Christmas is (almost) Here!

Last week I posted on Wordpress: Too late to start...or is it?

The girls have been home sick this week but are on the mend, so they go back to school tomorrow.  When they took their meds & felt like it, we sat around the house, making cards, talking, decorating the wreath & building a gingerbread house.

We opened a "store" on Etsy.com. http://www.etsy.com/people/BookLounge?ref=si_pr

We enjoy hand-making items and look forward to sharing with you!

May you have the merriest, most blessed Christmas this Holy-day season!

Now I get to post again: :) I should have taken pictures of the girls this morning. 

Last night, Little Bit helped mommy cut out a Christmas tree from this cute snowman material and glue it to her red shirt with Liquid Stitch. No sewing required. She then decorated it with sparklies, snowflakes, reindeer and pom-poms. Creative her! 

We allowed the shirt to set overnight and then I threw it in the dryer this morning. (Should turn it inside-out so we don't lose decorations - thankfully the glue was completely dry & held.)

Child-of-Mine made a simple Christmas tree card to give to Teacher. We found this cute little Christmas tree template, printed it out on two pieces of green cardstock, cut it out, then slit halfway down the middle top of one tree, halfway up the middle bottom of the other tree, and voila! Fit them together (with a little glue), decorate as desired (she didn't desire) with sparklies, pom-poms, glitter, etc. and she had one Christmas tree card. I may have to use that & finish our cards this season.

Little Bit chose to give Teacher one of the hand-painted ornaments we've been working on. She liked it soooo much, she gave away Rudolph. Now Santa won't be able to see Christmas Eve...but I'm sure the gifts will still make it under the tree.

No tree for us this year (because of the dog & cat with which we now live), so instead we're using a wreath wrapped in a string of pearls (WalMart), lights (CVS), and decorated with more hand-painted ornaments. For our table-top centerpiece, we collected over several days pine cones, leaves of varying size & color, acorns, gold glitter ornaments (KMart), and we bought vanilla room spray (Walmart). We laid out a layer of the leaves and pine straw then alternately placed the gold balls and the pine cones. We layered the mix throughout the bowl. I spray the vanilla on it whenever I think we need a fresh burst. Overall, I like the effect. 

How have you brought the outdoors in this season?