Hey, everyone! How was your Christmas? Ours was amazing.... Perfect.
God is so good... can you imagine giving your only Son to the world like that?
And guess what!? Christmas has only just started.... you know the twelve days of Christmas? They're after the day. They're the twelve days from Christmas to Epiphany on January sixth, when the Wisemen arrived. Koolio, yeah?
Anyway, this post is kind of a gushing, happy, thankful post.
Christmas Eve was lovely. A couple of friends came over and we talked for ages, eating roasted chestnuts and drinking hot chocolate.
Christmas.....
My sisters know me very well....
SONIC SCREWDRIVERRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!
I love my sonic screwdriver!! (see what I did there?)
It's so sonic, I could DIE!!
And then Kat made me a TARDIS companion kit, in the event that the dear Doctor will ask me to accompany him. Er. Mer. Gersh.
Look at all the stuff in it!
It's complete with business cards!
(in case I need to let people know how to contact me)
Lots of business cards
Kat also made me a TARDIS that opensssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And my mommy knitted a shawl. I love my shawl. It's awesome.
We played Pente, which is like Connect Four, only you can block and must connect five.
We had our traditional Italian dinner of gnocchi and ham. We make the gnocchi ourselves. We also make the sauce. We're very Italian-esque.
And we talked. We talk a lot. *grin*
All in all it was a perfect Christmas and I am so thankful for everything.
It's Christmas Eve. Hard to believe, isn't it? It seems like yesterday was Thanksgiving.
I love Christmas. It really is the most wonderful time of the year. I'm going to do Miss Jack's tag, but with variation. *wink* The original was that I must state seven unusual things about myself.
I'm just going to post seven things we do this close to Christmas.
1.) Lots and lots of baking. We don't start early like most people, we wait until the last possible moment and the lot of us crowd into the kitchen, become very businesslike and make yummy munchies and have loads of fun.
2.) Read The Long Christmas, which is a collection of really amazing Christmas stories, like, The Tale of Bubbasu, and Fiddler Play Fast, Play Faster!
3.) Shovel. No, seriously! We usually get dumped on around this time... So much snow. You know those stories where the fire is burning low, and the snow is falling gently and-- that doesn't happen. It starts snowing, really snowing, and you go out ever hour to shovel the stuff out of the driveway and off the deck and away from the barbecue.
This is the view from our back door!!
please note the height of the snow by the road sign.........
4.) Have roasted chestnuts (made by us) by our fireplace.
5.) Get a new laptop.... Wait... that's not normal. That's really unusual.
BUT I HAVE A PRETTY AMAZING UNCLE!!!!!!!!
LOOKIT WHAT HE GOT ME AS A CHRISTMAS/GRADUATION PRESSIEEEE!!!!
6.) Go caroling... actually we haven't done that in a few years, but we did--twice-- this year. We sound awesome. Just sayin'
7.) Usually we go to Midnight Mass, but this year, we weren't able to because the snow made the roads over the mountains too icy for the priest to come. Sadness! But hey, God is good. My family is wonderful. We're going to read aloud The Long Christmas and have roasted chestnuts and Mexican hot chocolate. And when the little kids go to bed, Father Christmas will come!!!!!!!! I am so excited!!
This song makes me so happy. It sounds just like our family at Christmas.....
I think I might stay up until midnight and welcome the Little Baby Jesus properly.
God bless, everyone. Have a very blessed, holy Christmas.
Watching my sisters work on their clay projects and other Christmas pressies has put me in the mood to be crafty.
So I was.
And this is what happened:
I love these little dollies. :) They're awesome as gifts.
Wanna make one? Wanna?
You will need:
~About a square foot of material
~A small wooden bead-- about the size of a marble-- You can find them at almost any craft store for a pretty good price.
~Pipe cleaners
~Embroidery floss (one hair coloured, and one any colour you feel like. The latter is optional. *wink*)
~Elmer's Glue (wood glue words well too, but leaves more of a mark)
~Scissors
~Thread- doesn't matter which colour.
~An HB pencil (my, doesn't that sound professional? Actually it doesn't matter as long as it has an eraser.)
~coloured pencils (optional)
~A cup of tea
Yep, I'm a nerd.
~Adoring siblings or nieces. (Also optional. They're a morale booster if you start to feel your doll with look miserable.)
OKAY!
1.) So, you're going to start out with your pipe cleaner and wooden bead. Measure about how tall the doll should be, and fold the pipe cleaner at that length. Thread the bead on it, and chop of the excess pipe cleaner on that one side. (DO NOT throw that extra piece away! You'll need it later.)
2.) Get your embroidery floss (aka, hair) and wrap it around the Elmer's glue bottle until it looks like it can cover most of the bead without showing baldness. It should amount to about as wide as the bead on both sides. :)
3.) Slide the floss off and cut it, so that you have loads of equally lengthed strands. Slide the bead down on the pipe cleaner and open the hole. Thread the hair through the eye. Push the bead up enough that the pipe cleaner disappears from the crown of the head.
4.) Remember that extra piece of pipe cleaner I told you not to throw away? Get it. Wrap it once around the body for the arms.
5.) Fold your material in half and put the doll on it as a guideline. Cut a fairly largish half-circle.
6.) Cut little neck and arm holes. (Make them smaller than you think you ought to be, they expand.)
Mine were just a touch too big.
7.) Fold the dolls arms flat down and slide the whole doll through the neck hole, then thread the arms through their delegated sleeves.
8.) Wrap the thread a few time around the middle to make a waistband. {tell adoring little nieces/siblings to leave the dolly alone because she's not done yet.) You can leave the dress alone from there if you want... it looks complete. But if you want to continue..... there's more!
9.) This is where the optional, colourful embroidery floss comes in. Wrap it around the torso to make a bodice. (round, and round, round, and round, round, and round, round, and round, round, and round, round, and round, round, and round, round, and round.) You can also use thread for this part, but it takes longer.
10.) Slather the back and a tiny bit of the sides of the bead with glue.
11.) Press the hair down so that it covers completely the glue covered parts of the bead. Style while the glue is still wet.
12.) Since you don't want to lay her on her back while her hair is drying, make her do push-ups for about five minutes while you make yourself a refresher cup of tea and tell your adoring fans not to touch while you're gone.
13.) Use the pencil and sketch a face on. ( I like pencils. You can erase if you mess up. Which I did. Several times.*grin*)
14.) If you opted for the colored pencils, trace over the face with the eye and lip color you want. (I like watercolor pencils for that, because they're soft and draw on wood well.)
15.) With the extra material, cut a long triangle for a shawl.
YOU'RE DONE!
16.) Pose her in multiple ways and take pictures. Realize that you'll probably have to make one both your adoring fans.
These dollies are awesome as presents for kids (or adults, if you're like me and my older sisters. We still love looking through the doll aisles at stores.) And they're quick and easy to do. I might need to go make a lot more.
I'll make some fairies. Fairies are cool. *adjusts bowtie* I have special spot in my heart for fairies. (More on that sometime later.) Also, I happen to know from experience that these dolls can get away with any hair color, provided that it goes with the outfit. If all you have is.... say..... blue embroidery floss.... it works, no sweat.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH I FORGOTTED!!!!!!! (yes, I meant to spell it like that)
JOSH GROBAN RELEASED HIS NEW SINGLE FROM HIS UPCOMING ALBUM!!!!!!!!!!! IT. IS. AWESOME.
And now for the Christmas songs:
You need to skip into it to reach the singer,
but it's worth it, because her voice is so lovely. :)
The Clancy Brothers singing Sing We the Virgin Mary
