Martha Stewart would be mildly interested

Today I was crafty. I'm talking glue guns, ribbon, feathers, silk flowers — the whole crafty caboodle. I finished one of my grandmother's gifts — a 3-D portrait of a red hat. She's totally into the Red Hat Society, so I thought she might like something in that vein. She buys a new red hat pretty regularly, so I assumed there was no way I could buy her one that she didn't already have. (Incidentally, last year, I bought her a bracelet she not only already had, but had also received from my mother the Christmas before that, which made my bracelet her third; at least you can argue that we know her tastes.) So instead of buying something she might already have, I painted a red hat on a 16x16 inch canvas board and trimmed it out with a purple ribbon and purple feathers and a red silk carnation. Then I lined the border all around in a red slender feather boa. It turned out pretty well. Now I'm thinking I probably should have used red felt for the hat instead of paint. Eh ...

I also drug Phil to Ike's with me so we could pick out a cheap tree and some lights. We found a six-foot (fake) tree for $20 (it's pretty sparse and it smells like chemicals) and three packs of multicolored globe-shaped lights for a buck each. We already had tinsel and beaded garland (the latter of which I tried to string first, but Felix kept stealing and dragging behind the bureau, so I switched to the less interesting tinsel and hid the beads, which sort of smelled weird anyway). The tree leans ever so slightly to the left, and it lacks a skirt and a topper and ornaments, but it's a start as it's the first non one-foot-tall tree I've ever had since I moved out of my parents' house.

So even though it's balmy outside and we've got the windows open, I'm trying to encourage myself to believe that it's really almost December. Yikes.