Do I see an Anchor on your tree?

It's Christmas time, which means how do I give presents to my 'family' members without going overboard - on price and items. I decided to make my own ornaments for my big, twin, and niece.

Originally I wanted to get larger ornaments than the ones I got and put charms particular of Delta Gamma and the person inside. Once I got to the store I realized that the number of charms I wanted and how much money I had wasn't going to work out.

So here is what I did get, it's all from Hobby Lobby.

Small clear ornaments, thin blue ribbon, anchor charms, bronze beads, pink pearls, and white pearls.

I tried to use an even amount of beads per ornament (I only made 3, if you want to make more then you definitely need to buy more pearls). There are many other options you can do for each sorority with color and charm variations.

These are filled ornaments. The one on the left is complete.

I looped the ribbon through the ornament, cut at whatever length you want. Then I slide the anchor charm down and tied the top.

It's a pretty easy gift idea for yourself or others and it literally took me less than 10 minutes to do. The hardest part was getting the ribbon through the anchor charm.

The ribbon spool was a good holder for the ornaments while I worked.

I also had leftover ribbon that I just filled another ornament til it was at a fullness that I liked. Since I wished I had a different ribbon, I didn't use it to make a loop. When I get home for the holidays I'll just find hook that isn't being used to hang it on the tree. I had one anchor charm left and I used the metal twist tie that kept the charms on the packaging to tie it to the top of the ornament.

Take care and do good for the holidays,
Sarah

A Work in Progress

So I decided to start a cross stitch wall hanging for me or my future little. Too bad there aren't any good patterns that I could find. I did what my grandma does and got out some graft paper and a pretty image.

Here is what I want it too look like in the end

And here is what it looks like on the graft paper

...it has been a bit tedious transferring the words but I'm almost done with the pattern. Then I'll go to Hobby Lobby or some place like that to get blue thread and hopefully some tan or worn dotted fabric. I plan to use 3 threads for the outline of the letters and 2 threads for everything else.

I'll put up more pictures and tips as I work on this. I'm not a fast cross stitcher but I love it.

Take care and do good,
Sarah