Tag Archives: advent

Nothing to say

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I’m at a loss for words.

And I’m procrastinating.

We went to our daughter’s yesterday to spend a belated Thanksgiving Day with her and her family.  We got home earlier this afternoon and I’ve been putting off the one thing I promised myself I’d do today.

My list of things to do while procrastinating:

  1. Go through the mail.
  2. Unpack the overnight bag.
  3. Wash a load of clothes.
  4. Change the wreath on the front door from the wine bottle wreath to the Christmas wreath.
  5. Put the Christmas candles in the front windows and synchronize the timers so they all come on at the same time.
  6. Iron a couple of shirts.
  7. Unload and fold clothes from the dryer from Wednesday night.
  8. Add wet clothes to the dryer.
  9. Eat dinner.
  10. Work on another felt ornament.
  11. Eat a second dessert.
  12. Check my email.
  13. Download photos from my phone.
  14. Write this blog post.

This is the Number One thing I promised myself that I would do today:

  1. Clean this mess.

Craftiness-1

Craftiness-2

Craftiness-3

Craftiness-4

This is my dining room table.  It’s covered with the Christmas Wishes kits and paraphenalia.

Enough procrastinating.  I’m going to tackle it now.

Right now.

As soon as I wash the dishes.

Ok, dishes done.

I’m going.  Now.

Really.

Bye….

Snowman kit

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The snowman ornament kit for a Christmas Wishes Craft.

From left to right:

  1. Naked tongue depressors
  2. Painted tongue depressors. 
  3. One bottle of white paint.
  4. One bottle of pealizing medium for the icy sheen.
  5. Painted tongue depressors with a ribbon loop attached by a glue dot.  The paper covering the top is to keep anything else from sticking to the glue dot.  Also penciled in eyes for placement.
  6. Strips of paper with glue dots attached.  Felt would be nice, too.
  7. Paper noses. (Orange Post-it)
  8. Black felt hats with glue dot on the back.
  9. Buttons with glue dot backing.
  10. Black marker.  Oops!  Not shown.
  11. Finished Snowman.snowman-kit-cropped

Actually I’ve prepainted the tongue depressors so the first four items aren’t in the real kits.  As much as 4-5 year olds would love to paint and use real glue, I’m thinking of the mothers and the ensuing mess.  This is supposed to be fun for everyone!  This is my first time with glue dots so I’m anxious to see how it all works out.

Not in the mood

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I’m starting to panic.  I just realized that it is almost the middle of November.  Duh!  I’ve spent most weekends cleaning, decluttering, and trying to get the house in some order so I can relax more in December.

nov-2013

The past several years I’ve done what I call Christmas Wishes.  It’s the same thing as an Advent calendar where a person opens something everyday starting December 1st, be it a reflection, small token, ornament, or treat.  It started out with anything under $1 such as a free pencil or emery board though sometimes I included a booklet of stamps or a gift card.  It was fun for my adult children and their spouses.

Then grandkids came along so I included them.  The adults got dropped like a hot potato.

Last year I gave each family a small artificial Christmas tree and each day was an ornament for the tree and a sweet treat.  I made those “sour cream” packages for the ornaments.  Cute but time-consuming.

christmas-Wishes-2012

Yes, it’s mid-November and I haven’t started on getting these put together.  It take a long time to do this and I need to have them ready by Thanksgiving.

I was thinking of doing the same thing with the ornaments but also adding an ornament making craft every few days.  Such as candy cane reindeer:

ccane

Or these candy cane mice from Martha Stewart:

ccmice

I just have to force myself to get in the mood.

Christmas Wishes – 2012 edition

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For the past several years I have done an Advent-type activity with my grown kids.  They both have families of their own so I’m focusing on the grandchildren this year.  Our grandson is seven and his sister is three.  The twins will be four in December.

In the past I would put a small gift in a brown paper lunch bag and close it with a numbered tag.  The bag would be opened on that particular day starting December 1 and ending on December 24.

Instead of using the lunch bags this year, I opted for “sour cream” packets.  They are so easy to make and can be adapted to any size needed.  Check out this tutorial from Splitcoaststampers. 

I used scrapbook paper (50% off with a coupon) from Joann’s.  Most of the packets I made were 4 x 6 inches to make better use of the 12 x 12 inch paper.  The longer packets were 6 x 8 inches and held a candy cane or two.  Round labels worked great for my number stickers.  Green numbers were for one child and red for the other.

I bought each family a small pre-lighted Christmas tree.  Each packet contains a sweet treat and a small ornament.  The kids can add an ornament to their tree each day.   I also included a star tree topper and child friendly Nativity set.

Do you have an Advent tradition?