A Little Gift To Give ...

Hello my dear friends,

today I am sharing another little gift I made this Christmas time.

Before I became unwell at the beginning of December, I had started to work on a creation that I was going to gift to a lovely lady. She had a very heartbreaking year and all I wanted to do was to put a tiny smile in her heart this Christmas. She had read one of my posts about my little Christmas boxes and she told me how she liked them. Reading that and knowing what had happened, I just had to make her one. I made it a little bit different than my first ones but never the less, just as lovely.

And this is the little box ...

All wrapped up and paper snowflakes scattered over it, it went on it's way. Karen, the recipient of my gift, had no idea that I had done this for her.  There is just something about receiving something in the mail that you didn't expect. A card with kind words or a little gift from someone that has just thought of you just because. It is just so ... nice! I am so touched whenever I receive the mail from someone that thought of me and I love to give others the same feeling.

 I am happy to say that my gift arrived before Christmas Day and Karen loved my little surprise very much and that is all that counts for me. It put a little smile in her heart, just as I hoped it would. 

I still have a lot to catch up with when it comes to sharing what I have been up to with all of you Lovelies. I am hopefully going to share one of my newest creations in the next few days. So if you  have a little time on hand why not visit me here again at Todolwen and see what I have been up too.

I hope you are well my dear friends and life is treating you kind.

Have a peaceful and creative day.

My Christmas ...

Hello my dear friends,

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas this year, and a wonderful time.

I know Christmas has come and gone but I didn't want to miss the chance to share a little of what mine was like this year. The day of Christmas Eve here started out with an awesome weather forecast report, maybe the neatest I have ever read so far. Here is a part of it that I would like to share with you and it went like this ...

"T'is the night before Christmas, when all through the Ontario Storm Precidiction Center
Not a creature was stirring except the meteorologists
As all eyes were transformed on jolly Old St. Nick, his herd of furry friends, and an approaching
snow storm just in for Christmas.
So for those who are dreaming of a white Christmas will get their wish. A Texan low is gathering strength this morning and will race towards us approaching the speed of  Rudolf  later on today.

The forecasters at  the Ontario Storm Prediction Center wish you all warm holiday greetings and a happy, healthy and safe 2018!"

And it did snow!

Christmas morning turned out to be a "White Christmas", the first one in the past few years, and such a pretty one too.

Again I have been spoilt by my family...

For the first time in over 20 years I didn't have to cook Christmas dinner! My daughter Ashleigh and my son-in-law Ryan invited us to their home on Christmas Eve for dinner and it was so lovely but that wasn't all. I received some beautiful gifts again! ... A night out with my older daughter for dinner and to see the musical "The Sound Of  Music", an amazing book about the City of London, Ontario filled with many unseen photos from the old days and a trip to Vancouver to visit my family! I am so beyond grateful for all the kindness I have received. We all had such a lovely time together with much laughter and enjoying each other's company so very much.

Not only was Christmas so nice but I actually got to be a little creative over these past few weeks. Today I am sharing one or two of my creations with all of you.

I love making gifts and this year I made my daughter Caylagh a cozy blanket and I made it in a  particular way ... the Mrs. Weasley way. Mrs. Weasley is a character from Harry Potter for those of you that don't know and my daughter loves Harry Potter. I crochet the blanket from a very different type of  yarn that I had found at Michaels. It is made up from 5 or 6 different types of yarn, each one is a different material, color and texture. It looks very neat and comes in all sort of color variations too. The colors I chose were again in reference to Harry Potter. My daughter's Harry Potter "house" is Hufflepuff  and their "house colors" are black, grey and yellow. The yarn I chose was a mixture of  grey, white and yellow so perfect in every way. It took me a few weeks but I got it done in time. I added my little touch to it by giving it a fringe all the way around which made it perfect.

Christmas Day came and my daughter loved her handmade gift very much as you can see. Here she is all wrapped up in it, wearing her new Harry Potter pajamas and fuzzy unicorn slippers.

And here you can see it a little better.

My two beautiful baby girls (in matching pajamas)

I also made a little gift for my older daughter.
 It was a hostess gift. You know like in the old days when you would take a little something for the lady of the house where you were invited to for dinner. I think is such a lovely thing to do. It doesn't have to be anything big or costly because it's the thought that counts, in my book at least. My daughter loves to eat pizza and she said that she would one day have a slice of pizza as a ornament for her tree. What better to do then to make her one, so that is what I did. I made a vegetarian pizza slice ornament from felt to gift her. It didn't take me too long and it was also quite easy to make.

She was so happy when she unwrapped her pizza slice! It was hung her lovely tree that was all decked out with handmade felt and wood ornaments she made and bought and looked so neat and just perfect in every way.

And that was my Christmas this year in a nutshell. 

 I do so love to give gifts especially at Christmas because I love putting a little smile in people's hearts. In my next post I will share a little something I made for a sweet lady who needed a little smile placed into her heart.

Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by and visit me here today. I will try and keep up with sharing what has been going on here at Todolwen over the past weeks so do come back and visit sometime soon again.

I hope you are well my dear friends and that life is treating you kind.

Have a peaceful and creative day.

It Is Already The New Year! ...

Hello my dear friends,

oh my ... it is already the new year!

Happy New Year to all of you Lovelies, may 2018 bring you nothing buy joy and happiness!

It seems to me that it has been a very long time since I have shared anything here on Todolwen but I must admit that the break was good for me. I have been somewhat busy and a little creative too and I have new things to share. Hopefully I will do so over this coming week, starting right away with today's post which is about my "Christmas To Come" giveaway 2017.

I was thinking of sharing this a few weeks ago actually, just before Christmas when the lovely Maggie received my gift in the mail and just couldn't stop herself opening it right away but I in the end I didn't get around to doing so after all. Again that will change right now because today I am sharing what I had chosen as my giveaway gift. 

To my surprise, it didn't take me very long this time to decided what the gift was going to be for my Christmas giveaway. It just came to me one day whilst I was sitting in my studio and there it was, resting on one of my shelves ... the perfect gift in my eyes.

This is what I chose ...

... it was one of my neat "Alice in Wonderland's" nests!

It was all wrapped with paper snow flakes and sent it on it's way. The lovely Maggie was so happy to receive it. She was happy and therefore I was happy and now I am already thinking of 2018's Christmas giveaway because I love doing this so much! So don't forget to keep an eye out for that post that will come some time soon about this year's giveaway. You might just be the one that will win it. And just so there is no confusion ... 

... please, only enter your name on the actual post with the title "Christmas To Come"giveaway 2018! 

Thank you all for taking the time to stop by today and visit me here at Todolwen. It is always so nice when you so and I hope you will come back soon again to see what I have been up too.

I hope you are well my dear friends and life is treating you kind.

Have a peaceful and creative day.

From The Bottom Of My Heart ...

Hello my dear friends,

I would like to say a huge "Thank You" from the bottom of my heart to all of you, who have left me so thoughtful, kind comments and emails after I told you about my recent health scare. I will get back to each one of you hopefully soon. You are all so very sweet and have yet again touched my heart with so much love that it brought tears to my eyes.

I am feeling much better these days. I am taking it easier and I am working on being much much calmer too. My stress levels have gone done quite a bit already which is doing me the world of good.
I have been out more often walking which is such a lovely thing and I have shared some of my photographs on Instagram already.

I have also started to be creative again without feeling any pressure from myself. This is the first time in a while now and I am enjoying it so much. You never know, I might just have something new to share with all of you soon.

Unfortunately I won't be sharing any gifts this Christmas with my dear friends which makes me sad but there is next year to return to one of my favorite things to do. I am still working on getting my Christmas cards out by the end of today and some of them might arrive late this time but that doesn't mean that they are not filled with much love and the best wishes ever!

And just in case I don't get back here before December 24th ...

... I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

May 2018 bring you everything you dream and wish for my dear friends!

I hope you are well my dear friends and life is treating you kind.

Hugs.

Please, Take Care Of Yourself ...

Hello my dear friends,

today's post is to ask all of you to take care of yourselves and not just physically but also mentally. A sudden and very recent visit to the ER for me was a wake up call and a very scary one too. 

I have been stressed out for weeks and weeks now and every little thing would just make it so much worse. Worry about my health after a recent scare, my family, our cats and other things were so intense these past few weeks if not months and unfortunately I tend to take things to heart which has now really started to effect me. 

Apart from all of the above things, I have also been putting a lot of pressure onto myself lately about not being able to be creative like I used to be. The more I thought about it, the worse it got. You might think it is silly that I did so, but I love to create and when that doesn't work for a long time, it can really get to me. I was getting upset that I couldn't come up with a gift idea for my friends for Christmas because I so love to gift at Christmas. I was overall unhappy with not having any idea to share on Todolwen for the festive season and in the end it bothered me a lot. Especially because being creative is meant to be fun, it is not meant for me to put myself under pressure to "produce" something.

With everything that was already going on, I would also stress out over so many really unimportant things like bad drivers on the road, rude people and so much other stuff. I would tend to concentrate more on things that had gone wrong instead of good things that happened and would go over them in my mind again and again. It just got too much and I wasn't even aware of it. I went to have my blood pressure checked several mornings ago at a pharmacy and it was at a very dangerous level and I was told to see a doctor as soon as possible.

Next stop ... the ER.

 I was scared, actually very scared because blood pressure that high can cause a heart attack or a stroke and I didn't want either to happen to me. Thankfully it went down quite well in the hospital, still somewhat high but better.

 What now? ... Change!

I am going on medication to keep my blood pressure at a good level while I am working on myself. The first thing I am working on is my stress levels. Taking deep breaths and actually telling myself to not let what ever bother me seems to be working for me most of the time but there is more work needed. More exercise and a better diet is also something I have to work on now. I went for another check up a couple of days ago with my doctor and my blood pressure is already at lower levels which is so great to hear. I am also taking little breaks through out my day, just to sit and breath for a minute or two and when it comes to being creative, I am just going to play it as it comes as they say. So hopefully all of this will make me feel much better in the future.

And for you my dear friends, I wish you all good health and please, take good care of yourselves.

I hope you are well my dear friends and life is treating you kind.

Hugs.

I Tried Something New ...

Hello my dear friends,

I love trying out new things. 

New techniques, how-tos and different things interest me quite a lot but I don't often tend to go past the "being interested" stage for whatever reason. This time is different though.

I found this really neat tutorial just by chance as I was browsing Pinterst and just had to actually try it out. That now turned out to be a few months ago and I never got around to sharing it with all of you but today I am. 

This is the tutorial I found ...

(Photograph courtesy of Welcomecrafts.)

It is a how-to on how to make these cute little bunnies!
And here is the link to the tutorial on welcomecraft's website...

Little Clay Bunny By Kevin K.

And this is my little bunny I made! ... I made one only to see if I could do it or not.

It's a he and he stands happily just under 1.5 inches tall next to a larger acorn. 

It is not perfect at all and a little rough on the edges and I so need to practice quite a bit more but he still is just too cute in my eyes!

It is always nice to try something new and I do love a challenge too. It might not work out right away or at all but that is not the point. The point is that you did it! This way life always stays that tiny bit more interesting and a tiny bit more exciting too.

Have you tried something new lately?

I wonder what will come my way next to try out? ... Whatever it might be, I will make sure to share it with all of you.

I hope you are well my dear friends and life is treating you kind.

Have a peaceful and creative day.

My Little Christmas Boxes ...

Hello my dear friends,

I think it was some tome in 2011 when I found a little antique box at a flea market. 

It spent a lot of time in the far corner of one of my drawers until I "found" it again in 2012 and turned it into something very neat and lovely ... a little Christmas box.
 And this is that little box ...

You can read all about it here ...

A Little Old Tattered Box

Last year, several weeks before Christmas, I was contacted by a lovely gentleman from the UK who had seen my little box. He wanted me to create him such a little box for his girlfriend. I was to make it personalized and so that he could place sparkling earring inside the box, as if they were hanging  in the skies and looked a little like sparkling stars. It took me a little while but in the end I was able to do exactly what he had asked from me. I couldn't share it with all of you when I was working on it because I didn't want the recipient of the box to possible read about it because then the gift Christmas surprise would have been ruined. Unfortunately I then forgot all about it until now. Thankfully though that I taken photos before I mailed it to England and that is what I am sharing with all of  you today ~ my second little Christmas box.

I named the little box after the one that was going to receive it at Christmas time ...

..."For Miss Lucy".

I was told that Lucy loved it and that made me very happy.

Shortly after I had listed the little box (last Christmas), a lovely and sweet lady contacted me about making her a box like this too. I hate to say but for some reason it took me until now (almost a year later) to actually sit down and make it. I am beyond happy to say that it is now finally done and ready to be mailed to it's new home. But before it goes on it's 'merry' way, I wanted to share it too with all of you today as well. It is a little different than the others but not by much but it still is just as pretty as the other ones and it too just "shouts out" Christmas time.

 I named this one again after the person that is receiving it ...

... "For Miss Mary".

I hope you have enjoyed my little Christmas boxes and I will let you know if Miss Mary likes hers.

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit me here at Todolwen. It is always so very nice when you do.

I hope you are well my dear friends and life is treating you kind.

Have a peaceful and creative day.