Christmas Crafty

This year Christmas was so brutal for me. I was in bed, dying of nausea for 5 straight weeks! I'm never doing this again. There. I'm saying it out loud to reassure myself that I'm serious about that. Needless to say, my big crafty plans went completely down the tubes and this is what we were left with. 

Item #1 Pinecones from our yard, sprayed with gold glitter and dropped into oversized mason jars with a ribbon. Perfect craft for Jane to handle from start to finish without me. 

Item #2 Christmas letters I printed off for my Activity Days girls with a scripture that goes with each day of December until the 25th. Guess what's still sitting on my mantle. Guess you have to go to church if you want to deliver letters to your class. I just didn't want to barf all over everyone at 8:30am...

K, these were actually cool. There is a scripture story that goes along with each item in the jar. Good for FHE. Jacob put these together and delivered them to some of his little friends. 

Scarlet playing with pretend snow. Why didn't I just scoop a bowl of real snow? 

Marshmallow snowman?? LAME.

Freezer Papering

Crafty Crafty

I've tatted 3 of these bracelets thus far. They take forever to make. I was really proud of these because it took me a long time to get the hang of tatting. It just did not come naturally to me, so I had to really work at it. My elderly teacher has been so patient and we've become good friends in the process. She is a perfect teacher for me. After I mastered the tatting, we moved on to knitting (which is WAY easier than tatting). I am knitting these cute little baby Uggs now. 

I found the pattern on etsy for $4.50. 

Squishy

We made sparkly, yummy smelling playdo today for some of our little friends.

Christmas Creations

Mariah, did we seriously both add a little lacy cheer to our brown bag wrapping. What are the chances!

 I made these bath salts with my activity day girls. They are fun to make and so easy. We used sugar instead of Epsom salts and added a ton of glitter of course.

 Christmas village made out of easy craft clay:

Here's what you'll need...

• 1 box baking soda (about 2 cups)
• 1 cup cornstarch
• 1   1/2 cups water
• Sauce pan
• Bowl
• Spoon
• Plastic wrap

Here's how you make it...

1. Mix all the ingredients in a saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring consistently, until it is too thick to stir with a spoon.

2. Cool for 15 minutes, or until the dough is cool enough to touch. Knead it for about 5 minutes, or until smooth. Keep dough wrapped in plastic.

Once you have molded it, it will take 1-2 days for the clay to dry. This clay can be painted with either Tempera or acrylic craft paints. 

                                           

Jane spent a year on this embroidery project for Grammy. She just figured it out on her own without any guidance from me so I was really impressed with how well it turned out.

                                         
Charlie wrote this letter to Baba to give to him with the felted bee he made. He read it for all of us on Christmas day- it was really cute.

Charlie found this real peacock feather at a pumpkin farm and he gave it to Grammy. It made for some fancy wrapping.

I put together a kit for Tim so he can teach the boys some manly stuff this next semester- like knot tying, compass stuff, starting fires, etc.  Kind of a scouts/survival class. I gathered some supplies and printed tutorials for a few activities just to give him a head start on it. One of the activities I  thought would be fun for the boys to make are these survival bracelets. They actually ended up making them on Christmas day and got pretty in to it. The best part is the fancy heart knot I tied around the gift as part of the wrapping. It's so satisfying to tie a knot right, sort of like getting the right answer at the end of a long math equation. Feel free to ask me to show you, it's super fun to do.

 The kids cut out these felt ornaments and decorated the mini school room tree. It brought some cheer to  our studies in December.

Jacob spent close to a year working on this project. He loves to tell us about his "imaginations" and when he gets started you better plan on at least an hour of listening. Finally, I started typing them out while he was talking so we can read them when he's older. I had them made into a booklet and he drew illustrations to go with each story. He worked so hard so it was rewarding for him to give his book to family (and Summer) for Christmas.

Jacob and Summer exchanging gifts. Don't you love the look of admiration in Summer's eyes. I want to pinch Kash's cheeks in the background...

This is what I got from Jane for Christmas. It doesn't get any better than this.

Welcome to the craft factory

Tomorrow is December 1st and I'm beginning to get anxious about creating a magical Christmas for four little biscuits and having a baby all in one extra busy month. I think it has to do with the nesting phase that comes over me near the end of pregnancy. Nothing is ever clean enough and organized enough it seems. My Christmas shopping is done, I washed up the car seat and baby blankets, I sorted through all the baby boy clothes I've had stored since Jacob and washed up the ones I want to keep. What am I forgetting?? Why do I still not feel ready? This week I decided that the projects we've started and have looming need to be finished up and put away. We finished all three of them today and that really helped.

Project Wrap Up #1 

Christmas Pompom Garland

We had the yarn suitcase out for a few weeks so there were pompom sessions periodically

 throughout the month.

Once we had enough pompoms made, Jane strung them all together and hung them for Christmas, hence the "Ta-Da" pose below :0)

Who new a little Christmas pompom love would make the room so happy.

Project Wrap Up #2

Recycled Crayon Christmas Trees

We peeled a million broken crayon wrappers. Put like colors in muffin tins. Added a little glitter (always glitter) and melted them up. 

Once melted, we poured them into silicone molds.

 So adorable. Scarlet was excited about the hearts.

Project Wrap Up #3

 We pressed a lot of baking clay into our flower molds and then baked them. We coated each one with clear nail polish. Next we glued them onto special bobby pins that have a flat circle attached at end for this kind of thing (although we glued the smaller flowers onto regular bobby pins and it worked just fine too).

Charlie and Jane colored these Mandalas this morning. Maṇḍala is a Sanskrit word that means "circle". It was a whole new coloring experience. I'm just waiting to try one myself :0)

Pointless Post

I don't have a picture but I made great bread today and it was a miracle. Jane was helping me- I was teaching her about proofing yeast and of course it wasn't proofing like it normally does (water too hot? too cold? not enough sugar? old yeast? container choice? who knows). We added hot water to it and I wasn't sure if you can even do that to yeast but apparently it's o.k. The next problem was that this recipe usually makes 6-7 loaves but I didn't have my small bread pans so I had to use 3 large ones instead so I thought for sure these 3 giant loaves wouldn't rise but they did! 

“Kneading is like dancing- most any way you do it will be okay.”

However, making homemade rock candy is not at all like dancing. We tried two different times and 30 gallons of sugar later and no luck. 

Fall Festivities

Pumpkin Farm Fun

Family time with Grandma Gail and Grandaddy, Gessie, and Ash's family.

Jacob was making us laugh because he was walking around with a corn cob between his legs (like for a while), so that he could use both hands to peel a corn cob and then have one ready to peel after. 

These ghosts are my new favorite crafty craft. They are super easy, cost like $4 and they are boo-tiful!

These are some shots of them hanging outside. The wind makes them fly around in a ghosty way.

See the floaty-ness.

        

 

I am missing Jacob's mask picture for some reason? It was fascinating for Tim and I to see our kids in a family dance setting. I didn't get pictures at the actual masquerade because it was too dark for my phone camera. But here are some highlights. Scarlet could not have been more delighted- she danced the night away. Jane learned some sweet dance moves from Shaina (who seriously got the party rock'in). I am still picturing her dancing on a chair with a black wig on... love her! 

Charlie was shy like me but he really wanted to dance. He needed his pal Brady I think.  And Jacob was happy as a clam just dancing by himself :0)