Happy New Year and my new blog!

I wish you all a new year full of hope, love, creativity, joy and patience.
From now on I will be blogging from manyblessings.typepad.com. I hope to see you all there. Have fun celebrating tonight and be safe!

My New Blog

I just wanted to let you know that I'm in the process of turning this past year's blog into a book for my family. When I'm finished with that I will discontinue this blog as I'm starting a new blog on Typepad. I'll let you know when it's ready (hopefully by the end of the week). I hope you'll follow me there! Blessings, Jane

Love that Christmas Spirit!

Merry Christmas!

My Dear Blogging Friends, I hope you have a very merry Christmas and a happy and healthy 2010!
Peace and Love, Jane

Stained glass cookie ornaments

We made some very cool stained glass cookie ornaments today. I found the recipe here. Here is B crushing up the Jolly Ranchers. Out of the oven.

And on the tree.I also thought they'd look nice on the mantle next to B's votive holder.

I love this picture!

This darkest day of the year

brought comfort for an injured hand in the form of stuffed animals, Mrs. Pigglewiggle, beeswax, ice, Hershey's kisses and hugs (and mama's kisses and hugs).It also brought candlelight as a reminder that even in the darkest days the sunshine always returns.

And it brought poetry:

Welcome to you, Old One

Welcome to the snow and ice,

The bitter cloud of your breath,

The pillow-feathered snow

Welcome you in, this Winter day.

May your blessing hold us,

May your chills avoid us,

May the bright promise

Of each clear day

Remind us of your gifts.

Old One, cold one,

Though we fear your storms,

Yet we welcome you

Into our winter hearts,

With your cleansing breath,

To blow away the old year

And usher in the new.

John Matthews: Invocation to the Old One

Hope you're surrounded by warmth and family on this darkest day of the year. Welcome back sunshine!

A little gift for my mom

While Jeff was at the hardware store today he found some high-powered non-prescription reading glasses for my mom. She's been wanting some of these for a while but we could never find any-who would have thought they'd have them at the hardware store! Well, he brought home a couple of pairs and then I got to work making a glasses case for them. I'm hoping my mom will actually use this case (she tends not to use my presents and I usually find them in her basement). The one present she does use is a flower vase I made her as a child. Of course, she doesn't use it to hold flowers -instead she filled it up with sand and uses it as a door stop. Oh well, at least it's getting used!

1 day + 1 felted wool sweater = 2 upcycled hats

Sorry sweater! Elf hat for my little niece

Cat hat for B. I'm hoping he'll love this hat and give up on the baseball cap!

Thanks J for modeling the hats!

Look who's watching us. . .

Yesterday we made some ornaments for the birds. We took some small aluminum pie tins and filled them up with cranberries, orange slices and water. We added string to hang them from and put them outside overnight to freeze. Voila! These are some of my favorite ornaments to make-they're easy, they look nice and the animals get to eat up the fruit when they melt.

What we've been doing the last couple of weeks. It's a long post!

Well, yes, we've been doing some relaxing and looking out the window hoping for snow. We did get a little bit of snow (maybe 3 inches) but then it rained and now we only have patchy snow.

But mostly there's been a lot of busyness. The good kind of busyness. The kind that doesn't include running around to malls. Well, I did make a trip to Kohl's to cash in on my $10 gift card that they sent me in the mail. I got a $26 pair of slippers that were on sale for $12.99. So, I got them for $2.99! Woohoo! I'm still excited about it mostly because I went in with my gift card and didn't buy anything else. Supreme self-control. Love those gift cards! But that was it for mall trips. Excellent. What have we been doing instead of hitting the malls? Well, there has been card writing. Shrinky Dinks (I LOVE these) and ornament painting.


Salt dough ornaments.

Oobleck and homemade silly putty.

The trimming of the tree.

Aaaaawwwww.

Playing with gingerbread playdough.

Making votive holders out of cans. These were later decorated with Sharpie pens.

We also talked about why the water in the can expanded when frozen and pushed out the bottom of the can.

There were gingerbread cookies, The Gingerbread Doll story and we read about the history of gingerbread.

Fun with the advent calendar. This is what they found when they woke up on the morning of the 10th. I've also left little messages, water marbles (a big hit), Shrinky Dink ornaments and cookie cutters.

More Shrinky Dinks. These are addictive!

J made a Shrinky Dink necklace for a Jewish friend.

Look what they got one night for Hanukkah! So, they've also been watching a lot of Looney tunes at night. Candle lighting and potato latkes and Hannukah stories and music.

Hope you're having a festive holiday season too!

Crafty Crow ornament swap

The kids and I are participating in the Crafty Crow's ornament swap this year. The theme is fairy tales. So, this is what we came up with: We took our gnomes, dragon and king and placed them amongst our polymer water marbles and polymer snow. We used our scarves in the background. What do you think? I think they came out well. Each ornament is a little different but they all have pictures of our little magical scene with a message on the back. They were supposed to go out today at the very latest but they needed some finishing touches. Hopefully they'll make it out tomorrow.

And here is a cute little gnome we received in the mail today from a family in California. He seems very at home on our tree!

I finally got out those knitting needles! Warning: Don't look Grace and Sarah

All fall I've been admiring the work of my knitting blogging friends such as Joy -so many beautiful hats, sweaters, etc... out there to drool over. Finally, I got out the knitting needles to make this little pig for one of my nieces for Christmas. Her name is Sophie and I think all she needs now to be complete is a scarf. The only decision left to make is which niece to give her to!

Later this evening:

That's better. She was complaining of the cold. I forgot to tell you, Sophie's an Irish pig and she's not accustomed to these frigid Vermont winters.

My all-time favorite Christmas book

I have very fond memories of my mom reading stories from this book to me and my two sisters when I was a child. I loved seeing the animals at the farm snug in their beds waiting for Christmas, the little bear who had a golden heart and wanted more than anything a golden sled, the polar bear who gave up his fur to make beards for Santa's helpers . But, my absolute favorite story was that of The Christmas Tree Lamb. The lamb that had spent many Christmases on trees and being played with by little girls. He was a well-loved lamb and through the years had become shabby, had lost a couple of legs, an eye and his bell. Well, I always thought that we had that lamb. We also had a sweet little shabby lamb that came out each Christmas. I miss that lamb!

The last few years we've had our own little Christmas lamb that I'm hoping will be as well loved as the lamb I had as a child. This book has made its way into the hearts of my children while bringing back so many memories of childhood. Of course, I don't think anyone can read these stories quite like my sweet Irish mom but I'm sure giving it my best shot! I hope you're having a wonderful holiday season full of warmth and tradition.