Handmade in the Snow

I am finally feeling better after my second cold this winter so now it's time to catch up on some blogging.

I will start way back on Christmas eve when it snowed and snowed and snowed some more! We decided that we would not drive the 8-9 hour journey through the mountains to visit my parents for Christmas. The highways can be treacherous during snow storms with not only black ice but white outs as well in which the front of your car is not even visible. We were practically snowed in and so were all our friends. I was quite bored on Christmas eve without the regular family festivities and had the sudden urge to bake 20 dozen more cookies and two of these delicious Cranberry Yule Logs! I froze a bunch of the cookies and a Yule Log to take to my parents house once the weather is a bit better.

Santa brought what Claire had asked for... a Hello Kitty Sewing Machine! She was so happy!! Her first sewing project was a pillow for her little puppy. As you can guess... I was so proud that she wanted to be just like me! We had fun making the little pillow together and then we went through my fabric and made a new stash for Claire :o)

If that wasn't enough crafty excitement for the day Claire was interested in doing her first embroidery so I provided her with the materials and she focused her heart & soul into every stitch for the next hour! She insisted that it was letters she was embroidering ...A...T...X...Y...

Here are a few pictures on Christmas Day when the snow was at its peak! Cars parked in the street appeared as hills of snow! Quite a sight here in Vancouver! We ended up with a total snowfall of 89cm in December. .7cm short of the record set in 1964!

To give you a better idea of how much snow there was... my daughter and husband turned this 5 foot round table into a giant birthday cake!

With nothing else to do on Christmas afternoon, my husband decided to go out in the backyard and play in the snow. He looked quite busy so I asked him what he was doing and he exclaimed, "I'm building an igloo!". I chuckled and an hour later he had built the bottom row of a giant igloo... After doing some research on how to actually build an igloo we all went out to help. We adjusted the base to make the igloo a more managable size for our first project and we had three rows finished by nightfall.

The next day, we finished building our new home! I carved little indents into the igloo walls for tea lights and we sat in our igloo to admire our handiwork... it was magical! Things started to melt the next day...

For anyone who is interested in handmaking their own igloo, here is a great igloo tutorial ;o)

Enjoy your hot cocoa & quilted crafts :o)