Sunday

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!  Isaiah 52:7

I took some pictures of some of our favorite ornaments to share with you between now & Christmas.  This year we're using our white tree with red & lime green decorations.  And guess who's lime green???We also started painting Lauren's room tonight.  A good thing, since she'll be home next week!  

And here's the first coat of the new color:

lol.... No, Lauren, you don't get to see what color it actually is until you get home!  

Tutorial #6: Matchbox Advent Calendar

My sister asked for a tutorial for my matchbox advent calendar that was published in the Somerset Holidays magazine.  I made this last year and didn't take step-by-step photos but I can tell you how to make it.  I wanted to do this to make our calendar, and my crafts more personal.  One of my goals this year was to use more family photos in my crafts.

Materials:

25 small matchboxes - I used 1 1/2" x 2" x 1/2" Diamond brand matchboxes

craft paint - I used Delta Ceramcoat avocado & red iron oxide

family photos or other vintage photos or Christmas illustrations

LOTS of scraps of paper, tiny trims, & bingo numbers

glue, scissors, ink, hole punch, stamps

Paint half the boxes red & half green.  They'll need at least 2 coats.  Let dry in between coats.  Paint inside & out.  Find bingo numbers to coincide with the days of Advent.  I didn't have bingo numbers for some of the days so I cut the squares out of the old bingo cards, too.  Lay out boxes, alternating between red & green.  For now, just lay the numbers on the boxes.  Don't glue them down yet.
Cut rectangles of scrapbook papers, vintage wrapping papers, or music to fit inside the boxes.  Choose your images.  DIgitally edit if needed (crop, or change to black and white or sepia tones).  Size photos to fit the boxes and print.

Collect all your paper scraps and trims.  Tear some of the papers and use the patterned scissors for others.  Play with these and the images until you're happy with how they look.  Stamp swirls on some of the papers and photos.  Ink some of the edges.  Glue everything down.
Punch a small hole in the top of each.  Thread a ribbon, string, chenille stem, or ornament hook through each.  Print Scripture verses, cut, roll up, and put one inside each box.  We displayed ours on an evergreen garland on our staircase.  Beginning December 1 (or NOW) open one box each day and read the Scripture verse inside.  

Sorry I don't have more pictures.  It's already dark and our staircase has really bad lighting. The ones in the magazine were so good & clear I saw details I didn't notice before even though I made them!   I've seen several places online that have daily Advent Scripture readings but if you'd like a copy of mine let me know your email address and I'll send you the one we used. 

Christmas Decorating Has Begun!

The Thanksgiving guests just left and the TG/fall decorations have been put up.  There are still leftovers but they'll be taken care of tomorrow.  Either frozen or turned into soups or prepared for sandwiches for the coming week.

As soon as I get up from the computer I'm going up to the attic to start pulling out decorations!  Jordi can't wait!  

Today the guys went into SF to visit Chinatown and the girls went shopping.  We went to downtown WC, Trader Joe's, K-Mart, and thrift stores, stopping at Starbuck's for a drink in between.  I was really impressed with their decorations this year.  I LOVED this yarn ball wreath.  I'm sure I have enough extra yarn to make one like this!  We'll see if I can get it done before this Christmas.

I will be posting photos of some of our Christmas crafts and I am planning an Advent Calendar tutorial as requested by my sister.  Just let me recover from TG & get the tree up first.  :-)

My Advent Calendar

A few weeks ago I shared a WIP photo on Flickr and asked people to guess. No one guessed that what I was making was an Advent Calendar! I was inspired to make this by the matchbook swap I was in earlier this year. Then I saw a similar one online. But I made this one much more personal by using family photos on it... see anyone you recognize?

Day One happens to be my favorite. Can you tell why?

Wasn't I cute? :-)

Day 12 is all the cousins. This was before E came along. Sorry, I'll have to take another photo when we're down for Christmas.

Day 16: They're little angels when they sleep, so D got wings on his matchbook. Sleep in heavenly peace!

Sorry the one below was so blurry. But I wanted everyone to see E since she was left out of the cousins picture:

I typed out Scriptures, printed them, rolled them up, and put one inside each box. We'll open one a day and read what's inside. (BTW, some of them have photos on the inside, too.) We've used different Advent devotionals. This year I found a free one online, published by Lifeway. If you don't already have something to read for this year you can download it here.

Now, here are a few other Christmassy photos from around the house: