"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..."

Christmas House
There's a house around the corner we like to call "the Christmas house". The house is lit up and decorated every year and it's magical. These pictures don't do it justice (taken from my camera phone!) but it gives you an idea of some of the decorations they have. They have a different scene in each of their 3 garage doors, and then they have reindeer, more lights, and a giant snow globe on their front and side lawn.

Here you are, the Christmas house:

These are the lights and decoration along the side lawn




********************************************************
The house is a 3 car garage and they have a different scene inside each garage door opening. This is a scene inside one of them:



Horse Drawn Carriage
Another sign of Christmas around here is this horse drawn carriage. I got stuck behind it but I didn't mind slowing down :)

Holiday Gift Guide: 6 Handmade Gift Ideas

If you're like me and running out of time on the handmade gifts-to-make list, here's a list of 6 (relatively) quick and simple things to make yourself. The best part is, these patterns are free :) yippee!


Baby Shrug


*******************************************************

I've actually tried this pattern already and loved how simple and fast it was to make.

Fingerless Gloves


*******************************************************
Knitting Needle Pouches


*******************************************************
Bias Tape Tote Bag/Organizer


*******************************************************
Baby Kimono Shirt


*******************************************************
Amigurumi Holiday Toys

Japanese Crochet Patterns - How to Determine Sizing

In a recent post, I shared my experience following a japanese crochet pattern. Someone asked me about how to figure out the sizing. The japanese crochet books I have are written only in Japanese, but I notice that the charts that illustrate each of the projects have measurements marked in centimeters. You could get an idea of the sizing by converting cm to inches and then looking up the measurement on a sizing chart. Here are some links that I found helpful in calculating sizing:

Here's a cm to inches calculator:
http://www.manuelsweb.com/in_cm.htm

Children's Body Measurements and Garment Sizes:
http://www.fibergypsy.com/common/children.shtml

Here's an example of how I applied this.



The sweater (worn by the girl in the far right) has a chest size measurement of 66cm. Take that measurement and plug it into the converter and here's what you get (26 inches!):



Then look up 26 inches on the body measurement chart, which tells me that the sweater is a girls size 7.



I know that isn't rocket science, but boy did I feel clever figuring that out! LOL :)