A Sign of Joy

My friend Sarah made this for me a bunch of years back. I love that girl! We met at a homeschool conference when we were teens and she lived in a neighboring state, so we kept in touch.

We got a computer soon after meeting her. Those were the old days when the internet was something new and email was the latest communication fad. Our emails jetted back and forth....and saved us many a hand cramp from letter writing!

My twin and I took a road trip to help her cater her own graduation party. We made a dozen braided ham loaves, layered fruit cakes, veggie dip in cabbage flowers, and I picked roadside flowers for table centerpieces. And they were beautiful. We were a force to be reckoned with!

She was in my wedding and I was in hers. Soon after, she and her husband moved to our city and a few years later, we were enjoying play dates with our young children.

Being that my twin is named Sara, I call her my other Sarah sister. She is now living in China, her family has grown in numbers, and I miss her! But she is one of those friends that when we see each other again, we'll just pick up where we left off.

Thanks MamaBear for giving us all the opportunity to share our ornaments!

Christmas Letter/Year-End Summary

                                                                           

This will be kinda like one of those choose your own ending books. But not really. All you really get to choose is how much of our lives and my blabbing to read! For the short version, stay put on this page. For details and pictures, follow the links!

January was busy and crazy. But we made it!

February and March and April included a trip to the WI Dells (and our first visit to a Casino), a marriage class, a wedding, a funeral, another Bible study and a trip for Robb to CO. Megan turned eight.

And, you'll never believe this: I started exercising. You will, however, believe this: I've since quit! I do have plans to start again. I think.

May: The girls were in dance.

June: I enjoyed a non-homeschooling mom's life for a week while my kids went to an all day Vacation Bible School. My thoughts on that. We celebrated 11 years of marriage and Mitchell's 10th birthday. Yes, I made that football cake. :)

July: Mitchell had his first week-long camp experience. He loved it, of course, and came home pumped.
We spent lots of time at the local beach....kids playing, mom's gabbing. relaxing. NICE!

August we canned. The kids are great little kitchen helpers!

In the summer we also camped a few times and had two weekend friend fests which included mega bounce houses, lotsa food and lotsa friends! Not sure why I didn't blog about those events as they were the highlight of our summer!

With fall came another Bible Study, the start of Bible Quizzing and Mitchell's first experience playing football.

I posted about my brother-in-law's health scare and then again. He appears to be OK right now. We would all still appreciate prayer for the situation.

In October we visited Robb's dad and Linda in AZ for the first time since they moved there...WAY overdue! We also met Robb's grandma and aunt. We had a fabulous time. So much fun, in fact, that we were grouchy after returning home for approximately a month! The weather here may have had a bit to do with it! Can we just transport our whole life, friends and church and family and all, to a warmer climate? Please?

November brought my sister's baby shower.  Yes, I am sooooo excited and terribly sentimental about this upcoming birth.


I found my dream job and started working part-time at home for Carrie in her blog to book business.


And that brings us to December. Megan will visit the orthodontist this week. We have an upcoming piano recital and Christmas program. Madison will turn six.


Another year comes to a close and, once again, we rejoice in the faithfulness of our God. Thanks for being our friends. We are so grateful for you all.


Leave a comment and let me know you were here. :)

Pearly Soda Clay Ornament

I found this recipe for clay a while back and loved working with it. The consistency is velvety and soft and dries with a soft glimmer. I sanded the edges with a nail file, used a gold leaf pen around the edges and then sealed with polyurethane.

Pearly Soda Clay
1 c baking soda
1/2 c cornstarch
3/4 c water
food coloring (optional)

In a saucepan, stir together baking soda and cornstarch. Add the water, mixing well.

Cook the mixture over low heat, stirring occasionally, until it resembles mashed potatoes, about 7 to 10 minutes. Stir constantly the last few minutes as it thickens.

Remove the pan from the heat and set it aside. When the dough has cooled, turn it out onto a floured board. Knead the dough with your hands, adding more cornstarch as needed, to create a workable clay.

Don't forget to add a hole with a straw!

Allow creations to air dry overnight. (I like to turn them as they dry so they don't curl.)

Crocheted Snowflake

 Same song, 11th verse. Another homemade ornament! Check out more here on MamaBears blog .

One year, with my Martha Stewart Living magazine close at hand, I taught myself to crochet. I have a love for traditional, old-fashioned ornaments, and these remind me of the collection my grandmother tatted. Tatting is a soon to be lost art, so I should really teach myself that skill too. Someday.....

My crocheting skills have grown since these little projects, but I never follow a pattern for the bigger stuff. Those patterns look like a bunch of gibberish, and once you know a few stitches, it's not difficult to put a blanket together. Well, OK, not difficult for me!  ;)

Here is good ole Martha's tutorial for ya. If you find even that too difficult, no doubt with a bit of looking you can find a whole box of discarded china-made snowflakes at a garage sale for $1.00. That's what I did. That's right. After making a few of my own snowflakes and conquering the skill, I decided it's a much better investment of time to buy someone else's castoffs. Albeit less meaningful.

Clothespin Reindeer

A clothespin craft to add to the homemade ornament parade. Nothing fancy, but still pretty cute. I used a stain touch-up pen to stain the clothespins, a permanent marker for the nose and rafia for the bow. I think it would be cuter with little black bead eyes and a red berry nose(much classier than a pompom). I didn't have those, and that would be harder for kids to make without a gluey mess, so we did it this way. You can't see from the picture, but I did drill a little bitty hole for a small ribbon at the top of one of the "antlers." Yes, I am even handy with power tools...Vary it a bit with different ribbons instead of raffia etc. Great ornament or package topper.

Fudge Puddles

 This recipe brought to you by the request of chocolate-peanut-butter craving friends!

1/2 c butter
1/2 c creamy peanut butter
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c light brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 t vanilla
1 1/4 c flour
3/4 t baking soda
1/2 t salt

In a mixing bowl, cream butter, peanut butter and sugars. Add egg and vanilla. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt and add to creamed mixture. Mix well.
Chill for one hour. Shape into 48 balls, one inch each. Place in lightly greased mini muffin tins and bake at
325 F for 14-16 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven & immediately make wells in center with melon baller or tart shaper (Pampered Chef shaper pictured above). Cool in pans for 5 minutes then cool on racks.

For fudge filling:
1 c milk chocolate chips
1 c semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 t vanilla
chopped nuts

Melt chocolate and stir in milk and vanilla. Mix well. Fill each shell with fudge and sprinkle with peanuts.
Yield 4 dozen.

Crackle Painted Craft Stick Sled Ornament

I'm not sure where I originally found the pattern for this sled, but I looked for a pattern online and couldn't find this particular one. There are other patterns, but this is still my favorite. One year I made about thirty of these. No doubt that was the year I got bursitis! I hosted a Make Your Own Christmas Present party and a bunch of ladies came over and we crafted these together. Fun memories. The most fun memory, though, is what we did after the party. We decided to be sneaky Christmas elves and prank our pastor and my husband, who worked for the church at the time, by setting up a Christmas tree in their office. We went to my friend's house, rescued an unused tree in her basement, dragged it to the office and hung my huge homemade ornament collection. It was lovely. Only Jon or Robb can tell you if they were pleased...

To make a sled you will need 6 popsicle sticks. Cut two of them (I just used a wire cutting pliers)as follows:

Assemble the top with hot glue and then attach the two runners to the cross pieces.

I painted most of my sleds all gold, then used crackle compound and painted the tops either red or green.

I hot glued little bits of greenery and berries on the body of the sled or personalized them with a gold pen for gifts.

Tin Can Lid Angel

One year, our family (or maybe it was my sister's and my idea) decided to decorate the whole tree with angels. Mostly homemade angels. We collected and saved as many tin can lids as we could and made these, among other things. Another year I made a bunch for myself, and developed bursitis in my thumb from the overuse of pliers and tin-snips! I even had to wear a wrist splint for a couple months! I must have been a bit compulsive in my crafting that year!

This is not a great child's project as you can imagine, but I like them. They're thrifty and shiny and reflect the light on the tree.The first one I saw had a tiny gold glass Christmas ball for a head, but I've never been able to find them, so I've resorted to jingle bells. The first angel held a miniature music book, but I'm too lazy to create one on the computer, so I also left that off too. (Are you seeing a pattern here?)

To make this angel, choose a can top or bottom of any size with no printing on it. I prefer lids that are all gold or silver and not white on one side. Cut the top red lines for threading the head on. Make sure the strip is thin enough to fit through whatever hole is on the bell or ball or bead. String your head and then bend a curly loop at the top for a ribbon to hang the ornament.

Cutting on the green lines will form the arms. Using a needle nose pliers, curl each arm toward the center of the angel. Cut "feathers" on the bottoms of the wings and bend the tips of the wings forward a bit. Using the pliers, grip the lid on the dotted lines and fold the portion between the green and dotted lines backward, forming the angel skirt.

The great thing about this project: if you mess one up, you didn't waste anything! Retrieve another lid from the recycling and try again!

I Make Stuff

 I wish I remembered more about this pillow. Was it from pioneer girls? A kit from mom? I know I made it when I was pretty young and it was one of many sewing projects over the years. It brings back memories of hours and hours spent in my parents downstairs laundry room sewing, cutting, and stitching. I loved the peace and quiet and the thrill of a completed project. I especially liked the praise. "You MADE that? YOURSELF?" Yes, I did. Thank you very much.

I did not spend time in front of the TV or in any kind of organized sport growing up. I don't know much about movies from the late 70's or 80's, nor do I recognize characters from popular TV shows. I'm not great at sports and I abhor sweating.  Not me. 'Cause I was busy making stuff.

I made clothes for me and clothes for my sisters and clothes for my barbie. I made stuffed bears and pillows and stitched wall hangings. I dried flowers, used petal porcelain, painted. I gardened and arranged cut flowers. I decorated cakes and quilted. I tried anything and everything.

Now, things are a bit different. I can tell you a bit more about movies and TV shows. I've even been known to work out once or twice. Hobbies have changed as craft fads come and go. My project pace has slowed. I have other things to do. Like cleaning. And laundry. But I still prefer to make stuff.

Now head on over the river and through the woods to MamaBear's blog and check out other fun ornaments.

No postage due. Not me.

When on vacation recently I REALLY DID write sweet notes to all my small group ladies to let them know I was thinking of them. I did not however hand them through a vehicle window to my father-in-law while driving through town because he was going to the post office. I did not ignore the sweet little voice in my head telling me to call him and tell him that those precious notes needed stamps. Nope. I did not figure carelessly that he would look at them before mailing them and I could pay him back for postage. Nope, wouldn't do that. I did not (really I didn't) ask him later if he mailed them without stamps. My husband did. We did not have a conversation about it, wondering if the bar code where the stamp should be was a prepaid stamp-code-thing.

I did not have to visit the post office the next morning and wait in line for thirty minutes, all the while with a crabby old lady behind me who constantly whined about waiting. I did not have to wait all that time only to be told that the stamp-code-thing was not a valid stamp. I did not ask the postal lady to go looking for my postcards. Nope, not me. She DID look. Very graciously. But my cards were long gone. I did not almost cry out of embarrassment from the thought of twenty postcards to my Bible Study ladies arriving postage due.

I did not post a pre-apology on Facebook. Nope, not me. My friends were gracious and said any note I send would be worth paying for.

But the cards did not arrive postage due. (For real.) And I am not at all upset about my unneeded apology. Not me!