With just a few hours until we ring in the new year, I wanted to look back on this year in my blog. Here are the top posts of the year by reader page views!

1. My Living Room Redo (top center)- It was so fun to document the transformation of my living room!

2. Decorating On A Dime (middle right)- Where I shared my tips for thrifting great home decor.

3. 4 Reasons a Custom Doll Might Be a Perfect Grad Gift (top right)- A fresh new idea for the ever-difficult-to-shop for Graduate.

4. Vintage Sewing Notions (top left)- It was a joy to take the time to photograph the pretty packaging of the vintage trims I've collected.

5. Mary Poppins Doll (middle center)- A childhood favorite comes to life!

6. Vintage Flower Brooches (middle left)- Another fun thrifted collection that I shared this year! (Many more to come in 2014!)

7. Hen and Chick Patterns (bottom center)- A new venture for me, I now have 10 different PDF sewing patterns in my shop! It was fun to look back at this post, the first two.

8. Halloween Dolls (bottom left)- I was thrilled by the support these stripey legged beauties received!

Thank you to all of my readers who have made it a joy to write this blog this year! I look forward to sharing lots more with you in 2014, from my latest dolls, to my latest vintage collection, to the state of my garden, it's going to be a great year, and I'm looking forward to enjoying it with you! Happy New Year!

Update: Our Thanksgiving this year was so nice! I hope you all had as nice a day as we did!

Today I have a fun DIY project for you! I'm taking a short break from my doll making duties to make this for my house. I'm hosting Thanksgiving this year, and we're really in the mood. This is perfect for Thanksgiving decor, and you can customize it to any color scheme you like! It will take one afternoon or so to make this pretty leaf garland.

For this project you'll need:

-Several sheets of felt (wool or wool blend recommended, but acrylic is fine) in maroon, olive green, nut brown, butternut yellow, and orange (or desired colors).

-Scissors

-Sewing machine

-Thread

-Real Leaf/Leaves

1. Pick out a real leaf to use as your template. You can pick several sizes or types of leaves to use.

2. Begin to cut out your leaves in whatever variety of shapes and sizes and colors you like. I needed 18 maple leaves for my 80 inch garland. Yours may vary depending on the size of your leaves and the desired length of your garland.

This is the perfect task to do while watching a seasonal movie with your kids.

3. Decide the order of your colors. Lay the leaves out on a nearby surface in order.

4. Leaving a nice long thread tail (about 4 inches), sew with your machine down the center of your first leaf. When you get to the end of the leaf, lift your presser foot, pull the thread about an inch, place your next leaf under the foot, lower the foot and sew the next leaf. Proceed like this until your last leaf.

5. When you sew to the end of your last leaf, pull the thread several inches and cut, leaving a thread tail about 4 inches long. These thread tails are for helping to hang your garland (either tying, taping, or anchoring by putting something heavy on).

6. Enjoy your garland! And Happy Thanksgiving!

I'd love to see yours if you make one! Or share your ideas for simple Thanksgiving decor in the comments!

One of my favorite places on earth is in my little studio. It's where I create all of my handmade cloth dolls, stuffed animals, and develop my PDF patterns. I work in a spare room of my house, and it is packed to the gills. It is seldom neat as a pin, but usually at least partly tidy.

I usually have company, and my company usually brings his toys.

Things get a little stacked up sometimes. It's hard to have room for all of my inventory, ongoing and current projects, fabric, stuffing, packing supplies and everything else in a ten by ten area! But I shoe-horn it all in somehow.

I am seldom without tunes of some kind (okay, I admit to an inordinate amount of Journey) and I often stare out the window at the trees in my yard when I take a tea break.

Thanks for stopping by the Hen and Chick Studio for a visit!

Come back soon!

I have very robust home decor board on Pinterest, and I had begun to notice that my favorite living room ideas all had white walls. This was quite a revelation after years of ensuring I didn't have a single white wall in my home, opting instead for cheerful, yet subtle color instead.

But in addition to liking the look of white walls on Pinterest, my color taste had changed to also enjoy bright and colorful bursts of primary colors and wild prints too. And those things look out of place with a sage green background. So I decided to paint my living/dining area white.

I was amazed how much brighter and bigger the new white space felt!

Now I feel so much flexibility in the colors I can use for accessorizing. Displaying my little vintage treasures has never been easier. I think one of my favorite things is displaying the colorful thrifted afghan collection.