Yesterday morning my mom said to Annalie, “The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is on TV! Do you want to watch it with me?”

Annalie replied, “I know, Gramaw! We can make our OWN parade! We can make a paper boat with paper, and paper hearts out of paper, and balloons…”

Annalie and her second cousin Desiree got out paper and pencils and drew their parade. When Annalie showed my mom her drawing of a turkey, my mom thought Annalie had forgotten to draw feet at the end of the turkey’s stick legs. But when my mom mentioned that the feet were missing, Annalie said, “Those aren’t legs, Gramaw. Those are the ropes for holding the turkey balloon.”

Whether or not you celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday, I hope you have plenty to be thankful for today.

I’m fighting a cold-sinus-cough thing at the moment. It started while I was in Omaha and is mostly gone, but it’s hanging on enough to seriously annoy me. I really need to go to the grocery store and also the post office, but the cold and also the meds I’m taking are making me fuzzy, so we didn’t do anything today except go to the Starbucks drive-thru. And that was only because I needed a cup for one of my custom orders.

I’ve been doing a few custom orders for my Etsy shop lately: snowballs for a military family stationed in Guam, and more snowballs and my first-ever coffee-cup sleeve at Michelle’s request.

This dotty mug and plate are a custom order for one of my favorite customers, my friend Aileen. I have more in the works for her, so these aren’t in my Etsy shop yet.

I like putting a little something on the inside of my mugs. It makes me happy.

Remember waaaay back when my friend Jill was raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society prior to running in a marathon, and I helped her out by donating a custom-painted pottery piece to the winner of a fundraising lottery?

It took me a while to get around to painting the name plate that Chris requested for his daughter, but here it is. I wish I’d paid more attention to how I centered Piper’s name, but overall I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. Chris, I hope you and Piper both like it!

Does anyone remember waaaay back in January, when I made a bunch of crocheted snowballs?

Photos by Brenda Ponnay

I originally made them for an idea Brenda had up her sleeve. But you know how those ideas can fizzle out sometimes. Personally I think Brenda got the box of snowballs in the mail and decided she loved them too much to part with them. Bug might also have had something to do with that decision. I don’t know, I’m just guessing.

The other day Brenda IMed me to say that she was going to use these snowball photos in a post of hers where she and Bug were modeling some items crafted by her sister-in-law Jaynette, of bluejaye crafts on Etsy. (She is helping Jaynette out by holding a virtual craft fair. You can read all the details on Brenda’s post.)

I will just add that I own one of Jaynette’s wallets and I love it! I get compliments on my stripey wallet all the time. It’s big enough to hold cash, cards, ID, and more—but small enough to fit into my back pocket if I don’t want to carry a purse. I’ve been using it constantly for over a year and it’s still in perfect shape, so you know it’s well-constructed!

Anyway. Brenda told me she was going to use the photos with my snowballs in them, and asked if I had thought any more about putting a listing in my Etsy shop for crocheted snowballs, or the pattern. I hemmed and hawed at first, but she’s a fast-talker and she convinced me. She said I could use her photos, since I’m not at home and don’t have any crocheted snowballs handy. She even agreed to create the PDF for me and prettied it up with an illo just because she’s nice like that. Maybe this was her way of paying me back for making the snowballs in the first place. Maybe I owe her another latte now?

I know, I’ll just pay it forward: I’ll give away three free copies of my crocheted snowball pattern. Just leave a comment telling me you want in! I’ll do a drawing on Saturday morning and then email the pattern to the lucky winners. (Incidentally, that’s the same day that Brenda is doing her drawing for a free Miminko onesie, so if you’re interested go over and leave a comment on that post. You can also snag free downloads of her monthly calendar print-outs while you’re there.)

Crocheted Snowball and Crocheted Snowball PDF Pattern