Holiday tree to color

It's that time of the year again!! I hope you enjoy this printable coloring page of a decorated tree.

Click the images below for large versions to print and color.

small jpg version:

large transparent png version:

If you're looking for last minute presents, please consider buying my self-published coloring book featuring some of the best of the mandala coloring pages posted on this site-

2015 Angel Boxes - Part 5

The last of the angel boxes- this was the biggest set to date because she was very simple and it was just changing the hair styles. I know there are more color combinations and hair styles possible. I'll be posting all 5 angels as coloring pages soon.

Click the angel boxes below for larger versions to print. Print on card stock, cut out, score folds, fold, glue.

2015 Angel Boxes Part 4
2015 Angel Boxes Part 3
2015 Angel Boxes Part 2
2015 Angel Boxes Part 1

Angel 15:

Angel 16:

Angel 17:

Angel 18:

Angel 19:

2015 Angel Boxes - Part 4

Part 4- there is one more part to go then I'll post the coloring pages for all 5 angels.
2015 Angel Boxes Part 3
2015 Angel Boxes Part 2
2015 Angel Boxes Part 1

To print these free angel boxes, click on the image for the larger version, print on card stock, cut out, score folds, fold, glue!

Angel 10:

Angel 11:

Angel 12:

Angel 13:

Angel 14:

2015 Angel Boxes Part 3- For Amber

Today's printable angel boxes have a really different hair style. I'll be back to the more traditional ones tomorrow, but the idea of making a hair style specifically for my friend Amber made me laugh.

So Amber, this is for you. It's also for anyone else who wants something a bit quirky!

Click the images below for larger versions, print on card stock, cut out, score folds, fold, glue!

Angel 7:

Angel 8:

Angel 9:

2015 Angel Boxes Part 1

2015 Angel Boxes Part 2

Angel Boxes 2015 part 2

Today I'm posting 4 boxes in this year's printable angel box set.
Click the images for larger versions, print on card stock, cut out, score folds, fold, glue!
Angel 3:

Angel 4:

Angel 5:

Angel 6:

Angel Boxes Part 1

Angel boxes 2015! Part 1

If you've been reading this blog a while, you know that printable angel boxes are a holiday tradition here, and that I do them in a few different colors. This year, they will be released 2 at a time because I'm doing more hair styles instead of just recoloring the same angel.

So here's the first 2!! Click the images below for larger versions, print on card stock, cut out, score folds, fold and glue!

Angel 1:

Angel 2:

If you have a specific request for hair style/color, go to my Facebook page and make a request. 

Christmas Crochet- giveaway, review and blog tour!

It's the season to start really getting ready for Christmas. Edie Eckman, the author of some of my favorite crochet books* has written a wonderful collection of patterns to start decorating. Christmas Crochet for Hearth, Home and Tree is full of easy to accomplish, quick stitched patterns that look good and fit the season perfectly.

My favorite kind of crochet books have both written instructions and international crochet diagrams. This one has both. The written instructions are easy to follow, and the diagrams are clear, and easy to read. The patterns are good for all levels. For people who have been crocheting for a long time, things like the snowy looking 3 dimensional tree decorations will work up in an evening, and putting together enough socks and mittens for a sweet, homey advent calender can be done in a week of evenings. For beginners, they can get practice in following diagrams and simple shaping techniques using worsted weight yarns and simple stitches.

My son is just learning to crochet using another book from Storey, and he's going to help me make the Advent calender.

There are some wonderful Christmas stockings in here as well, and they are also made of worsted weight yarn. You'll find a pattern for everyone in your family so they can all have a different handmade stocking that suits their personality. Bright stripes, polka dots, a complex looking peppermint colored stocking done in seed stitch, some gorgeous single color stockings that use embellishments or texture for interest, and my favorite- the flame stitch stocking which has texture and great color work.

The Christmas tree ornaments are great. My favorite are the felted ornaments. They are worked in motifs and make a great take along project and a good project for beginners since felting is so forgiving. The little birds are another favorite, folksy and simply too cute for words.

The styles are on trend for a homey, comfortable Christmas. Bright colors and easy to find yarn are a winner.

I made one of the snowflake motifs from one of the stockings in thread to decorate a simple headband /bookmark made using 1/8th blue elastic and a button center.

I've been so busy working on a big project, doing some of the small and quick projects from this book is very relaxing.

Storey Publishing gave me a copy of this book to review, but will also give one of you a copy! USA only. Comment on this blog post with your crochet decorating plans for the season to enter or click the Ravelry link below and comment on this blog post with your favorite project. On Monday, November 17th, I'll put all the names in a stocking and let my daughter draw one winner to receive a copy. Don't forget to include some sort of contact information on the comment. Ravelry name, Facebook name or email address.

You can also check out the rest of this blog tour in the next couple of weeks to see projects from the book and get more chances to enter and win a copy!

Check out this book on Ravelry!

Facebook: Edie Eckman and Storey Publishing

Twitter: @EdieEckman and @StoreyPub

Instagram: @StoreyPub

3-Nov Don't Eat the Paste

4-Nov Moogly

5-Nov Liberty's Yarn

7-Nov Rambling Designs

10-Nov Plus 3 Crochet

11-Nov Crochet Dynamite

12-Nov Jenn Likes Yarn

13-Nov Crochet Nirvana

14-Nov Yarning4aSmile

Sunny Christmas Coloring Page

Remember when I posted the Sunny Christmas printable box? This is especially good for people in places that just don't get snow at all for Christmas and was inspired by a lady in Australia.

Here's a coloring page for you all. I hope you enjoy it!
Click on the images for larger versions to print and color.

Small JPG version:

Large transparent PNG:

Sunny Santa Mandala

When I posted this sunny Santa the other day, I said I'd be doing a coloring page soon. Actually, I'm doing 2. The one I'll post tomorrow will be a lot like the one above. The page today is a simplified version as a mandala. I hope you like it.

I'm pretty envious right now of people who are in warm places for Christmas. It's snowy and gorgeous here, but bitter cold. Click on the images below for a larger version to print and color.

Small JPG version:

Large transparent PNG version:

Chocolate Squares Printable Slide Box

I hope you enjoy this printable slide box! The box will fit 3 Ghirardelli squares and this one is decorated to look like a present. I like these both as table decorations and as stocking stuffers.

Click on the image for the larger version, print on card stock, cut out, score folds, fold and glue! You can buy the blank template to decorate yourself with an instant download at my Etsy store.

A Very Sunny Christmas Box

One of my readers wrote me recently lamenting the fact that so many Christmas things were snowy, cold, frozen scenes. She lives in Australia and has never seen a snowy Christmas in her life. Of course, here in Alaska, Christmas means cold, dark, snow, ice and icicles everywhere. So I never even thought about the fact the seasons are switched down south.

So I asked some of my friends who live in Australia, and they told me all about having cold prawns for dinner, going swimming with friends and family or going to the beach. About having cold cuts and lollies and unless it's unseasonably cold- never ever considering heating up the kitchen for a turkey dinner.

Personally- I think cold prawns are ALWAYS a good idea, so they will be part of our Christmas dinner this year.

Anyway, for her, and for anyone else enjoying a sunny Christmas, I hope you enjoy this printable box.
Click on the image, print on card stock, cut out, score folds, fold and glue. There will be a coloring page later.

Homemade Holidays 101 and a free printable snowflake box!

I'll be doing an update soon about what's been going on the last couple of weeks. But first, a brand new printable box and information about a great promotion from Workman Publishing.

They are having a sweepstakes, and you get a prize just for entering. The prize is your choice of one of 4 e-books. 3 are cookbooks, and one is a knitting/crochet book. Sign up for their newsletter and you're entered. It's that easy. You can sign up here- Homemade Holiday 101. Check out the blog for the cutest knit penguin pattern around while you're there.  Also they will be having fantastic deals on some of their great books for the holidays.

I'm not being paid to promote this or anything like that, but I'm a big fan of Storey and Workman books. They are great guides to self-sufficiency, cooking and crafting.

The grand prize? A Nexus tablet with some great e-books preloaded. (I'll be reviewing one of them soon!) and 5 runner ups will win a 25 dollar gift card to the online bookseller of their choice.

About the box-
It snowed. October broke all kinds of heat records for Alaska, then all the sudden, with very little warning, temps dropped and it's all white, snowy and frosty outside. Posting a snowflake of some sort shortly after the first snow is getting to be kind of a tradition here. I hope you enjoy it. Click the image for a larger version- print on cardstock, cut out, score folds, fold and glue!

Amazon.com affiliate links help pay for this site, and my book addiction.

Santa Claus Printable Boxes

It's July, which means it's time for a Christmas in July printable. This one is for a Santa box that's 3x3x1 inch. Click on the images for a bigger version, print on card stock, cut out, score folds, fold, and glue.

When I was a little girl, one of my mom's biggest pet peeves around the holidays was trying to find dolls with darker skin and dark hair and eyes. I've never forgotten her determination that I would never have only blonde haired, blue eyed dolls. Because Native American dolls were always pretty stereotyped, the end result was a collection of gorgeous, handmade dolls in a rainbow of skin tones. I haven't done every skin tone possible on this set, and if you want something specific, just email me or leave a comment to let me know. Santa, no matter what the origins of his story are, should be a universal symbol for people who celebrate Christmas.

Happy Christmas in July!

I hope your holidays were wonderful!

Yesterday, after a week of incredibly cold temperatures, it warmed up enough to snow. My daughter tried to catch snowflakes on her tongue.

I hope your holidays were wonderful!

Ours were very low-key. Just our little family and Dad.
TG asked for, and got more Doctor Who shirts for her mammoth collection (seriously, I think she has 20 or 30 Doctor Who shirts now!) as well as a Kindle of her own to read Sherlock Holmes and other things she loves.

Michael was hard, but I got him a hex impact driver which he's loving and gave it to him early. I also got him 2 Firefly shirts, and a shirt by a Juneau based artist/screenprinter who does great stuff in our fandoms. You can see her work on Etsy HERE. I also crocheted him a hat. This wound up being very challenging. He's been wanting me to make him a hat, but it had to be something very plain. No spike stitches, no fun textures, no ribbing, cables or any of the other techniques that are so much fun. Originally he wanted it in just one color. After I came to the conclusion that even a quick to finish hat was going to take me *forever* in just one stitch, in just one color (BORING!), we re-visited that.

So it's all in single crochet, with a stripe pattern that was fun to work out. This hat was made to fit his largish head, but I will post the pattern later. He asked if I was going to post the photo to crop it to just the hat. You get just the hat and his pretty brown eyes! It's in an alpaca/wool blend, so it should be very warm for cold Alaskan mornings.

William of course was the challenge. I did a lot of research and found out a watch of the quality that I wanted to get him was prohibitively expensive. I did find a mechanical skeleton pocket watch that was a lot more affordable and just the style he liked, very steampunk. It has a wooden bezel around it, and is encased in a glass globe instead of a hinged pocket watch case. He was thrilled. We also got him a soldering kit, Michael is going to teach him more about electronics, and he and I will do slide pendants together.

What did I get? Well, TG made me a new doll for my huge collection of original dolls from her. This one has a thread sketched face, not embroidery thread, but sewing thread instead, and is as usual, made from scraps and completely designed on the fly. She might make patterns for individual dolls, but never reuses a pattern and never uses other people's patterns.

It's Dean from Supernatural. Under the teeshirt is the anti-possession tattoo! This one is cookie cutter style and entirely too cute. I love the big green eyes!
Michael got me enameled cast iron cookware, William and Dad gave me embossing folders. TG knit for everyone else, Michael got a Deadpool Neko, Dad got a coffee cup cozy, and William got a necktie. William and Dad gave TG and Michael each video games.

We went out to eat at a local Chinese buffet restaurant. They served traditional dinner as well as there usual great layout of Chinese, Korean and Japanese food. It was pleasant, laid back and if it wasn't my mom's full out Christmas blitz, it does suit the 5 of us quite well.

Regular postings will start again soon!

Snowflake Tree Coloring Page

Happy Solstice! I was planning something different today, but then just got very relaxed creating this, so today is a coloring page! Click on the images below for larger versions to color.

Small jpg version:

Large transparent png version:

In other news- today I got a short message from a childhood friend on FB. It's not the first time, but every time I'm a little startled by this time machine that Facebook can be, people from the past and future friends. Then comes that moment you look at them and think "Gosh, they look so grown up." because it doesn't feel like that much time has gone by, are we all grown ups now? I mean, I know, my son voted in his first presidential election, my husband and I are closer to 20 years than 10 years together. But I don't feel like a grown up, until I see those old friends and realize, YIKES. It has been that long.
Part of it of course is the holidays, you remember past holidays, people you haven't seen in a very long time.
So, old friends and new, I hope your longest night passes safely and happily.