2 crazy finishes, a couple SALs and help please

WooHoo!  I finished 2 of the crazy Christmas ornaments over the past weekend:

The sugar-shocked reindeer just needed the black to finish him while the Snow Bunnies needed lots of stitching.

I started a January Mystery SAL on Helen & Mahelia's blog.  It's mostly finished on the blog while I'm only starting -- so not much of a mystery for me:

I also started a new Sticklounge Project entitled Homage to Japan.  It's a pretty little sampler with a couple goldfish on it (I love goldfish -- especially the fat, fancy ones) and a Japanese proverb.  I didn't get much done on it because I wasn't happy with the original colors.  So after several starts and stops, I have finally decided on the colors for this first part:

Not much, I know, but I should be able to get this part finished now that all the tough decisions have been made.

I also picked a frame for the Baumchen.  Since I didn't want to spend a bundle here, I chose a standard size frame for it.  Unfortunately, there is lots of room on the longer side.  Hmmmm, perhaps I'll add a piece of lace here to fill in the empty frame space.  I found a nice piece of old lace but cannot decide how to assemble the whole thing.  Any suggestions?  Top, bottom or side?

It's hard to see the lace in these pics, the flash kind of blew it away, but even in real life, the lace is rather subtle.  At this point in time, my preference is the lace on the top .... but that could change.

Have a good one !

Some crazy stitching and a surprise received

I finished my first crazy January start and got lots done on 2 more:

After all those starts I needed to finish something and I needed some easy stitching, so I decided to work on these three ornaments this past week.  I really like this green fabric and may stitch more ornaments on it -- umm, sometime in the future.

I received these goodies from Jules' giveaway yesterday (thank you!):

The oriental book has some beautiful butterflies that I'm itchin' to get stitchin' but that will have to wait until I get some of my other starts finished.  The little framed 'Welcome' is just lovely.  And don't laugh, but the best thing is the honey from Florida -- yum!  

I   l-o-v-e   honey!

Thanks again, Jules.

It's going to be freezin' this weekend -- a perfect stitching weekend.  I plan to work on some of my SAL's and hopefully get caught up with them.  Should be a good time .....

On day 4 it snowed ...

Not much to show for yesterday's crazy stitching.   I could only get an hour's stitching time in -- rats!!-- that's 2.75 snow flakes worth:

 Instead of stitching I went to the chiropractor last night.  It was my first time ever and I'm happy to say it seems to have helped.  I'm having a problem with sciatica (what a pain! -- literally) and it's interfering with my ability to run dog agility (among other things but that's the only really important one).

I'll be back tomorrow with the next installment of craziness.