Last week I promised to post a craft or two. I am amazed, but here they are. I have been clicking right along with my schedule, enjoying the down moments and the busy moments and all the moments in between. That hasn’t left much time for posting much here in the last month or so.
These crafts came from a sweet, sweet book my daughter picked up free from a children’s party at the library. Angelina’s Christmas Craft Book is a perfect addition to a little princess’s personal collection. It’s packed full of easy, affordable, and most importantly, adorable, crafty ideas. I picked two that were inexpensive, easy and required materials I already had. Outside that practicality I must admit I picked two that just looked plain fun.
“Something for the birds” was nothing more than bread cut into shapes with holiday cookie cutters, spread with peanut butter, and sprinkled with bird seed. Once allowed to dry a bit, they can be hung from a tree and will provide a bit of holiday cheer for our little aviary friends, of which we have many.
And in the spirit of New Year’s celebrations, we made some crackers. Not the kind you eat, but the kind you open. The kind that has little treats and whatnots stuffed inside. We chose strings of colorful beads and the gluten-free treat of Tootsie Rolls. Wrapped in bright shades of tissue paper and sparky ribbon, they are festive and fun and we are looking forward to taking them to whatever party we end up going to. The book suggested using empty toilet paper rolls to act as the “stuffable” part of the cracker. I have a thing about germs, so I made my own cardboard rolls with cardstock. It just so happens that one sheet of cardstock makes four little tubes. My two eldest loved the task of stuffing while I wrapped and beribboned them.
Great fun for very, very little moolah. I am all for that. I have a feeling you are too.
So, have a very, very, very Happy New Year.
From Me to You: Have a Very Merry Christmas.
Another P.S. Not to worry. I'm still planning on posting an early New Year's craft for kiddos. Maybe even two. In the meantime, take care, be safe on those northern, icy roads, and I'll see you after Christmas.
We did it.
We actually did it.
To some of you our excitement may seem silly. But we actually got away for three whole days last week. A true blue miracle. It has been so long since we have gone anywhere to rest and just shut off our minds to all the demands schedules like ours shove forward.
We have simplified our life down to the bare bones. Our children are in swimming lessons in the summer, and our Number One Son is now officially a Cub Scout. That is it. We are involved in nothing else in a very deliberate way. Most people can handle hectic schedules. I have enough amazing female friends who do it all very well to know it's possible to do all the activities and be perfectly ok. We have just come to realize we aren't that way. We need our quiet time. We need the undemanding nature of hushed togetherness.
However, even with our pared down existence comes a busyness born very simply of adult responsibility. There are tasks and energy sponges we wish we could avoid, but simply cannot. Because we are grown-ups. Big people. Do you remember wishing you were 21? Oh, boy, those were the days, huh?
So, we have been trying to faithfully take care of those Big People Responsibilities, all the while hoping the Lord would grant us just a little break. To fill up and refresh so we can be ready to jump back in. We thought it would be this summer, but it seemed God reordered our days and sent us tasks that stretched us, grew us, refined us. But this fall, it felt like we came to a breaking point with no end in sight.
That's when we received the invitation in the mail.
It came just as it comes every year. Only this year we were more ready than ever to make use of it. It was an invitation to all the alumni who worked at a particular youth camp, to come "home", as it were, to celebrate Christmas together.
It has been eleven years since I worked there, and not many of my contemporaries were able to make it, so I was the old fogy. But in the 24 hours before the big party on Friday night, we were able to wander around a bit of pristine wilderness and see it in all it's calm glory. It was remarkably warm at 63 degrees, so we were in our shirtsleeves as we tramped around and rediscovered all the places on that stamp of land that were my very favorite over a decade ago.
As we hiked I found some tiny little hints of Christmas along the rugged paths.
It was so very beautiful and we were loathe to leave, but as we got back in the car to come home, we looked at each other and smiled and knew we had just been granted a rare thing. A true holiday.
Traveling through this next few weeks, seek out the truest of holidays. You won't be sorry.
So from me to you: Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
P.S. I am planning on posting a very fun winter craft for kiddies later on this week. So, check back. Hint: It's for the birds.:)
There are times when I look around my home and sigh. It feels like a treadmill of tasks, always something more to do, clean, fix, re-do. Around and around it goes. And I begin to understand the author of the book of Ecclesiastes. All is vanity.
However, I still seem to love pursuing inspiration for my home from the pages of magazines and, on occasion, other women’s homes. That isn’t to say I like copying the magazines, for I don’t want my home to look like a magazine. Very simply, I just want it to feel like home. So if there are any little tidbits of design sense or tips to better organize our space found within the pages of a popular publication, I dog ear it, make notes, or better yet, I clip it and stick it in my inspiration book for future reference. Obviously, therein lies my particular insanity.
Oh, well.
I don’t have a huge budget for making a lovely home. Most of the time these days, the budget isn’t even there. I’m used to that as I grew up in a home where every cent counted and I had a mother who made our surroundings lovely with second-hand everything.
I’m trying to carry on that tradition with pride. Ninety percent of what I currently have in my home is second-hand. So much can be done with some paint and fabric and a little effort. If you don’t believe me, check out this post by another blogger, Laura. Talk about doing a lot with a little.
We have lived in this home for a little over 3 years now. It needed so much work when we moved in. It was built in the seventies, but hadn’t been updated in the intervening years. I have been taking it on, corner by corner, trying to persevere even though many times I have wanted to give up. Between three children ages 8, 6, and 3, there just doesn’t seem to be enough time to get those ‘yummy’ kinds of projects done. You know the ones. The new paint color for the kitchen, or the new hardware for the kitchen cabinets. Or, like me, finally painting the hallway that was primed three years ago. Arg.
In the midst of this sometimes discouragement, I am reminded by God to be thankful for what it is that has already been completed. To not always be looking at the unfinished work, but the finished.
Whilst looking through my camera over Thanksgiving weekend, I spied a few little scenes that gave me the warm feeling of completion. That "this is so great" feeling.
Go around your home today and look beyond all the "yet to be done" tasks and find those "finished work" pictures to store in your heart. It’ll make your Christmas all the merrier.
Can you tell what movie we watched a couple days ago? Our Josh must have done his artwork when I wasn’t looking. It’s such a great rendering, I can’t handle erasing it. I have a feeling it will be there for a long time. It is currently my favorite piece of art in the whole house.
