Huzzah for handmade holidays (and birthdays)

Anna, don't read this. I talk about the present I'm giving you tomorrow. Okay? Are you stopping? Okay, good.

^_^

Due to money troubles (who DIDN'T have 'em this year?), we really buckled down and did a lot of present MAKING this December. My husband, newly apron'ed, made loaves of fruity bread for our family. The kids colored pictures. I made tons of stuff, because that is the way of my people.

The grand made-it list:

• My husband's apron. My procrastination list said I was making one for him and a matching one for our daughter, but I never got around to making the little one. She'll have to spill her pretend cookie dough all over a pretend apron instead.
  
• A zipper-mouth mask for my son. Yes, I figured it out. I'd bought a ninja suit at Joann when it was 90% off after Halloween. I wrapped the whole shebang up with a note that said, "I will sew a zipper on the mask." And I did. He wears it to the store and gramma's and everywhere else.
  
• Felt food for my daughter. All told, she got: 2 pieces of bacon, 2 pancakes with syrup and butter, a fried egg, two pieces of bread/toast, peanut butter, jelly, a slice of cheese, a tomato slice, a pickle, and a piece of lettuce. I list it all out because she puts it all between the two slices of "bread" and makes everybody eat a "shamitch." She also rolls it up and says it's a taco.
  
• Mix CDs for my family.
  
• Ties for my brother, who moved from WI to FL, the sissy sissypants. Okay, okay, there was a good job involved, but still. We all know who ran from the snow. The ties were stenciled, one with a subtle gold WI outline (on a tan tie) and the other with a more bold freehand "WISCO" in red (on blue). May I add that I'm REALLY not that into being from Wisconsin, but my brother is. That's cool. Distance makes the heart grow fonder.
  
• Arm warmers for my sister. She was there when I made them.
  
• Flower/feather hair pieces for the two ladies I dance with in performance troupe.
  

I'm terribly pleased with myself today, because I made a gift in under an hour. I made a scoodie-- a hooded scarf. The original pattern (or instruction, I guess, as I made my own pattern) came from Vegbee at IndieTutes. It is awesome. SHE is awesome. It looks a bit complicated for a beginner, but trust me, once you've made one, the process is much easier. Unless you're me, and you mess up the way to do the scarf. Regardless, it worked, and now I have a polar fleece red/black reversible scoodie for my sister's birthday (which is the 2nd of January. Poor girl.) I'm calling it the Red Riding/Ninja Hood. If I had time, I'd make a little ninja/red riding hood keychain dolly to go with it.

*proud*
*tired*
Realizing I am more tired than proud at this point. Scoodie still needs to be wrapped and I should throw some clothes in a backpack (field trip to Madison in the morning).

Let there be light

We're coming up on the Winter Solstice, which is my cold months celebration of choice. It makes extra sense to me, a pale girl of Scandinavian descent, to be happy about getting more sunlight. Seasonal Affective Disorder isn't fun for anyone. But the Solstice is fun even if you also celebrate Christmas. It's about light returning to our lives, however you want to define that. So in prep for Solstice, here are some creative ways to bring your own light.

















Soda can lanterns. Saw this link on Cut Out and Keep and thought it was rockin'! Except all my cans would be beer cans from my husband. This would be fun with some foreign cans-- the asian food store near my house often has papaya juice or similar. Or how about red, white and green cans for Christmas/Solstice? To state the obvious, don't put these on your tree, okay? Tutorial is at The Star online.





















This one requires that you already have a round paper lantern, and alas, the season for easily finding these has passed along with the patio furniture. (Check the clearance section- maybe you'll get lucky!) You can pick them up online, though. You can pick ANYTHING up online. I could see doing these with stars instead of circles, or using multiple colors of tissue paper. And glitter! Glittery glue! Or not, if you're not into the awesome that is glitter. Tutorial at The Swell Life.

















If you've got more time (and patience) than I do, check out this folded lantern at ah-yi. It requires long paper, because that's all one piece. Possibly this could be altered to be done on a smaller scale?















Table lanterns from Design*Sponge Online. Very modern-y. Maybe use heavyweight Christmas wrapping paper in place of the colored cardstock? They're lovely as-is.

This year our light of choice was simple christmas tree lights strung on our fancy new white artifical tree. Last year we used LEDs on a real tree-- the white lights were so cold feeling! We picked out the fake tree this year and I realized I really quite like the white trees. I think it's because they don't even pretend to be real. I'm half tempted to leave it up year-round, switching the decorations (eggs and birds in the spring, flowers and suns in the summer, wee ghosties and skellingtons in the fall) but I doubt I could pull it off as a decorating feature and not just laziness with bells on.

Happy Holidays, however you chose to celebrate them!