 7th (still waiting on acceptance of booth application).  Details on all these shows will be forthcoming.

Here are pictures of my felted wool Gingerbread boys/girls and Houses.

I only had time to create 2 Extra Large Snowgirls.  I have many more in progress.