a mug rug, with a whole lot of yammering

So.

The coffee cup exchange

turned into not a coffee cup exchange - and just a small gift exchange.

But  here we were with a whole bunch of 'new' coffee cups...

so I wanted to go ahead and use them.

(another family did the same thing - so we still came home with 3 new cups :-)

Michelle will be so happy, because,

I finally made a mug rug!

I thought it was the perfect way to enhance my coffee cup

(along with some oreos, of course)

and it was nice to get to make a little something.

(both my crafting and reading time have been fairly nonexistent lately.

And I still have a few hours of secret sewing that I'm going to have to fit in

real quick here somehow....)

Of course, I prefer to hand sew bindings, but since things are a little busy these days

and it was an extra project, I went ahead and tried my hand at machine binding.

(I still prefer hand sewing.)

(I bought m&ms to go with Tyler's cup

and Brandon's we gave with a festive deck of cards,

cookie stick things,

a couple packets of hot chocolate mix 

and candy canes.)

The kids all got to keep the cup we'd bought for them to give

and since we had an extra,

Brandon kept the tall green one too,

because,

that really is a sweet coffee cup!

Roberta chose my gift and seemed pretty pleased with both the mug and the rug,

so I let her keep it

and chose another gift.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to make a few more of these,

because the kids think they're swell.

Or better yet,

maybe they can make their own...

And then I can hand sew the bindings on for them :-)

linking up with Elizabeth's with needle and thREAD