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It's cold and damp outside but cozy and fresh on the inside - (picture above is not my house!). My husband and daughter are painting her room a pretty blue, and she is full of ideas for curtains and decorations. She tried to convince him to let her paint the trim black - Uh, no .... Thankfully, he did say "no," or I would have had to override that choice. I told her let's go with black fabrics here and there to accessorize but not the trim.

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A very belated set of wedding gifts have been sewn, embroidered, and sent. My nephew and his bride had a coffee press on their gift registry, which I bought immediately with big plans to make a coffee press cozy like I've seen around on the blogs, but I couldn't decide how. The wedding was in May. I finally wrote to the bride and told her my idea but that I was stuck. I also told her I figured they'd bought another press by now, and they could re-gift mine when it finally arrived! In the meantime, sets of towels were embroidered and a monogrammed pillow. I recently purchased a new craft book, and, lo and behold!, a coffee press pattern was printed out for me in the book. Hurrah, and the cozies were quickly sewn with a few of my own improvements. Whew! I beat the first anniversary, and hopefully, the arrival of the items will erase the memory of my delinquency.

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This month, my friend and I have a special project we will be doing together for 40 days, and I ordered these journals from Mary at BittyBooks so that we can keep track of our project. Mary sweetly embellished them as a surprise, and the decorations are right on the spot.

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This is my fourth order from Mary, and I am not disappointed. She made the guest book for my studio and two Sweet-16 journals, one for my daughter and one for my niece, last summer. You'll have to stop by and see her other pretty designs.

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Did you see the handcrafted bird swap button on the upper left of the screen? Creative Kismet is sponsoring this one. I love handcrafted birds, and I think this is a great idea. I'm excited to be on the receiving end of someone's designs. I'm going to make some birds that I have in the past - I can't get too creative, because you know what happens - I get crazy trying to reinvent the wheel, but I did want to participate.