The Four P's of Christmas Presents

Presents are one of the most stressful things about Christmas. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE giving and receiving gifts, but that pressure to figure out just the right gift for someone without succumbing to the retail super storm of Christmas commercialism can be overwhelming to impossible. However, I've figured out some things this year that I want to pass on that I think make giving and the Christmas season more meaningful than ever.

I always get a kick out of preachers who have four or five points to share and they've come up with a word for each point that starts with a certain letter. I guess the alliteration is a bit amusing to my English geek heart. I get an even bigger laugh when they come up with a word that starts with, say, the letter D for every point but one, but then they have to pick a different word for the last point because they just couldn't think of a word with D that summed up that last point. Kind of like the person who came up with who, what, when, were, why.....and, oh yes, how. I digress. I only mention this because I feel like a preacher having come up with the four P's of presents in order to share my theory of making gift exchanges less stressful and more meaningful. Here they are:

1. Pausing to Remember--Last year, a wonderful family friend gave my daughter a nativity advent calendar. It was a meaningful and very simple nightly event for our family, and it helped us focus on the reason and purpose for the season. This year, I ordered an advent calendar that has scripture verses to read each night. My daughter looks forward to opening the door in the calendar each day, and it is a wonderful way to remember the light Jesus brought into the world and focus on satisfaction and fulfillment in Jesus rather than things; things can so easily become the focus of the season without time to reflect on why we celebrate.

2. Paying it Forward--Each year we try to give something to those who are in need. It reminds us of of the difference between "need" and "want" and keeps us thankful for what we have. Every family will have their own cause or charity that appeals to them. Some of our favorites are Operation Christmas Child, the Samaritan's Purse Gift Catalog, and Salvation Army.

3. Passing it On-- If you have a cute three year old that everyone wants to shower with presents (and not just at birthday and Christmas), there must be a time to clean out the unused and out-grown items hanging around in bins and drawers and corners. This is not about giving junky stuff to people who can't afford new toys. This is about cleaning out what we don't want, need, use, or have lost interest in and passing on a usable item in good condition, which allows someone else to enjoy the things that no longer play a role in our daily life. Having my daughter go through her things with me and pick out the items she no longer wanted or used was a great teachable moment. Not only did I have a chance to talk with her about giving, I was also helping her understand the importance of limiting the amount of possessions she has. In a couple of words: Don't hoard! This is also a great exercise for me with my personal and household belongings.

4. Promoting Family (and Friend) Relationships--Finally, Christmas is about spending time with people who are important to us and letting them know they are special. A bought gift can be very meaningful, but there are so many simple (and useful!) gifts that you can make for family and friends. One of my most treasured Christmas gifts is a cloved orange (click link for video on how to make a cloved orange) an aunt made for me a couple of years ago. I put it in my linen closet to keep the sheets fresh. Before I received that gift, I was having to rewash my entire linen closet about every three months to get rid of the musty smell that would build up. No more! The cloved orange keeps my sheets and blankets fresh; even better, they actually smell good! And the orange has lasted for two years. Talk about a small, but thoughtful, gift that paid big dividends! The point is, gifts don't have to be elaborate and break our pocket books to help our loved ones feel loved, remembered and appreciated. Making Christmas gifts is also a great way to keep my kid entertained, spend time interacting with my daughter, and it is meaningful to family members that she helped make the gift.

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Homemade Christmas Card Ornaments

My husband's grandmother is an avid crafter. A few years ago, she told me about a way to use old Christmas cards to make ornaments. To do this project, you will need:

1 Styrofoam craft ball--size of your choice

1 or more old Christmas cards

a plastic container big enough to put the Christmas card in

water

flour

a small cup or container to make flour paste

paraffin

a straight pin

ribbon or twine


If you want to make the kitty kat ornament I made, you will also need:

2 fuzzy sticks (pipe cleaners)

wiggly eyes

tooth pick

hot glue

black felt

and an additional Styrofoam craft ball



Too make a simple round Christmas card ornament:

Put the Christmas card in the plastic container and soak it in water. When the card is soft enough, you should be able to peel the picture layer away from the card backing.

1.Mix flour in water in a small cup or container to make flour paste. Tear the Christmas card front into small pieces or strips and glue them onto the styrofoam ball with the flour paste. (This process is much like making the newspaper shell of a pinata over a balloon.) Cover entire styrofoam ball with pieces of Christmas card sealed on with the flour paste. Let dry.

2.When ball is completely dry,take a straight pin and pin on a loop of ribbon or twine for a hanger. If I use twine I tie the twine around the pin close to the head of the pin and then press it into the styrofoam ball. I also sometimes put a dab of hot glue on the head of the pin for extra hold.

3. Melt paraffin in a double boiler. (Or you can do what I do. Put paraffin in a quart mason jar. Set jar in a pan with water and bring water to a boil over medium low heat to slowly and safely melt paraffin. Then you don't have to try to get the leftover paraffin out of a pan and into something else and clean off the waxy mess. You can just let the paraffin cool in the jar, screw on the lid, and store for future use.) Dip the ornament into the melted paraffin to make a protective coating over the Christmas card design.

4. Let cool. Hang on tree or give to a friend.

If you want to make the kitty kat:

1. Do step one, but make two styrofoam balls. I had to use two Christmas cards, on for each ball.

2. Insert a tooth pick into the base of kitty's "head" as if you were creating a neck. Insert the other end of the tooth pick into the second styrofoam ball that will serve as kitty's body. Make sure tooth pick does not show. Reinforce with hot glue. Then attach ribbon or twine with pin as in step two, inserting the pin into the "body" ball, just below the "neck" area.

3. Follow step three, dipping entire kitty ornament into paraffin. If you use the glass jar method, you may have to dip one end and then the other as kitty, if he's as big as mine was, won't fit inside the jar horizontally.

4. Let paraffin coating on kitty cool completely. Then hot glue wiggly eyes in place. I created a nose and mouth by put a piece of Christmas card that looked like a nose and mouth where I intended kitty's face to be. If you don't have a card that works the way you could glue a button or a fuzzy ball on for a nose and draw on a mouth with a black felt tip pen. If you draw on the mouth, do this BEFORE dipping in paraffin.

5. Take one fuzzy stick and cut 4 approx 1-1.5 inch pieces. Insert wire of fuzzy stick into the face around the nose, two on each side of the nose. Reinforce with hot glue.

6. Cut a length of fuzzy stick and insert it into the appropriate "tail" area of the body. Reinforce with hot glue. Bend and twist to make tail curl like a cats.

7. Cut 4 aprrox. 2.5 inch lengths of fuzzy stick for legs. Insert them into the appropriate area of the body for legs. Bend into an L shape at the ends to form feet. Reinforce with hot glue.

8. Cut triangles for ears from the black felt and hot glue to the top of kitty's head.

Waa lah! A kitty kat for your Christmas tree!

Pomegranate and Pine Nut Tuna Salad

It's pomegranate season! I remember the first time my husband and I tried a pomegranate. They were on sale, so we thought what the heck? We'll give it a shot. Shortly thereafter, pomegranate juice was splattered all over my husband's shirt and the walls of our little apartment. It looked like a bad version of a mock crime scene. After lots of scrubbing and cleaning and a permanently stained shirt, we swore off pomegranates for years. Finally, a friend clued me in to a great tip for opening pomegranates. Follow the link to this video.

Now that opening a pomegranate is no longer an ordeal, all I have to say is YUM! This unusual fruit adds a unique spin to many different foods. Most recently I decided to try pomegranate in tuna salad. A little weird I know, but soooooooo good!

Here my recipe for Pomegranate and Pine Nut Tuna Salad:





Two cans of albacore tuna in water, drained




2-3 heaping Tablespoons of mayo (add more or less to make it the moistness and consistency you prefer)


1 1/2 Tablespoons of pine nuts


seeds from half a pomegranate



1 teaspoon of salt (or to taste)


1/2 teaspoon of pepper (or to taste)


Mix all ingredients in a medium bowl. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Serve on sliced bread or with crackers.

Perfectly Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

 One of the things my family looks forward to the most during the fall season is toasted pumpkin seeds. Digging all of the glop out of the center of the pumpkin when carving jack'o' lanterns is completely worth it for a handful of these tasty treats. However, I've always felt like my toasted pumpkin seeds didn't quite measure up to my expectations, though I followed instructions from various websites to make them. A few weeks ago, I was at a going away party for one of my long time friends and another friend of hers brought toasted pumpkin seeds that were phenomenal! The following tips for perfectly toasted pumpkin seeds are gleaned from her instructions.
First, remove seeds from a pie pumpkin.The pie pumpkin seeds are smaller and tastier than those from large carving pumpkins. Soak the pumpkin seeds for 24 hours. Periodically rinse the seeds in a colander to wash off as much of the slime as possible. After the soak, drain the seeds and spread them on rimmed baking sheets. I had to put mine in a roasting pan as I currently don't own any rimmed baking sheets. The girl I talked to at the party used coconut oil and sea salt on her seeds. They were very good, but I prefer a more savory taste for my seeds, so I used olive oil and sea salt on mine. The amount will depend on how many seeds you have to toast. I used 4-5 tablespoons of oil and about 3 teaspoons of salt. I had seeds from three pumpkins, thus the large amounts of oil and salt. Stir the seeds to coat with the oil and salt.

 Toast the seeds at the low temperature of 275 degrees. It will take at least an hour to toast them. It took about 3 hours for mine to be completely toasted but I imagine using a rimmed baking sheet instead of a roasting pan would drastically cut down on this time since the seeds would be closer to the heat source in the oven. Be sure to periodically stir the seeds for even toasting while they are in the oven. They should be a nice even brown color when they are done.

Let cool or a bit and enjoy!

Fun and Simple Fall Project

My daughter has wanted to make bird feeders since she saw a bird feeder project in a book this summer. Now that November has come, despite our record breaking 87 degree day, it seemed the appropriate time to do the project. The bird feeder from the book seemed a bit complicated and more like something she'd enjoy making when she's a bit older. So, I did a quick search on the internet and found this website with a quick step-by-step for making a bird feeder out of a toilet paper roll.* The project was simple enough that my 3 year old was able to do most of it on her own, and it took a short enough amount of time that it didn't loose her attention span. We hung the feeders on our small maple tree and our mulberry tree. Hopefully some interesting birds show up soon...but, if not, at least it the project kept her busy for the afternoon.

*Note: We used a fruit and nut mix birdseed for our feeders.

Homemade Butterfly Halloween Costume

 My daughter has to dress up as an animal for her Noah's Ark party at school this Tuesday. After spending several weeks discussing which animal she wanted to be (it changed daily from alligator to lion to dog to cat to mouse), she settled on a butterfly. So I made a trip to Wal-Mart for some poster board, acrylic jewels, felt, glitter glue, and Velcro straps. The first step was to cut wings out of the poster board. I had her lay down on the poster board so I could draw the wings the right size for her body. If you have an older child who wants a butterfly costume I suggest using two pieces of poster board for the right and left side of the wings, or top and bottom. After I measured, I free-handed some wings onto the poster board and then cut them out. The wings were not perfectly symmetrical, but I think that just gives a more realistic impression of a butterfly in flight.

 The next step was to let my daughter paint the wings with several shades of pink, acrylic craft paint. (We used "cranberry", "fuchia", and "baby pink".) She had specifically asked to be a pink butterfly. She painted one side of the poster board and we let it dry. Then we painted the other side and let that dry. After the paint dried we used glitter glue to create designs on the wings and put some acrylic jewels on the wing to add extra sparkle. After drying, we did the same to the other side of the wings.

 I then cut a sheet of black felt into approx. 1/2 in. strips and hot glued the strips around the edges of the wings. I made sure that I could fold the felt over the edge and then hot glued the overlapping felt onto the other side of the wings.

The last step was to attach straps. Maddy picked pink straps. They are the loop and sew straps in the sewing aisle of the craft section of Wal-Mart. I hot glued the rough textured strap to the back of the wings and then measured the soft strap to size on the front and trimmed it to fit. I crisscrossed the straps across the body to hold the wings on more securely. I found a black and white polka dot headband at Wal-Mart as well and twisted black pipe cleaners around the top of the headband to create butterfly antenna. 

Now I have a little girl who is in love with her butterfly wings and can't wait until Tuesday to wear her costume to school. She will wear a black turtleneck, black pants, and black gloves to complete her costume.

"And the Word of God says..."

"And the Word of God says..."

This is what my three year old daughter comes home saying almost every time she comes home from her Mother's Day Out program at a local church. I'm always so impressed and thankful that they are impressing the importance of God's Word on her heart. However, I've always believed that the responsibility of getting God's Word in her heart lies, first and foremost, with me.
In relation to teaching my daughter God's Word, I have lately done much reflection on Deut. 6:6-9. This scripture talks about the importance of the Israelites impressing God's commands on their kids hearts as they are about to enter the promise land. In my reflections, part about writing God's Word "on the door frames of your houses and gates" really stood out in my mind. I begin to think about my house when I was growing up. I can't remember much of the artwork I had in apartments and dorms in college, or even the first house I had after I got married, but I can clearly remember most of the pictures and artwork from my house growing up. I remember in the kitchen, my mom had a picture that had the poem "A Kitchen Prayer" written on it. I can almost quote the entire poem by heart: "God bless my little kitchen Lord, I love it every nook. Bless me as I do my work, wash pots and pans and cook. And may the meals that I prepare be seasoned from above, with (this is where I lose it a little bit) something, something ,something, and most of all they love." I think that it is crazy that I remember that random poem hanging in my Mom's kitchen, but it makes sense. Even though we moved several times when I was a kid, I can remember seeing that poem, every day, every time I had to do the dishes, for years and years and years.
I want God's Word  to be in front of my family's eyes, everyday, as much as possible. In the past year, I've been working on canvases to hang around the house that have verses that are important to our family. I want my daughter to remember those verses like I remember the kitchen prayer. Okay, better than I remember the kitchen prayer. I want these verses to be what pop into her head when she faces a tough situation, needs to encourage a friend, needs encouragement for herself, wants to thank God, and when she need guidance for life's decisions.

Phil. 1:6

Corinthians 13:13

So my encouragement to you today is to some how get God's Word in front of your kids eyes where they can read it everyday. You may not literally write it on a doorpost of your house, but you can put God's Word on canvas, in a photo, a drawing, a wall stencil, a sticky note. Whatever you think will catch their eyes, get it on your walls. As parents, we have no job more important than "impressing" God's Word on our children's hearts.

Lactose Free Zucchini Banana Bread

What happens when your three year old wants banana bread, but you don't have enough bananas, so you suggest making zucchini bread and realize that you don't have enough zucchini? You look at the recipe for the banana bread. You look at the recipe for the zucchini bread. You take a deep breath and you start throwing together what you have on hand. Here is the recipe I came up with on that fateful day. I am lactose intolerant so I used soy milk in my recipe, but I'm sure regular dairy milk would be just as delicious:

1 1/2 cups grated zucchini

1 cup of mashed, ripe bananas ( throw brown bananas in the freezer in the peel and then defrost, peel, and    mash when I'm ready to make bread)

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

1/2 cup soy milk ( I put a teaspoon or two of lemon juice in mine to give it a sort of buttermilk tang)

2 c. flour

1/2 c. ground flax seed

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt


Mix sugar and oil. Add eggs and blend well. Stir in zucchini, bananas, soy milk, and vanilla. Add flour, flax seed, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt and mix until moistened. Pour into a greased 9X5 bread pan and bake at 350 degrees for an 1 hour and 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of the loaf comes out clean.

Easy and yummy and a great way to get a picky kid to eat her veggies, fruit, AND fiber!

Pressed Flower Door Tag

 A couple of months ago, my daughter and I checked out the First Nature Activity Book from the library. This book is full of great projects for kids. My daughter really wanted to make bird feeders, but May didn't seem quite like the time of year for that project, so we did pressed flowers instead. I also looked at this very informative and helpful website for beginners. It has all kinds of fascinating information about pressing flowers and pressed flower projects. We picked some blooms from the flowerbeds around our house, I dusted off my Critical Theory book from an undergrad English course, and we inserted some sheets of newspaper in the middle of the book, placed the flowers on the newspaper sheets, shut the book, and piled all the other books I haven't opened since college on top of the Critical Theory book and waited a month. When we opened the book at the beginning of July, the flowers had pressed beautifully, but what to do with them?
Again, I looked to the world wide web for help and found a great tutorial about making pressed flower book markers. One of the steps in making these beautiful book markers was sewing. I don't do that....ever. Plus, because I'm cheap, I wanted to just use things I had around the house to experiment with pressed flower art before I dumped a load of money into any project concerning pressed flowers. Thus, the project that started as a book marker and turned into a door tag.

Here is what I did:

1. I got a sheet of wax paper, then arranged my flowers on top of the wax paper (shiny side up).

2. I separated a two-ply tissue and put one of the sheets over the pressed flowers.

3. I then took a paint brush and used the brush to very carefully "paint" Mod Podge matte glue over the tissue. I painted over the flower area first and then covered the whole tissue with glue so the entire tissue was sealed to the wax paper. I was careful not to rip the tissue.

4. I let the wax paper, flowers, and tissue dry overnight.

5. I got a piece of cream colored card stock and glued the wax paper to the card stock with acid free glue (the kind used for scrapbooking).

6. I let that dry for several hours.

7. When I was sure the glue was dried, I used a measuring tape to create straight lines on either side of my design and cut out the "book marker" shape.

8. I discovered the card stock that I'd used was not sturdy enough to make the design stiff enough to function as a book marker so I changed my plan. I had some adhesive mounting board left over from another project so I cut that to size and used it as backing for my design. Now the design was definitely too thick to be a book marker. Book marker idea is toast.

9. As I mentioned above, the tutorial I was looking at for my inspiration mentioned sewing as a step to hold the wax paper design and card stock together. Since I don't do that...ever, I decided to get some twine and a hole punch and lace the design together. I started at the bottom middle and laced up each side, then laced the top, and tied the twine together, top middle, to create a hanger for the design.

10. I then added scraps of card stock paper to give the design more interest.

11. The sides of the door tag seemed rough and unfinished so I wrapped twine around the edges and used my finger to Mod Podge the twine to the edges of the door tag.

12. I stenciled the words onto leftover bits of the wax paper/card stock, cut them out, and used acid free glue to place them on the door tag nee book marker.

13. As the last step, to make sure the design held together, I sprayed the whole thing with a coat of clear glaze.

Overall, I was satisfied with the result, but there are a couple of things I would do differently. If I make something similar, I will wrap the mounting board in brown kraft paper and then glue the design to the kraft paper on the mounting board to give the whole thing a more finished look. I will also experiment with stenciling the words onto the card stock and then gluing the tissue over the words instead of stenciling them on top of the tissue and glue.

Inspiration is such an interesting thing. I was inspired by the tutorial I saw, but my project turned out nothing like what was on the tutorial. (Hers was much prettier. Check it out!) However, that's the fun part of creating something---just going with the flow and seeing where creativity and inspiration take you. If you've read through all this, I hope you'll be inspired to try some pressed flower art of your own and see where it leads you. Maybe you'll become a world renown purveyor of all things pressed flowers, or maybe you'll just create something you really love that makes you happy when you look at it.

 

DIY Initial Sign

 I've been looking around for some  metal wall art or a sign...or something...to spice up my front porch for quite a while. I wasn't having any luck finding anything I liked...that was in my price range....well my husband's price range. Then my dogs broke a board on the back fence and it gave me a fantastic idea. When life gives you destructive animals, use deconstruction. (We'll pretend my sign qualifies as deconstructed art.)

1. First my husband stained the board for me. Very nice of him. After the stain dried, I measured it and cut it roughly in half so the boards were the same length.

2. I bought a 2 and 1/4" in. x 36 in. baltic birch strip and a 9 1/2" wood letter at Hobby Lobby.

3. I cut the two pieces of the strip thing to the width of the boards and then tacked one strip onto the boards with finish nails, about 3 inches from the top, to hold the boards together. I did the same about 3 inches from the bottom ( put 2 nails at the top and bottom of the strip on both edges and then tacked it to the boards towards the middle as well).

4. I painted the wood letter with a coat of brown acrylic craft paint and let it dry. Then I spray painted the wood letter "almond". I let the spray paint dry and then distressed the letter with sand paper. If you don't know what distressing is there are lost of great tutorials out there that tell you more than you ever need to know about it. I looked at this blog post on Serendipity Chic Design, this tutorial on the HGTV website and this tutorial from Motiva Beaucoup (fair warning: this one has some language so don't look if you don't like). I didn't wait long enough for the paint to dry so the paint was kind of tacky while I was sanding. I'd let it dry for 4 or 5 hours at least before sanding. I think I waited 1 hour.

5. After completing the distressing of the initial letter, I tacked it approximately on the middle front of the sign with finish nails.

6. The final step was to get a piece of  thin wire that was easy to twist and tack the wire on the back of the sign, about an inch from the top on either side, with finish nails. Before I hammered the nails all the way in, I twisted the wire in a loop around the head several times and then hammered the nail in to hold the wire in place.

I'd say it came out pretty good. It gave my front porch the finishing touch it needed for next to nothing in cost. The whole project took maybe 3 or 4 hours with drying time for the paint. And yes, my yard does need to be mowed. Thanks for noticing.