I know, you are already done with Christmas and New Years. But I was on vacation. A good long one. Making and buying lots of gifts and of course spending time with the Hubster and family. I hope you did too. I was definitely not ready to go to work yesterday!

The one thing I learned about myself is that I can not stick to one project at a time {like my blog title so suggests}. I was knitting one project then sewing another or hammering yet another. I think I drove my husband crazy! But at least he knows what he is up against now.

Doesn’t this look cozy

Christmas Eve and morning, the two of us spent together. I was lucky enough to not have to cook both days! My in-laws have a tradition that on Christmas morning, they eat garlic chicken and toast. I had never had it so the Hubster decided to cook it. It was delicious! And my gift was most wonderful – the Adobe CS5 suite. WOW! I am looking forward to many days spent experimenting with the software.

Speaking of Photoshop, these are the digital copies of the Christmas card I designed.

Okay, I am officially done talking about Christmas and New Years! I hope your year is truly blessed!

- ASH

Aah yes, I know what you are thinking. Christmas has come and gone and I’m writing about it February?!? Yes, I am. I can’t let my decorations go unheard of can I? And this past Christmas was a special one, the first the Hubster and I had as a married couple.

2-D Christmas Tree

So, for the first item today is the 2-D Christmas tree. I didn’t want something big and fancy just yet. We’ll probably wait on that when we have kids. So to save some money, some space, and time I decided to make one out of foam board. You got it. Actually I didn’t come up with this idea on my own. I saw it in a Peir 1 Imports magazine back in 2008. I liked the idea and kept the clipping for later.

Here’s what you need:

• 5 pieces of poster size foam board (about 1/2′” thick)
• Fabric of choice
• batting
• glue gun
• staple gun
• exacto knife

The first thing was to glue (using the glue gun) the foam board all together. I placed 4 of them vertically together, and the 5th one horizontally on top. Not sure what I mean? Check this out:
Then I traced a tree shape on to them in such a way to maximize height and width of the tree. I used the exacto knife to cut the shape out. I exaggerated the contrast in this picture so you could see the different pieces of foam board.
The next step was to make it sturdy and stand tall. I used the left over pieces of foam board and glued them on the “seams”. This part won’t be seen. After that I laid the batting down, folded it over and glued it to the back of the tree.
The final step was to stable the fabric to the back side. I used three different fabrics but you can use 1 or as many as you like. The end result should look like this:

You’re all done! Now you can decorate with ribbons and cards like so.

Wreath

This one is pretty simple. I took a pre-made wreath and some decorations and used the handy dandy glue gun to stick them all together. Of course wreath making is much more fun when you have a good friend to help out like I did. Here are some pictures of the outcome. My favorite part is the red lantern.

Sequin Decorations

For this fun idea, the credit goes to two people. Centsational Girl and her featured guest, Living with Lindsay. I told my friend about it and she suggested doing more than just trees. So we picked up some fun styrofoam shapes and began our project. I will warn you that this take some time and patience! But the results are great.

So there you have it.

- ASH

Back in October was when I stopped writing. In the past four months many things have changed. Here’s a run down of what happened and what to look forward to in posts coming up.

1. A new name! I didn’t think that LPI was working for what I wanted to express and where I wanted this blog to go in the future. So I have given it a new name and new look. ASH Designs, will be what the blog will be called from now on and found here. And incase you are wondering, “ASH” is my initials.

2. I started knitting. Yaay! You read about my first knitting project and how I started the process.

3. I created a budget, space, and slightly eco friendly Christmas tree. Also, my friend and I discovered the joys of pin/sequins decors and wreath making.

4. The Hubster and I finally painted our bedroom. Most of the furniture is back in. It still needs some reorganizing prior to revealing it so hold on for this one.

5. I got my first bridesmaid dress! I need to make crinoline slip, which meant I needed a sewing machine. So I now am a proud owner of a sewing machine!

I can dream about it being one of those antiques right?

6. Before and after our wedding, we had one room dedicated to gifts that were being shipped and those we got on the wedding day. That room became a monster closet for boxes and was more commonly know as the “box room”. Being stuck at home for the weekend, due to the blizzard we had, I cleaned out the room and created a craft room for myself. It now houses all my craft supplies and my new sewing machine.

7. I’ve taken an old salwar suit that was ripped and created it in to a top. This was my first sewing project. I’m very pleased with the results.

And because seven is a lucky number and I would just keep rambling, that’s it for now, but be sure to come back and visit to see full posts on most things listed.

- ASH