Boxing Day Sale At McBride House

Christmas is just about over and it's time to take down the decorations.  It's also time to clean out my stash of McBride House goodies and put on a HUGE SALE!!

From now until shortly after the New Year most of my items are on SALE!!

Don't tell my little creatures, but when the sale is over, their little lives will change forever!  Whatever does not sell will be put on a shelf to be reworked into something else!

So this is truly the last time some of these items will ever be seen again!  If you like them, take advantage of the sale and bring them home!

 

Just in case you forget where these little guys live:  McBride House!  

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all my blogger friends....both two legged and four legged!  It must be illegal to be this cute!

Christmas List

Guess what Piggy wants for Christmas?

Happy Winter Solstice!

Today, December 21st,  is the Winter Solstice.  Not only is it the shortest day of the year, but it is the official first day of winter.  In my part of the world sunrise began this morning at exactly 8:00 am and sunset is at 4:41 pm.  Thank goodness from now on the days will be getting longer!  Happy Winter everyone!

A Day of Crochet, Knitting and Chatting Part Two

What a fantastic day we had talking, crocheting, eating, laughing and knitting!

We had so much fun I actually forgot to take any pictures of us working on our projects!  I did, however, get Mom to take a picture of her shawl and send to me.  She did the main piece in knitting and I added a crocheted trim.  We call it her "Spiderweb" because the yarn for so delicate!

We also had a friend join us for lunch!  We had pizza and she had apples!

She is a young doe from last year that came to visit all winter.  If you look closely you can see her front right leg is held up?  She had something wrong with her leg and can't walk on it, but she made it through last winter and she even has a baby with her this year!

Here she is eating the apples we threw out for her.  Mom has this window completely decorated in glass snowflakes and icicles.  The make the loveliest tinkeling noise when you brush them!

Mom's famous popcorn balls!   One of the first times she made them she didn't add the cellophane.  She hung them from the tree on Christmas Eve and in the morning, the floor was littered with popcorn balls and the tree still had the candy canes!  After that she wrapped them up in cellophane and ties them with a pretty red ribbon!

Tea anyone?

Pretty little jewel boxes collected over the years.

A favourite elf from our childhood.   Merry Christmas everyone!

A Day of Crochet, Knitting and Chatting

This morning I'm off for a day of crochet, knitting, chatting and just plain fun with mom and my aunt!  Mom and my auntie are starting a pair of fair isle gloves together (I'm not a knitter!) and I'm working on a new pair of cabled wristwarmers (yes, cables in crochet!) that I'm really excited about.  I'm also working on the above project for my Mom.  It's a shawl/capelet/neckwarmer that she has knitted and I'm adding a crocheted trim to it.  I just finished the edging on another shawl for her and I'll try to get some pictures of it to show you today, along with some of her gorgeous decorating... I'm talking magazine worthy decorating!   Have a great day everyone!

Holiday Weekend

This was a big Christmas weekend!  We had DH's staff party, we were invited to pick out our Christmas tree and my in-laws Christmas dinner.  Whew!  What a whirl wind of activity with a bit of Christmas shopping, and Christmas decorating thrown in!

Every year at the staff party they have a Yankee Swap where basically somebody takes your gift away if they like it better than their potential gift.  The later your name is drawn the better because you have more gifts to pick from.  However, the person who's name is drawn first then gets to pick from everybody's.  Every year my gift is taken from me and last year it was taken three times plus, once again, I ended up with the "mature" gift!  I nervously sat there waiting for my name to be called so I can just get my gift and sit down again.  This year my name was drawn second to the last!  I went up and for once in my life actually went and exchanged my gift for a little Teddy Bear that was making the rounds.  I sat down, all pleased with myself for not being the usual wall flower and thrilled to get a beautiful gift!  I drew the last name... oh good, it's a boy's name... he won't take my Teddy Bear!  Wait... why is he coming over here?  What's going on?  He took my Teddy Bear!  With a brave smile pasted on my face, I open my gift... it's a sort of jack-knife thing... very nice... but it's not a Teddy Bear.  HOWEVER... guess who's name was drawn first?  That's right... my darling husband!  He promptly takes his "mature gift" and walks over to the Teddy Bear taker and hands him his gift, he tenderly takes the stolen Teddy Bear and brings her back to me!  Am I not the luckiest woman in the world?

On Saturday we went to pick out our Christmas tree.  How on earth did we ever choose?  We had hundreds of trees to choose from, but it was sooo cold and windy we stuck to a small area.  I'm afraid I won't be decorating it very much this year since Piggy has now become an indoor cat and he is WILD!  He's into everything!  It's like having a cross between a cat, a dog, a baby, and a Tasmanian Devil!

I know... hard to believe that adorable little face could be such a terror, but trust me, he is!  He's also the greatest purrer and snuggler!

A few more decorations.  These beauties are on my mantle in the bedroom.

 

A new ornament for my house, but it's really an older ornament that has made it's way from Mom's house to mine this year.  Isn't he adorable?

Christmas Decorating

For some reason I just can't get in the Christmas spirit this year!  I have the house decorated, presents wrapped, DH's staff party tonight, we get our Christmas tree tomorrow, turkey dinner at the in-law's on Sunday... something has to kick me into gear!  Meanwhile, here are some of my Christmas treasures.  Some are new, some are ages old, all are favourties!

A new owl for my woodland animal display.

Little treasures from my University days.

DH bought me this one year when he went Christmas shopping with some co-workers for their wives.  Everybody made fun of him because he spent so much time looking at the same Teddy Bears trying to pick out just the right one for me.  We are a match made in heaven!

My new amaryllis.  I just about always go for pink ones, but this year I decided to mix it up and get this red and white one.  You can't tell but the blossom is actually only about 3 inches wide!

Last years treat.  A blown glass snowflake to hang in my window.  Please don't look at the dirty window!

Blown glass turtles that come out to play with the permanent turtles at Christmas time.

And of course, who doesn't have green gum boots, a crown and a knight?  Happy Holidays everybody!

First Snow... A Nor'easter!

After a really unusual warm Fall, Winter has blown in.  On Saturday we experienced our first snowstorm... a Nor'easter.  The trees were coated in a light fluffy snow... very pretty, but what's to come?

Today the sun is shining, the sky is blue, life continues on.

I brought Piggy outside to see what he thinks of his first snow.  He wasn't thrilled with it, but he enjoyed it.  Especially when Frosty got in on the action.  If you remember last year was Frosty's first snow and he LOVED it!  Below are some action shots of us playing in it today.

 

 

Thank you so much to everybody who left such kind words for me and my devastating news.  Piggy is doing fine and is enjoying the extra attention but I still worry about him.  Again, thank you everybody.

Grief

While trying to do the responsible thing yesterday by taking my two "Baby Kitties" to the vet to be neutered something tragic happened.  I dropped them off and when I got home there was a call from the vet saying that Porky died under anesthetic.

Piggy's fine and home again but our heart's are broken.

Happy Decemeber 1st!

This is a picture from last year and I haven't even thought about decorating the house yet...but....  Happy December 1st everybody!

Please vote for me?!!

I'm calling on all my Etsy friends to please, please do me a favour?  For the first time EVER I'm in the Storque in the Vote for Your Favorite Ornament Contest!  It goes from today until Novemeber 30th and I really don't want to embarrass myself or my Great White North Santa Christmas Tree Ornament (whew, that's a mouthful!) with a low showing of votes!

You can vote for him HERE or even HERE.  I'm not expecting him to win, there is some pretty stiff competetion, but I would really like him not to be in the bottom...which, sadly, he is right now!

 

So please everybody?  Please Vote for him?  Thank you!!

A Gift Week

It has been the most stunning week!  A true reprieve of the upcoming colder, winter temperatures.  A little sunspot in the middle of the woods.  I expect to see a little rabbit sunning in the beams!

Lichens and moss.  How tiny and spectacluar.

The creek running through our property.  The brown grass brings out the blue of the water.

 

Another little pot, I mean spot of gold!

 

The old crab-apple tree.  This is the first tree I climbed as a child, later in life I picked crab apples from it and made wonderful pink jelly, today I enjoy the regalness of it.

That's it, I just wanted to share a beautiful week with you!  Have a great weekend everybody!

Wordless Wednesday

Is Today the Day?

Less than a year and a half after opening my Etsy shop my dreams are coming true!  As of this morning I have had 999 transactions on Bella McBride Designs.  I'm not going to lie, there have been some low points, but goodness, there have been some high points!  This little country mouse has met people from all over the world through the tappings of a keyboard.  Amazing!

I started out with this as my first pattern... Strawberry Fields Hat.  I think it's still one of my favourites and I will never, ever sell the actual prototype.  I love wearing it!

And this is my latest pattern... Winter's Eve Mittens.  I have to say, it's another instant favourite!  I've decided that whomever is my 1000th customer will receive both the Strawberry Fields Hat Pattern and the Winter's Eve Mitten Pattern for free!  Will it happen today?

UPDATE!!!  Yes, today was indeed the day... dreams really do come true!

Thank you everybody!

Needle Felting a Snowman O' Christmas Tree

It has been beautiful and warm all this week.  I wake up to a fresh frost in the morning and by noon the frost has burned off and the temperature soars to 10 C.  The deer only have one more week to go before hunting season ends, and that means I only have to wear hunter's orange for one more week when I go for a walk!  Yay!

I was asked by a really nice customer to make her a Snowman O' Christmas Tree to go with her huge Snowman collection!  I gladly obliged and got right to work on him!

So this is what I came up with!  Do you like him?!

 

Little did I know that he was going to have some companions accompany him to his new home!  This will be my last photo session with the little gang!  I'll miss them, but I know they are going to an excellent home!