A RANT AND A RAVE!

It is so ironic how things happen sometimes.  Shortly after I posted my blog yesterday, I was chatting with a friend on Face Book.  After we were done, I went to the news feed and the first thing that popped up was this post.  I had not intended taking yesterday's post any further than what I had written, but this was far too timely... I had to share it with you today.

While this has never happened to me to this extent, I have had many people question and argue with my pricing policies.  Oh how I wish I would have been able to do what this crafter did - I  applaud her nerve, and her conviction in her product.

This is relative to what I was mentioning - many people choose not to recognize a hand- made product as more valuable than a factory- made one.   If you bought a factory-made crochet scarf, and I made you the exact same scarf, I would be willing to bet that while the two scarves looked alike, mine would be better made and last years longer than the one that was factory made.  A mass produced item made by a machine, can never compare to one created by two hands... never...

Cudo's to the crafter in this piece!

Moving on - 

What I was going to write about today was Snow and Men...

It is really starting to feel like snow is just days away here.  The past couple of mornings the frost has been heavy and the days have remained pretty frosty, even when the sun has finally appeared.

It is custom in my home, that once I see a snow flake - doesn't have to stick to the ground, I only have to see it... then snowmen can appear in the house.  Snowmen to me are not a Christmas decoration, but a winter one.

Usually the first snowman to appear after I see a flake, is the snowman cookie jar my son gave me for Christmas when he was very young.  

I don't have a lot of snowmen, but the ones I do have are pretty terrific... including this fellow I made many years ago out of a ply-board shape covered with quilt batting and fleece and dressed with my own hand-made sweater, mitts, hat, and pants.

He is three feet tall, and has been the greeter in our home during the winter season for quite a few years.

I have made many of these as gifts for family and friends, and I was intending to make some to sell this year - but my time has been limited due to our move - so next year I will try and make some of these cheerful fellows once again!

This fellow had become pretty pathetic over the past couple of years and I vowed I would fix him up before this winter... and then we moved.

The move all but destroyed him.  I had taped him into a few garbage bags, so his carrot was all a-twist, he lost his feet somewhere in transit, and his clothes were a mess.  His stuffing had settled over the years until he was a pretty gaunt snow guy, so yesterday I spent the day getting him all put back together - all ready for the sighting of the first flake.

This year he will stand in the kitchen beside my little school desk, and sometime in December I will add a string of white lights in his hands so he can celebrate Christmas.

Until then he has to stay in the craft room with the dolls...waiting... for that first flake!