Quiet Winter days are for origami...

My brother gave Ethan this great Geogami modular origami kit for his birthday.
We've been working with it and a few other origami kits today.



I'm a big fan of these tiny origami stars.
And of jumping frogs
And strawberries
But I have not conquered the paper rose .....yet.

new project...

I have an idea.
I would take a new picture of what we call the secret back steps, but there is no photo light to be found on this grey day. This picture sort of shows you. It's a back staircase that goes from the second floor to the family room. In the 1800's, when the house was built, it would have gone from the second floor to the kitchen. Right now it is the last thing in the house that is painted white, mostly because it requires elaborate scaffolding (and probably a heavy dose of bravery) to paint all two stories of winding curves and far reaches of trim and tiny windows. It has been done. The fabulous Raffi, painter extraordinaire, painted it overnight between the time we signed the papers for the house and moving day. Why did I say "oh, just paint it the same white"? I know that baffles me too!
Okay, so I can't paint the walls right now...but
I have a sweet idea for the stair risers! I was inspired by our holiday cards...the ones we sent out this year.
I fell in love with the idea of tall, little town houses all in a row. Skinny and smooshed and cozy and colorful against the black background.
So, my January project is going to be to paint streets of odd, folksy townhouses along my stair risers so that when you look up the back steps it will (hopefully) look (sort of) like a village on a (very steep) hillside. And no scaffolding is required.

Hello Winter...

Wintertime.
We had a great Solstice dinner last night.
Warm slow cooked, comfort foods like beef stew with winter vegetables and crusty bread and mulled wine. The kind of foods that simmer and cook all day long filling the house with an irresistable aroma. Welcoming Winter
Quiet, cozy, candle lit.
A quiet, reflective start to the holiday festivities.



bayberry, rosemary, pinecones, rosehips.

Chex Mix

Chex Mix.
A holiday tradition in my family. I still remember my grandmother's recipe. Her ingredients included pretzel sticks and Cheerios. My mom's recipe had Cheese TidBits crackers, which I can't seem to find anymore so I use cheese crackers and added bagel chips and the flat pretzels instead of sticks. The above picture is of the combined ingredients before they take their bath in melted butter and Worcestershire sauce and spices and slow roast. Chex is Love. It wouldn't be the holiday season here without Chex Mix. Big batches get made and are divided up and distributed to family and friends. It's so much fun. I'm really happy that I got the job of being the Chex Girl for my family.
This site gives a little bit of the history. (I love food history!)
And for variety, there's a plethora of chexy goodness for all tastes found here.
I could almost start a Chex of the Month club!
Can you imagine? Hmmmm.

Holidoodles with Ed Emberley

We got out the Ed Emberley Big Red Drawing Book
and lots of markers.



We doodled....holiday style.






I'm all finished with the hustle and bustle of holiday preparedness and am happily enjoying simple fun and good times with the family. We are almost out of cookies with all the giving and sampling. Tomorrow may be another day to bake. Sweet!

Firebirds and button flowers...

Renewal from ashes. The Firebird Festival was this past Saturday. It was really cold and threatened to be bad weather all weekend, but magically it held off until after the fires and the festival were finished. The weather didn't stop anyone. There were an estimated 3,800 people there. We had our traditional hot cider and ginger cookies. Beautiful and sweet.



Sunday we made button flowers. I know I'm a little late to the party. The button flower craze of 2005, was it? But it all came together on Sunday, the materials, the time, the idea. It's so simple and I love to play with buttons and color combinations. I made bouquets of them for package toppers for Christmas and I made tiny ones to somehow use as promo cuteness for the shop once the new year hits. I'm looking forward to that.

season sparkle...

We had so much fun making the puzzle trees. It's a simple process, but it leaves lots of room for personality and creative expression. And for conversation, which I love. Listening to music, which both of us find to be a necessary creative inspiration. Talking about music genres and bands and art and school and singing along with familiar songs. Sometimes even getting up for a spontaneous dance break.
My favorite quote of the evening. "Every nine year old loves punk rock! You can jump dance to the songs!"
Ah, the energy of being nine and jump dancing.



So we painted the backs of puzzle pieces. Mixing shades and swirling colors and creating "evergreen camouflage".



Until we had *a lot* of green puzzle pieces.



And then, because it is Eth, we had a moment of sorting and organization before the next steps.



Then we used an old paint brush and some glue and layered and fit the pieces together into a tree shape. We made wide trees, short trees, triangle trees, cross trees, and my favorite that Eth designed, the tall skinny organic Seuss-like tree that we dubbed the Who tree.




Sequins become the baubles and sparkle. Any amount and color combination. You can tell we like great amounts of multicolor sequin sparkle.



Tada.
When you think you have enough bling, you call your tree finished.

I love ice on branches. Not so much on roads.

We are bracing for the first real dramatic weather event of the season here in the Philadelphia area. However, it is the kind that comes with a foreboding build up and not so much to back it up...yet. The early morning, when everyone prepared to leave for school and work, remained quiet except for an ominous sky. Shortly after that the rains started. Now I just hope that the temperatures don't drop very much before everyone can get safely home.
Inclement weather always gives me the urge to bake. Something about having something warm and delicious to welcome home the boys who brave the elements. I just put the most delicious smelling chocolate orange cake into the oven. I hope it tastes as yummy as it smells baking!
Today, since we might have a longer amount of time for our holiday crafting, I'm gathering supplies for this cute little tree. I love that it uses puzzle pieces because we have a lot of old (not quite all there anymore) puzzles in the basement and this would give them a new job.

merry and bright

The above is a picture of the gazebo outside of Waterloo Gardens. We visited last Saturday. Really interesting tree trends I noticed were black and white and grey decorated tree with penguins tied into the theme. I could see where it would be stunning in the right room. I just don't happen to have that room in my house. Also, there was a really pretty peacock inspired tree with a lot of teal blue and chartreuse with chocolate brown. Ethan bought a tiny snow globe and I found some holiday cards that have given me an idea but I will save it for another post.


I love this photo. It is one of those flukey ones that I couldn't recreate if I tried.
My camera is all weird sometimes and this shot wasn't focused properly.
I think it's dreamy and it's about how I feel about December right now.
Pretty out of focus but cheery.

sugar sugar...

These are grey days outside, but I love that I can light the trees in the daytime and still get that warm glow while spending large amounts of time in the cozy oven-warmed kitchen being very productive like a baker elf. I made two of the combinations of shortbread cookies mentioned in the previous post. Cranberry orange, which turned out fantastic, and the peanut butter chip. The only thing I would do differently with the peanut butter chip next time is to perhaps try and chop the peanut butter chips into smaller pieces so they distribute more evenly throughout the shortbread dough and so that, when you slice the dough into rounds, they slice better.

I'm looking forward to tonight's holiday crafting and making these sugar ornaments.

holidays and baking sweet memories...

The house is decorated and I'm happy with it. This year's new addition was a tree in the kitchen with gingerbread men ornaments. I love how the kitchen glows with that tree light warmth that I can see from the family room. It's pretty and I'll definitely do it again.



This weekend is Baking Weekend. There are lots of traditions that come with holiday baking. Growing up, there were always tins upon tins stacked up in the dining room filled with cookies intricately and perfectly decorated by my mother. She loved to make sand tarts. They were so thin and crisp and sugared with details. The supporting cookie roles would sometimes vary and change, but there were certain ones that were always the stars. I try to keep up those traditions with my family. We talk about the baking and the history and about my mom. I love to keep her memory near. My mother always made the cream cheese trees with the cookie press and the tiny little ball shaped sprinkles. She went so far as to cut tiny little pieces of maraschino cherries as the "tree topper". We also always made the Noel nut balls. That's where I got to help. I was the sugar roller. Yum. Warm cookies and confectioner sugar. My most favorite of all is the Seven Layer or Magic Cookie bars. So delicious. My mother always left out the layer of butterscotch chips because she wasn't a fan of them. And so, I do too. Without that omission, they just don't taste like childhood. Funny how that works. If Christmas Eve had a taste, it would taste like Magic Cookie bars to me. That was the first night I was allowed to eat them and they were so rich and delicious. I often snuck more than I should have from the Christmas Eve party table while no grown ups were watching. Sometimes I went to bed with a tummy both excited for Christmas morning and a bit queasy from too many Seven Layer cookies.
So, I always make those three cookies from childhood and try a few new ones every year for fun. I really want to make some of these flavor variations of shortbread cookies this year. I love shortbread. And the uniform size of the cookies make them great for being put in cute packaging for little food gifts.

Tonite's holiday craft.
By request, a repeat performance of the much loved candy cane mouse.

In and on the branches...

A few photos of ornaments on the tree. My favorites are the vintage pink glass and the beautiful handpainted porcelain. We also have lots of birds and a bird in a nest nestled deep in the branches.

Snow...

Just in time.

It snowed here today.

Our tradition is to watch The Snowman each year on the day of the first snow.

Hot Chocolate and that gorgeous haunting song.

Here is a sweet site I found where you can make your own virtual snowflake. Pretty. I like the tiny snow dots in the night sky.

Want to make more? There is another Make a Flake site here.

The best way is to make them for real, so we are going to get out the coffee filters and paper snip a snowstorm.

May the Force craft with you...

I made this scarf yesterday for Ethan. It's soft Star Wars printed flannel on one side and for the back I used an old fleece pullover that had gotten too small. Happy to find another use for that well loved fleece. It's really toasty and soft. I tried it on. Strictly for making sure, of course. :) I hope he likes it.

Sparkle...

For tonight's holiday craft Ethan picked out these glittery stars to make from the Kid's Craft Holidays book we found at the library sale last week. It is a cute little book full of year round activities and Eth spotted it right away in the art section.
These little glitter shapes were quick and easy.. just tacky glue on wax paper and glitter sprinkled over top. We started out with a template slipped underneath to follow the outline, but ended up free handing whatever shape we wanted by the end. We made several sizes of stars, hearts, snowflakes, and candy canes. Ethan even tried a reindeer. Now the hardest part is letting them dry for the suggested 48 hours before peeling the wax paper off.

Sweet little key chains

This morning I've been working on a few of these. I found the really great tutorial on CreativeLittleDaisy blog via Sew Mama Sew. Sew Mama Sew blog has links to all kinds of great projects for beautiful and useful things for a handmade holiday. So many people have been generous with their tutorials for really great things. Definitely inspiring. I'm hoping the girls in my family will like these as a little added gift.

First days...

We put up the tree today.
The soundtrack was holiday music.
The mood was happy.
The first ornament hung on the advent tree.
For those in a calendar mood:
A sweet advent calendar that gives out a cookie recipe for every day of advent. Mmmmm cookies.
This interesting Bach Christmas caldendar that was done by BBC Radio 3. It isnt from this year because the dates don't match up, but it is still beautiful and entertaining.
HGTV's Christmas Crafts Countdown calendar with ideas for crafty decorations and gifts.