These vintage mason jar snow globes, which Anthropologie is selling for 18 to 38 dollars a piece, would be easy to make yourself for much less, especially if you have some of the items around the house already, as we do. I plan to make these with the kids sometime soon -- I'm quite taken with the little saltshaker one.
This so-called pearly expanse ornament, priced at 12 bucks, would be easily replicated with styrofoam ball
One of these years we'll get organized (haha) and get someone else to take the photos so we can all be in the same picture. Anyway, happy holidays to you and yours!
So I never did get around to making a card or even an e-card out of our family Christmas photos. My last minute plan was to make the e-card on Christmas Eve and send it out on the day but I was felled by a virus on Christmas Eve, which made for a wobbly Christmas Day. There is a lot of work involved in Christmas when you are a mother and things sort of fall apart when you're not on your game. But we muddled through.
Here is Sylvie, getting angry because the yellow ornament sticker will not stick to David if she puts it on upside down, which is, in her opinion, the only option.
Here she decides to give it a try our way.
I love the pleased look on Luke's face here and also the fact that I did not try to comb an already grumpy Sylvie's hair. This is what she looks like most days.
I picked up The Usborne Book of Drawing, Doodling and Colouring for Christmas for the kids the other day and I love it. They're always begging me to colour with them and these illustrations and suggestions for doodling are attractive enough to interest me, too. Luke's awfully patient when Sylvie scribbles all over his work but I just might have to get one of these to keep to myself.
Here are just a few of the pages. Click on any photo to enlarge it.
This is a house around the corner -- I think of it as the extremely straight house, as opposed to our crooked one. It always looks so tidy and never more so than at Christmas time, when it has matching wreaths on every window and large floodlights to show it off at night. All the photos in the post were taken with the Hipstamatic for the iPhone, which I am loving.
A different Christmassy house in the neighbourhood, a different setting on the Hipstamatic.
Luke tells me he prefers "coloured lights and animals" to our bland white lights. This is down the street from us.
Someone's front door display. They have a huge sign that says GREETINGS above the door, which didn't show up.
Another house in the 'hood, a really big one.
Luke and I and his orange monkey.
The two final shots are of our front door -- I can't tell you what Hipstamatic settings these are because by the end of the walk my fingers were freezing and I was just shaking the iPhone to randomly change them.
Saw this house while doing some errands in Lunenburg yesterday and took these bad photos with my iPhone. Love how the colours of the Christmas bulbs on the bush go so well with the house and the surrounding vegetation.
First, fill a greased silicon mold -- this one is of snowflakes -- with broken, wrapper-free crayons. Note: taking those wrappers off can take a looong time. It might make a good mindless task to do while watching a Christmas special on television, say.
Put them in an oven preheated to 300 degrees Fahrenheit for ten minutes, then stir them gently with a skewer. Repeat again in five minutes or so and again until the crayons are completely melted. Remove from the oven and let them cool. When they have started to set, stick a skewer through each ornament to make a hole.
Pretty, aren't they? Use a darning needle to stick thread through the hole in each ornament for hanging.
We got the idea from Twelve Crafts Until Christmas, who kept the colours a bit more separate -- a look I prefer and Luke wasn't particularly interested in achieving. Twelve Crafts also made enough for the 22 kids in her daughter's class. That was my intention, too, but these require a LOT of crayons. Next time I think I'd use smaller molds. We ended up with six, which we put on our own tree.
All the elements in this poster featuring the golden rule were drawn or printed by six-year-old Koen with a Sharpie and then arranged digitally by his father. It is absolutely gorgeous. Move over ubiquitous Keep Calm and Carry On poster. I think you've got a little competition.
I ordered this Playmobil Advent Calendar
It seems to me that if you're going to spring for an actual book instead of an electronic edition, you might as well buy the most beautifully designed one you can find. (Perhaps that's the silver lining in this publishing revolution -- actual, physical books are going to have to get even more beautiful in order to survive.) Here's a gorgeous version of Christmas Books: A Christmas Carol and Other Stories by Dickens. This has cloth covers with gold foiling in the little windows. You can view the entire piece of artwork, which covers front, spine, and back at the very end of this blogpost by the Caustic Cover Critic -- that site is worth exploring -- or at the website of the artist, Joe McLaren.