I'm obsessed

with bunting.  Ob. Sessed.

But it's just so jolly and cute.  (And, if you'll remember, it brings the party.)

This year for homemade ornaments (a yearly tradition I forcefully gift upon my family and friends), I have made tiny tree bunting in delicious holiday colors.

Simple as cutting up a heap load of triangles, sewing their sides, turning them right-side out, ironing flat, and stitching into skinny bias tape. This required much patience, as the entire project was very small.  This caused a lot of squinting and hunching over my sewing machine, and a few exasperated seam rips, but the end result is definitely worth it.

For fear that my gift receivers would have no idea what tiny bunting is for, I crafted these instructions:

And then, because I can't leave Christmas scraps in my possession, I made each bunting its own tiny draw string bag, fashioned from this expert tutorial from Skip to My Lou.  (Note: these bags are neither as easy or as fun to make as they might look.  They are, however, as CUTE as they look, so I persevered.)

Merry Christmas all!

Arizona Christmas

Christmas in Arizona is going to be a bit understated, since we're playing it low maintenance style.  And it's just us until late on the Day of the Tree, when Joe's folks will fly in for some super-fantastic family time.

Since there's never too much of a good thing, I crocheted a passel of snowflakes, using that same pattern for the packages, in a variety of festive colors, and chain stitched them together to make a garland.

In a fit of sweetness, Joe's folks bought a four-and-a-half foot scotch pine for our merry pleasure, and it was waiting for us to unpack when we arrived.  It's covered in real pine cones and pine cone-shaped lights, which is adorable (and which you can't see in the photo below. You'll have to trust me.).

Add a few boxes of shatterproof ornaments (important when you have the following deadly mixture: 1) stone floors, 2) no tree skirt, 3) two tall dogs with happy tails) and you've got instant festivity.

Here's hoping that your house is also festive but that the decorating didn't make you frantic.  I'm sort of in love with low maintenance Christmas.

And now I'm off to take my second walk of the day and hunt for quail, roadrunners, and rabbits.

Road trip

This year we're taking a much needed holiday away from Seattle. We have available to us a home in northeast Scottsdale, Arizona, and because it's not supposed to rain much there, we packed the dogs in our little red car and drove down.

Drove? Yes.

Roody and T show off their road trip skillz

The dogs turned out to be fabulous road trip companions.  We laid the back seat down, packed it with two dog beds, and the dogs were thrilled to enjoy the ride.

I bought the Roadside America app for my iPhone, and am currently trying to cross off as many "offbeat tourist attractions" as possible.  The first one: the sundial bridge in Redding, CA.

It rained through the bulk of our drive through northern California. (Except the tiny sun break we got on the second morning, above, where we raced to see the bridge.)

12 pm marker.  It should be noted that this sundial only works on June 21, the summer solstice.

But the rain didn't stop there.  It rained over our entire drive through state of California, through the Olive Capital of America and the Artichoke Capital of the Universe.

[It should be noted that if I never again have to drive through Las Angeles in the pouring rain, I will be forever grateful.]

Southern Californians don't actually know about driving in the rain at high speeds.  And the steering-wheel clutching, lip-biting, I-can't-see-the-road-from-all-the-spray driving didn't make the mood worthy of pulling over and photographing the offbeat.

And thus, we checked off only one item from Roadside America on our three day drive.

Oh well, there's always the drive home.