O Holy Night

O holy night, the stars are brightly shining;
It is the night of the dear Savior's birth!
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary soul rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born!
O night, O holy night, O night divine!

Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,
Here came the wise men from Orient land.
The King of kings lay thus in lowly manger,
In all our trials born to be our friend!

Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born!
O night, O holy night, O night divine!

Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His Gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother
And in His Name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy Name!

Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born!
O night, O holy night, O night divine!

May all of you have a wonderful, blessed Christmas

with those you love!

May you experience love, joy and peace as we celebrate the most precious gift of all!

Are you ready?

I'm not. I have a million goodies to bake, a dress to sew for my niece, and ALL of the giftwrapping to do.

So, in an effort to save time and make my husband do more than just pay for the Christmas gifts ;) I ever-so-nicely asked him to start the wrapping for me.

You see, he is a shift worker, and has been on the afternoon shift for the past 2 weeks. This means the kids and I leave the house at 9am, while he is sleeping, and he is alone in the house until he leaves for work at 2pm.

THAT IS PRIME CHILD-FREE WRAPPING TIME!!!

Just like most of you (women), I am the wrapper in the family, but haven't had the chance to do it this week. The kids have been sick with nasty colds, and have been light sleepers and get up with every cough, so I'm not able to sneak to the basement in the evenings. So, as I type this, Mac is fighting with scotch tape, and probably constantly moving the cat off the wrapping paper as he wrestles with the task of wrapping. I told him he could do all the "easy" wrapping a.k.a only the square boxes. (What nowadays is wrapped in a perfectly square or rectangular box without any hang tags or holes in the front to try out the toy?) Needless to say, he'll probably only wrap maybe 2 things. AND... they may just end up looking like this:

Oh well, any help is better than nothing, and I love him just for trying!

I think I should print some of these off to afix to anything he has attempted to wrap:

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU, and....... .......HAPPY WRAPPING!!!

FREE HomeSpun Threads Shoppe patterns!

I've discovered a new online pattern shop, and all the patterns in the HomeSpun Threads Shoppe are FREE. You'll need to click the link to go there and begin ordering your free downloads.

29 Patterns and pattern combinations to choose from...how?

All they simply ask is that you become a follower of HomeSpun-Threads blog and help spread the word. Seems fair enough to me!!! I ordered about 6 of their patterns, and they were available for immediate download. No waiting for an e-mail or anything!

Here are just a few favorites...

Pleated Ballerina Slippers


Make Up Bag Pattern


Even the HUGE Baby Shoe Pattern Set is FREE! and many more...


If you're in need of some supercute patterns, get over there soon, who knows how long they'll be free!

Amber H is the WINNER!!!

I absolutely LOVE the Sew Mama Sew giveaway days!!! This year, I was so worried I wouldn't be able to find the time to visit the hundreds of blogs to enter their great giveaways.
...But what do you know.... we got hit with a RECORD-BREAKING BLIZZARD!
It made international news, so some of you may have heard of it. I live in Lambton County, Ontario Canada. The closest large city in Lambton County is Sarnia (on the Michigan border). The storm started on Sunday night, and finally subsided Wednesday. A state of emergency was called, and the Canadian Army was brought in to help evacuate stranded motorists on our major highway and the country roads. It was very cool to see and hear rescue choppers and airplanes overhead, bringing people to safety. Many people were stranded in an area spanning 100 km's from east to west, many of whom stayed in our small community. It was an interesting 3 days of being snowed in, which gave me LOTS of time for blog surfing! I made it through the whole list, and entered millions of giveaways(at least it seems like millions!). I hope you were able to make it through the list too!
I am genuinely honoured that so many of you visited my little blog and commented! When the giveaway started, I had 91 followers. I now have 125!!!! Wow!!! I'm so happy to have 34 new friends!!!

Let's get to the good stuff, shall we...... I embedded the Random Number Generator in my post, and I could see the result, but it wouldn't show for me in the preview when I looked at my blog post, so I deleted it. You'll just have to trust me that I counted out the comments, and it ends up the winner is:

Amber H. , who said...
I'm now follower number 101! I hope you're ok with new followers...

of course I'm ok with new followers!!! It turns out her favourite colours are teal and turquoise - she knew how to win me over!!!!

I'll be contacting you this afternoon Amber to get your mailing address, and I'll get it off to you as soon as I get your details!

I hope all of you hear from at least one blogger that you have won something in this flurry of giveaways. Have a wonderful weekend, as we scurry to finish preparations 1 week before Jesus' birthday!

Giveaway day!!!

****THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED****

I thank all of you for your lovely comments!!!

Stay tuned for the winner post!

Welcome to the missbossypants giveaway!!!!!

This day could not have come at a better time! 2 weeks ago, I had my one year blogiversary. I wanted to comemorate the occasion by doing a giveaway, but didn't know what to give away, or how I would execute the whole thing. THEN... I found out Sew, Mama, Sew was going to do their twice yearly giveaway!!!

When thinking and thinking and thinking.....and thinking....... of what to give away, I was thinking I should pay homage to my favourite colour: TURQUOISE

Yeah, I know, it's a really popular colour right now, so I feel the need to clarify that I liked it before it was "in". So n.o.t. a follower! lol, just had to throw that one out there. okay, so....... yeah, let's get on with the goods....

To one of you lucky readers, you'll win 3 missbossypants creations:

The cup cozy protects your hands from hot drinks, insulates your drink from getting cold, AND makes a statement!!! Quilter's cotton one one side, turquoise flannel on the other, and fastened by velcro.

This little birdie would love to grace your Christmas tree! It has a fabric-covered button at the neck and a clear thread for hanging on that perfect branch.

Ok, ok, you caught me, I don't have the third prize made just yet, but imagine one of these felt dahlia pins in turquoise, and there you have it!!! It will be made this week, and maybe I'll even be able to photograph it and get it on this post in time before the giveaway ends! (this picture is of the pins I made for my son's pre-school teachers at the end of the "school year" last June - they loved their teacher gifts!)

So, I bet you guys are just waiting to find out how you can win the loot.... Ok, here are the rules...

1. Leave a comment below, telling me what your favourite colour is.

2. If you are a follower of my blog, congratulations, you get one more entry!!!! Please leave a message telling me you follow this crazy hairbrained blog!

The giveaway will be open until this friday at noon, EST. I'll use the online random number picker doo-hicky to pick the winner. PLEASE MAKE SURE I CAN CONTACT YOU!!! If your e-mail is not public in your profile, please leave your contact info at the end of your comment.

If you are the winner, I will contact you by e-mail to get your mailing address. I will ship internationally. All entrants from all corners of the world are welcome! The prize will be sent out on Monday, December 20th (provided I have been able to reach you to get your home address).

Once you're done entering this giveaway, visit the main listing of all giveaways on the Sew, Mama, Sew Blog. Good luck, and happy blog surfing!

Giveaway day is coming!!!

How convenient!!! I was trying to think of a giveaway to do to comemorate my 1 year blogiversary, when I came across the Sew, Mama, Sew blogpost, announcing their next giveaway day!!!

On Monday, December 13th, come back here to see what I've got up my sleeve! I'll be having TWO GIVEAWAYS!!! I'll have something from the missbossypants sewing room, as well as something from my sister-in-law's Etsy shop: Avery's Garden!!! Check out her shop here and have a little look around!

On Monday, don't forget to visit the Sew, Mama, Sew blog to check out the lists of other giveaways going on. There are so many, it usually takes me 3 days to get through them all! So, book some time off work, make some hot cocoa, get that lap blanket on, and lounge with your laptop. Feel free to surround yourself with good luck charms to win the giveaways you're lusting over, but it's not necessary - I even won something last May!

Off I go to my sewing sweatshop to decide just what I'd like to create and give away. Shall I cut into some of my most loved fabric to make something extra special??? You'll just have to wait and see.... :)