Handmade Holiday Week: Day 2 - Gifts for the Guys

I don't know about you but I find that it tends to be much trickier to think up good craft gifts for the guys. Luckily I came up with a few good ideas for some of the guys on the list - and found a great easy fudge recipe for some others!

1. Eight-Bottle Wine Tote

This was sent out to my best friend in Boston. When he lived in Chicago, we used to book an I-Go every few weeks to run errands, often including a trip to Binny's where we'd pick out a random selection of wine and craft beers. It was always a challenge to pack the many bottles into the car without jostling them about so when I saw this pattern I immediately thought of him. It's from the new Fabric-by-Fabric: 101 One Yard Wonders book which finally arrived just in time to get this made. This was the project that tipped me over into buying it but I have to say it's a fantastic resource and I can't wait to make pretty much everything in there. (Handy hint: if you buy it from Barnes & Noble it has some exclusive bonus projects in the back!)

Alas I only had one full, one half-empty and one empty wine bottle to model the tote for my photos. But then, I do live alone, so it maybe wouldn't be the best sign if I had a whole load wine bottles just knocking around.

2. Ear-bud pouches

I could definitely fancy making another of these for myself when I get started on my New Year projects. They're ever so handy for preventing that irritating wire tangle in your pocket or at the bottom of your bag.

3. Car CD holder

This handy CD holder has elastic straps across the back so it can slip easily onto sun visor in the car. Being many thousands of miles away, I didn't get a chance to measure this up against the visors in my dad's car so I'm just crossing my fingers that the elastic fits.

Handmade Holiday Week: Day 1 - Presents for Pooches

Merry Christmas everyone!

Having fallen in love with all things crafty, this year I decided to aim for a completely handmade Christmas. So as not to spoil any surprises I've been waiting to share some of those with you until today, which means I'll be keeping the Christmas spirit going a little longer and posting a different handmade holiday gift each day this week.

Naturally, I didn't forget the pooches and experimented with some more homemade cookie recipes. The best thing about cooking for them is making it up as you go along, which doesn't work as well for human baking. I used pumpkin, peanut butter, oats, soy milk and a mix of different flours, plus the new bone-shaped cookie cutter I picked up at Joann a couple of weeks ago.

Pose with the box? Like this?

The cute dog-themed take out boxes came from Container Store.

Heeeey, wait a minute, what's in here?!

Of course, Bilbo didn't think that I should be handing any of his treats out to other dogs and tried to make me forget that I'd stashed a bundle for him in his cookie jar.

You're just plain old mean

The best present of the year goes to little Flowerpot. Not only did she get her sore leg fixed and find a lovely little pair of ruffians willing to share their home with her for Christmas, she'll be going into a wonderful foster-to-adopt in a few days! Cross your fingers that all goes well for the little nugget as she's definitely earned her forever home.

Happy Holidays!

As I'm spending some holiday time with the family this year I'll be falling behind on my blog reading and commenting but I do want to say thanks to Identity: V&E and A&A Friese for sending me some love in the form of a Liebster Award.

Thanks guys!!!!!!! It comes with instructions (see below) so I've followed the first two steps but as I'm short on time I'll have to owe you the links to some newbie blogs. The blogosphere is full of super duper writers but I'm not sure which have fewer than 200 followers so I'll have to go through my favorites list and check later. Believe it or not I still have a few bits and pieces of wrapping to finish up before tomorrow morning so I can get my final presents under the tree.

Since the secrets will all be out, starting tomorrow I've got a week of handmade holiday posts so check back to see what's been keeping me so busy recently.

Instructions
1. Copy and paste the award on your blog. 
2. Link back to the blogger who gave you the award. 
3. Pick your five favorite blogs with less than 200 followers, and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they've received the award.4. Hope that the five blogs chosen will keep spreading the love and pass it on to five more newbie blogs.

One more drool photo for all you slobber fans out there! While it doesn't quite freeze solid, when the temperature drops the boyo gets congealed slobber laces which pick up bits of snow and leaves as he snuffles along. Kinda hilarious...

Wintry Pics

Although I don't have a portrait session scheduled for Bilbo and I until the New Year, I was determined to make sure that I got some shots of us together before the end of the year as planned. Luckily I have a lovely friend with a great camera who came round for tea and took some super shots of me and the pooches playing in the backyard.

What's up mom? Smoochfest time?

Why yes, you are the cutest little chihuahua

Check out the winter wear on those pooches. Our talented photographer also knitted up some cosy scarves to keep the duo warm in the snow.

Holiday high-fives all around

Don't forget about little me

Flowerpot has had her stitches out and has already forgotten that there was anything wrong with her leg. The biggest challenge I have at the moment is making sure that she doesn't leap around too much while she heals up.

You know what's good for catching snow?
Slobber shoelaces!

What's a dog got to do to get his paws on
some treats around here?

Lady, I'm begging you

Ok then, super power time
Flying dog!

One more smooch for luck

Thanks to Bruce & Alfred's mom for spending the afternoon with us!

The Return of the Zoomies

They're back. The wintertime zoomies have returned to our house.

As the ground starts to freeze and the air begins to bite, Billy becomes rocket charged. He needs to run, run, run. But only when he's on the end of a leash. When he's in the backyard he pretty much just stands and stares at me wondering what I'm waiting for.

The zoomies also have a soundtrack - the barkies. These occur intermittently throughout the year, usually when walking into a pet store, meeting new people or when any one of Billy's "Hundred Exciting Things" appear. The winter barkies are a special breed that happen only at home and are intended to signify that despite the hour-long trek around the park that we just returned from, he's bored. Or hungry. He's always hungry in the wintertime. It's difficult to separate this from his "I need to go out" bark so I spend a lot of time letting him in and out of the yard. If the barkies are ignored, out comes the insistent pawing and usually attempting to clamber into my lap or ONTO my sewing table. At which point he may or may not just fall asleep, having received the attention he wants.

Weapons to combat the dreaded zoomy-barky combo are few. Long walks work for about half an hour, quick bursts on the treadmill help but my main friend right around now is the good old-fashioned time out. And earplugs.

Hopefully the winter super-weapon will arrive soon - there's nothing that tires out a Billydog like running through snowdrifts!

Home for the Holidays

Since being delightfully adorable hasn't cut it yet for finding the perfect home, foster Flower has decided to pull the sympathy card to see if that will make Santa bring her a forever family for Christmas.

Flower's first owner was a bit of a charmer who kicked her across the room while wearing big work boots and broke her elbow. She was lucky that a local animal welfare advocate pulled her out of that situation and arranged an operation to fix her leg. However, she couldn't stay there forever and went off to another home, who eventually decided they couldn't keep her either and dumped her at a shelter. She was scheduled for euthanasia when a shelter volunteer fell in love and took her home for a few days to try and buy her enough time to find a spot in a rescue. Luckily One Tail at a Time stepped in and she ended up in foster with Billy and I where she settled in happily.

Unfortunately Flower wasn't quite done with the past and recently the pins in her mangled little elbow started causing her some trouble. Of course, the lovely crew at OTAT made sure she got the attention she needed and yesterday she went off to the vet to get the pesky things removed. Everything went well so she'll be as good as new in no time, but for now she's feeling very sorry for herself!

When she first came home last night she wanted to be held constantly so she made a bit of a fuss overnight when she had to go back in her crate. However, she's working out how to negotiate the giant bandage and get comfortable on her own again.

What do you think? Does the giant bandage garner enough sympathy to earn this little lady a forever home?

If I'm wringing your heartstrings but you're not able to take in a permanent pup consider becoming a temporary holiday foster. With so many foster families out of town and boarding facilities filling up fast you can be of great help to a rescue organization without having to make a long commitment - and what an easy intro to fostering if you've been considering giving it a go. I'm going to be in the UK so if a forever home doesn't turn up Flowerpot is one of the pups who would love to have a temporary family to snuggle up to on Christmas morning.

Not that it's all doom and gloom around here this week. Flower joined me on Saturday night at the One Tail at a Time calendar release party and had a great time. With a room full of dog lovers she received plenty of attention, even if she pretended to be a bit camera shy at times.

Photo: Leah Moyers

Being the spoilt little princess that she is, she managed to beg plenty of time up in arms so she could see everything that was going on, and try to sneak some snacks off my plate...

Photo: Leah Moyers

There was a silent auction, delicious food and drink, gorgeous art to look at, plenty of great company (both human and canine, including doggy celebs Fifty, Mr Big and Rude Dog) and even a photo booth. And of course, all the money raised goes towards helping many more dogs in 2012, which is definitely worth smiling about.

Easy Advent

Having designated this year as a completely handmade Christmas I have a giant pile of Christmas present projects cluttering up my apartment. That didn't leave me with a lot of time to get creative with my advent calendar but luckily I had the basics already covered thanks to Astrid over at Red, Red, Completely Red. I participated in her second annual advent tea swap and received some delightful parcels of different teas in the mail. I picked up some mini wooden pegs from Joanns (why is it that miniaturizing makes everything cuter?!), printed off some advent numbers and clipped them all up to some twine hung across my kitchen window.

The pooches get to join in too as, on the back of the numbers I've written some training for us to work on each day. Some are new tricks, others are behaviors they already know but can always do with some reinforcement or extra challenge.

Billy's list: down-stay, pray, beg, leave it, drop it, bow, sit-stay, under arrest, roll over etc.
Flower's list: down, sit-stay, touch, twirl, crate etc.