Happy New Year!

There's a special tradition that started for me New Year's Eve of 2006.  At the time I was really struggling with letting the past go, really to the point of paralyzing me from moving forward with my life.  It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes in the movie Ratatouille; Chef Gusteau tells Remy the rat, "If you focus on what you have left behind, you will never be able to see what lies ahead!"  Yeah, profound.  I'm sure that New Year's Eve of 2006 I was pouring out my heart to God in prayer.  I don't know how it came to me, but I felt that God used Philippians 3:13-14 to comfort me: "... one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."  It was the verse I went back to throughout the year to encourage myself not to be emotionally chained to the things of the past and to keep pressing forward.  It was such a sweet memory that I've carried on the tradition every New Year's Eve since then.  I figure since God knows the future, He knows what I'll need to help get myself through the year.  So as the New Year approaches, I start praying that God will give me that prophetic verse that will aid in keeping me sure-footed through the different seasons the upcoming days, weeks, and months will bring.  This year, through my regular reading through the Psalms, this one stood out to me as my New Year's verse for 2012:

"You crown the year with Your goodness, and Your paths drip with abundance" (Psalm 65:11).

It's such a special reminder, as I flip through my Bible, to see the New Year's verses that have been marked in past years.  And as I read recently, "O God, You have taught me from my youth, and to this day I declare Your wondrous works" (Psalm 71:17).

I truly do wish you all well in 2012!  Here's to hope for a new start and grace to get you through to the end!

A Handmade Christmas

Well it was a busy December working on several Christmas projects.  I made an asserted effort to have a stress-free holiday season.  I was so excited about the handmade things I had planned to give to family and friends and I didn't want to lose the cheerfulness of it (see 2 Corinthians 9:7).  I was also trying to trust that God would give me the time I needed to finish my projects since I had honored my husband by not starting on them until he was done with his school semester about 2 1/2 weeks into December as he had requested.  I will say though, after several late nights working to get things done, I understood why people start planning for Christmas in November.  I think I will do that next year.

This tinsel wreath was just something fun.  A lady from my Bible study group gave me some Christmas decorations including this tinsel so I thought I'd put it to some good use.  

I saw this wreath on Bleubird Vintage's blog and had planned to make something like it.  I never had the time to put a word on my wreath.  Before I pack the Christmas decorations away, I want to shape the word "peace" out of some black wire I have and wrap strips of scrap fabric around it.  I've heard the Christmas story so many times, but this year the part that says, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace and good will toward men," (Luke 2:14) came to mind and really stuck with me.  For my wreath, I wrapped the tinsel around a wire hanger I grabbed from our closet.

Click on Image for Full-Size

A friend of ours offered to take some pictures of our family but wasn't able to shoot them until mid December because Gregg had finals and had to also meet a couple Ph. D program application deadlines.  I had in my mind that if we didn't get the pictures done in time to use them for Christmas cards, I could order New Years cards instead.  So these handmade cards were my Plan B.  I used a bunch of "Thank You" cards I had left over that I had ordered for my wedding more than 4 years ago, and got the angel and blue velvet ribbon images from The Graphics Fairy and the "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" sheet music off of Google Images.  I added a little shine with gold and blue gel pens.

I got this tutorial for Cinnamon Ornaments emailed to me.  My Bible study co-leader also gave me a little different variation of this recipe which you can find here (recipe at the bottom of the page).  When Kristen blogged that the dough shouldn't be sticky, I have no idea what she was talking about.  I let the dough stand for an hour and followed the recipe and it was super sticky!  I ended up seriously kneading my dough quarters in lots of cinnamon, as pictured above in the black plate.  I also found the thicker my dough, the easier it was to tap it out of my cookie cutters.  Metal cookie cutters were suggested as working the best.  But other than that, these were fun to make and bake and they sure do smell good!  I'm planning on making more to use as decor around the house and as future gifts.  As pictured above, I decided to make monogram ornaments for different families.  The letters with the heart represent the couples and the letters below represent their children.  I thought a tradition could be started where the kids get to take their letter ornament with them when they move out and when they get married, I could make them a heart ornament with the letter that represents their spouse's name and then make more letter ornaments as gifts when they have children.

So this year we literally had no Christmas budget.  But that didn't discourage us from having presents for Leala to open.  We got creative and came up with gifts we could make her for free.  Gregg thought it would be nice for Leala to have her own chair since she likes climbing into her old one that she's too heavy for now and that we need to use for her younger sister, Adella.  I have to admit, that when Gregg told me his idea for making Leala a chair out of cardboard, I couldn't imagine how that would work well.  But when he started showing me pictures of his progress from a co-worker's phone, I was impressed!  He accomplished it with just cardboard filled with paper and some duct tape.  We remembered that we had some black furry fabric in our closet that we were going to use to make a dash board mat for my car years ago.  It worked very well for a chair cover!

It was so fun staying up a few late nights with Gregg, busily piecing together and sewing up Leala's presents. We had experienced so much joy making her gifts that it didn't bother me this year that Gregg and I couldn't buy each other presents (though we did end up getting blessed with Christmas cash from some friends and family).  It truly did feel more blessed to give than to receive this year!

With all the other Christmas projects I had to get done, I only had time to make Leala these bracelets.  I guess I'll save the necklaces for next year.  I used this tutorial to make the felt flowers on the pink and yellow bracelets.  I used the embellishments to cover up my stitches.  These really are super easy to make!  Because I didn't have wide enough elastic (the 1/8" stuff I had was a nightmare to work with and I did have a little melt down about the project not working), Gregg did let me go to JoAnn's to buy the elastic I needed which only ended up costing $1.50 for a yard (I ended up getting 3/4" for Leala instead of the 1" used in the tutorial).  And the felt was from a 14-sheet package I had bought at the Dollar Tree to make a princess crown for a 4-year-old girl's birthday present for the Build-a-Bear birthday party me and the girls were invited to earlier this month.  So technically the Christmas present I made Leala wasn't completely free, but pretty darn affordable!

I know when money's tight, people can get discouraged thinking they can't celebrate Christmas (at least the consumer American way).  But with a little resourcefulness and creativity it is possible to have something to give.

Getting Ready for Christmas

Three more Sundays until Christmas!  [laughs] Put that way, it makes it seem like there's not much time to get things done.  Okay, don't panic.  How does 21 days until Christmas sound?  Much better?  Alright, you can relax now.  I, myself, have been trying not to worry about the list of handmade projects I've given myself to do before Christmas.  Aside from hoping I'll get what I have planned done on time, I've been REALLY excited this Christmas season about all the ideas I have for giving people stuff, from the gift ideas I have for my girls to all the Christmas cards I hope to send out ('cause I know how happy I get when I get a card in the mail).  And then there's the free stuff I get to share with you all including some of the songs that are on my iTunes Christmas playlist and links to tutorials for handmade gifts and Christmas cards, contests, and a couple places in town to see Christmas light displays.  I hope what I have to share makes your holiday a little more merry and bright.  =D


Jolly Jingles
If you're already tired of hearing Taylor Swift mournfully sing for the thousandth time about her heart being given away last Christmas, then here are a few tunes you may be less familiar with or renditions you can rock out to (maybe around the Christmas tree).  Enjoy!

 

Handmade Gift Ideas for Leala

As I had mentioned in my post Privation is the Mother of Creation, there was a list of gift ideas I had for Leala that I could make for free with the fabric scraps and materials I have in my sewing stash.  Due to a limited amount of time though, I narrowed the handmade projects to these bracelets, this necklace, and maybe these too.  Then, after watching Leala have fun playing with her Ikea puppets yesterday, I remembered a post I had seen on a mom's blog about a puppet theatre she made for her kids.  Oh my goodness, was this link hard to find!  NEVER again will I neglect to bookmark something I like!  So I hope to make a similar little puppet theatre for Leala for Christmas... and even more so because back in June, my husband was having fun making Leala laugh by making her hand puppet eat her finger puppets and spit them back out in her face, and now she thinks that's how you're supposed to play with them.  A little puppet theatre may help teach her a more constructive way to play with her puppets [laughs].

Munchie Puppy Puppet from Yolanda Fields on Vimeo.

Handmade Gift Idea for Adella

If I have the time, I would like to make some flower headbands for Adella because one, I think they'd be cute, and two, maybe then people wouldn't ask us if she's a boy.  I liked this tutorial.

Crafty Christmas Cards

I signed up for Parent Magazine's 100 Days of Holidays email newsletter and this update caught my attention.  My favorite handmade Christmas card designs were the ones with the stitched border and sheet music background.  I came up with a design that combines the two.  I'll post pictures when I complete one.

Giving-It-Away-For-Free Business
You know where I got that title from if you've seen Veggie Tales:  St. Nicholas:  A Story of Joyful Giving.  You'll often hear me quote movies.  Well, speaking of giving away stuff, here are a couple Christmas contests I know of where you can win free stuff:

Anthropology: 20 Days A'Gifting
Sorry I didn't get this link up in time for you to enter the contest when it started on the 2nd.  BUT, better later than never and you still have 18 chances to enter to win 18 different prizes (1 entry per day).

Parents Magazine Weekly Toy Giveaway
I just found out about this contest yesterday, BUT there are still 3 weeks left to enter to win 3 different prizes (1 entry per week).  Here are the weeks that are left and their corresponding prizes:

Week 3: 12/4/11-12/10/11
One (1) winner will receive a Stow & Go Activity Cart, retail value $85.

Week 4: 12/11/11-12/17/11
One (1) winner will receive a Grow & Play toy package, including one (1) Start Me Up! Car Keys, retail value $15; one (1) Fun with Food! ABC Blocks, retail value $30; and one (1) Busy Hands Bear, retail value $27; total retail value of Grow & Play package $72.

Week 5: 12/18/11-12/24/11
One (1) winner will receive a Rhythm Music toy package, including one (1) Colorful Notes Xylophone, retail value $28; one (1) Beat Bop Drum, retail value $30; and one (1) Clickity Clack Bugs, retail value $12; total retail value of Grow & Play package $70.


Local Lights

Christmas on Knob Hill, San Marcos

through December 31

Christmas Card Lane, Rancho Peñasquitos

through January 1

Deck the Halls
I still have some decorating left to do in our house.  I've only managed to get my interchangeable bulletin board decorated with some of my favorite greeting cards from Christmas past and a few ornaments and a pine cone garland that I strung with colored lights and hung red balls and a few of my mom's handmade felt ornaments on.  I LOVED the white Christmas light decor in Dave Barne's Christmas Tonight music video.  Maybe it'll spark some creative ideas I can implement in our home.