Happy Holidays from Arkansas

I've been lucky enough to get to spend 10 days with my family in Arkansas. Wanted to share this hilarious and awesome family photo we took on Monday. Wishing you a lovely New Year with lots of knitting!!

12 Dates of Christmas

I have to say this is the cutest idea. Of course it comes from Elsie at A Beautiful Mess :) She is so wonderfully creative...thanks for sharing this adorable idea!!

Do you have any fun, unique Christmas/holiday traditions? I will share one that my brothers created. I wrote up a little bit about it for a Christmas swap I am doing through Ravelry...

In a galaxy, far far away, called Arkansas...there is a family. The mother of the family puts up a very fancy tree every year. It is adorned with golden grapes, angels, trumpets, and soft velvet ribbon cascades down every side. This tree is lovely to behold, but the brothers always felt like something was missing...until about 8 years ago when it dawned on them what it was...Darth Vader!

So each year they sneak up and carefully place this follower of the Dark Side on the mother's fancy tree. For many years, she didn't even know he was there, watching us open gifts, eyeing our delicious holiday feast...but now, she knows, and I think she sure would be sad if they ever forgot to add Darth to our Christmas.

Merry Holidays to everyone! I hope Santa brings you lots of lovely wool for Christmas! Enjoy your family and friends and cozy time knitting by the fire. That's what I plan to do! Thanks for stopping by...

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from *elletrain knits*! I hope you all have a lovely holiday season filled with joy and...knitting!! And hopefully some snow in there, too :)

What a wonderful year this has been! I got a new name and a new wonderful husband to go along with it. We got to do some traveling: we got engaged in Mexico and got to honeymoon in Scotland, Ireland, and London. We were fortunate to see our families more often this year because of the wedding. Pinky started his own new business and things are booming. I started to put together a new wedding business, Lace*Paper*Flowers, with my friend Jessica. (more to come on that in the new year!). Our home has become more of a home through not only decorating, but filling the house with 'us' and what's important to us. We lost some dear friends this year that we will truly truly miss (JP and Kodi), but both gained amazingly wonderful families. We are truly blessed.

Happy Happy Holidays to you and yours. I love you all!!

Goodwill strikes again... my awesome find

Goodwill strikes again... my awesome find
Originally uploaded by elletrain

Yay! A new coat for $6! It's from Sears, back in the 70's. Love this. I've been looking for one for a while. I didn't find much else at Goodwill today, but this was an awesome purchase. I also bought a couple of books at the bookstore today for Christmas gifts. When all else fails, buy books. You know some people are very difficult to buy for and I feel like it should almost be required to send out a Christmas wish list to all of your family so they know what to get you. In fact, I will send one out to my family right now! I think it will include:

-gift certificate to purlsoho.com OR knit-purl.com, or to Bliss Yarns, my local yarn shop
-anything from the home section of Anthropologie (esp. if there's a bird on it)
-a list of some of my favorite sellers on etsy.com (including matteart, sarahearn, and chezsucrechez)

...and maybe a gift card to Goodwill...hahahaha!

Help your family out...send them a wishlist!