Knitted Farm Swap

Please note: All of the pictures in this post are from Living Crafts Magazine and are used with their permission. Please do not pin any of them since they are not mine.

Some of the patches closer up (Winter 2008)

The Start of Advent

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. My church holds an Advent Workshop each year. Last year they began making it in the evening so all the families could attend. As a member of the Christian Education Committee I have been helping plan it this year. We serve a spaghetti dinner and then there are different stations to make crafts--wreaths, ornaments, decorations, Advent calendars, and Christmas cards for the homeless (that another religious charity gathers from the churches to distribute with gifts). The high school students will be making fleece scarves for the charity as well. Last year we ran out of food, because many people hadn't signed up, but came anyway. This year they didn't have a sign-up, so hopefully there will be enough food.

Hazel's decorating...all on the same branch

Yesterday we spent the day getting our house ready for Christmas. We have a few more things to do, but the tree is up. I still need to put the candles in the windows and put the swags over the family room windows. Hazel had so much fun decorating the tree. Of course we still need to teach her not to hang all the ornaments on the same branch. We had a few fatalities due to this practice, but they were minor ones.

Our Honeymoons: St. Croix and Plymouth, MA

Family Picture

Some traditions we have for our Christmas tree, if we go on a trip during the year we buy an ornament for the tree from the place we have been. Then when we hang the ornaments we have a nice memory of the trip. I started this when I was single so I have a few from those vacations, but together Steve and I have one from each of our honeymoon trips (we took a two-night one locally right after the wedding and then waited for the bad weather to get away some place farther), as well as other trips we have taken and of course one from Cape Cod since we go there every year to see my parents (usually several times a year). Steve also receives a frame ornament with the year on it in his Christmas stocking every year (usually from Michaels for around $4). So we have family pictures for each year we have been together starting with the year we got engaged right before Christmas. We also have pictures of Hazel and our cats on the tree. This year we will add Fluffy to the collection and we will do a memorial of Simba. We also have given one to Hazel each year that represents something she really likes. Her first year it was a duck and last year it was Elmo. She loved those when we found them in the boxes.

The rest of the ornaments are a combination of ones from our childhoods, ones we made, and ones that were gifts. There are still a few that were bought without much significance, but for the most part we are weeding those out each year. It is amazing how your priorities change. I didn't bother hanging the margarita glass ornament one of my sister's gave me ages ago. We share a love for homemade margaritas so it was a nice sharing moment, but now I barely drink, so hanging a glass on my tree seems so insignificant. However I do still have the engraved angel that my sister gave me when I was 7 on my tree. My mother hangs our silver teething rings on her tree. I need to get Hazel's out for ours.

Do you do anything special for your tree? I always love the look of the themed trees in pictures but when it comes down to it, I love my tree for the love and memories it holds instead of how it looks.

An ornament I made the other day. The pattern came from Living Crafts Magazine (do you know this magazine, it is wonderful)! I borrowed a few issues from the handworks teacher at school (and just ordered my own subscription). This pattern came from the Winter 2009 issue. Hazel decided she wanted it as a toy and not an ornament. I may try to make a smaller one for the tree though.

Happy start of Advent!! I hope you have a wonderful day!!

Fourth of July Crafts and more!

Ok, I finally got around to taking more pictures of the crafts we used at our party. First the crowns which I posted a picture of yesterday. I got the idea from Disney's Family Fun Magazine. Instructions on them are found here. I have to say of all the parenting/family magazines I get (and I get many of them) this is my favorite because it has easy crafts to do with kids and they have a special section for subscribers with younger children.

Now for some of the other crafts we did. First is the placemats which we didn't actually use, but the kids made their own. I got this idea from a craft Hazel did at the local library for flag day.

 I had cut all the paper for the kids so all they had to do was glue the red stripes on and they had plain blue construction paper with star stickers, so they could give a little variety to their own flags. Then we covered them with clear contact paper to make them placemat worthy.

Next are paper windsocks. I originally had a group of these hanging from our clothes line over the patio. Of course Hazel was sure they were going to blow away and insisted on us bringing them in. The kids enjoyed making these though. The easier ones are pictured here. I used blue star scrapbook paper (the leftover parts from the placemats) and red and white crepe paper. This idea was adapted from the Little Hands Book on America. For the 12 inch strip we used 6 pieces of crepe paper, but could have used 7 if we didn't want them alternating. Each of the kids made their own to take home.

 This is the harder version. Hazel and I only made one this way. I printed white stars (using Word's shape drawer) on paper and cut them out. We glued them on to blue construction paper and then glued the crepe paper on to the bottom and then made it a tube and added the yarn to hang it with.

 I also had printed out free coloring pages with Fourth of July themes from on line and melted down red, white, and blue (and silver) crayons in a star muffin pan for each child. These are some of them on the flag Hazel made at the library. I found instructions on recycling broken crayons on-line and in books--melt small pieces of crayon in sprayed muffin pans at 275. Keep a close eye on them as they can melt quickly but around 10 minutes (less if they are not filled well). I also made Hazel some rainbow round crayons with all the broken crayons we had (and some from the packages I bought to get enough red, white and blue). She loves them. She plays with some at the library as well. At the library, she has been known to build towers with them since they have so many more. The librarian melted down the crayons by color so each one is a different color versus my rainbow idea.

Well that is all the promised Patriotic crafts I have for you. Now off to sew some more. Hopefully I will finish the outfit and get Hazel to wear it so I can take a picture of it.

Good night!
Carrie