Holiday greetings blocks

I like the idea but not my execution of this project.

My husband cut the blocks for me. Each block face is 1.5 inches wide. The outer, tallest blocks are 5" tall, the next tallest ones are 4" and the middle blocks, both vertical and horizontal are 3 inches.

I left the edges bare so that paint didn't meet paint, thinking a somewhat rustic look would work. I wasn't happy with this and added a distressing ink along those edges in a color called tea. I don't have that look photographed. It didn't noticeably improve or detract from what you see here.

I like using blocks to spell our greetings throughout the year. These phrases were on shelves in our main bathroom for a while.

It is probably my lettering that I dislike most on the blocks that I painted. I will repaint them at some point and try this again.

Countdown to Christmas Tree

This began as a plain white structure, bought on a clearance table post holiday early this spring. The miracle isn't that I completed it, but that I didn't store it away so safely that I forgot about it or couldn't find it.

The faces of the drawers are 1.5 inch squares. Most of the blue background images came from a single sheet of scrapbook paper. The others are miscellaneous bits I had on hand. The back and sides of the tree were painted red. I used a silver pen on the open edges of the structure.

Numbers were done with the same pen on black circles punched from scraps.

Ruby Bear

Need a quick, simple to knit bear pattern? Here is Ruby Bear by Premier yarns. I used James C. Brett Chunky Marble, available colors shown here. I believe I used MC28 but I no longer have the label.

 

I would make this bear again, but rather than using a needle size to obtain the suggested gauge, I would knit it on smaller needles to make a denser fabric so that the batting isn't visible through the knitting.