The First Light of Advent & Giveaway Winner!

The first light of Advent is the light of stones,
Light that lives in seashells, in crystals and in bones...


The center of our Advent wreath

Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent and this is the first year our family is celebrating it. The girls truly loved it. We started the day by getting out our manger and setting it up on the piano. For the first week of Advent it will remain empty. Each week we will add things as they correspond (ie. Next week will be the trees, the following the animals and then lastly the humans.)


Our manger

We lit the candle right before dinner as we said this verse:

Winter is dark,
Yet each tiny spark
Brightens the way
To Christmas Day.

Shine little light
And show us the way
To the bright light
Of Christmas Day.
- H. St. John



We followed the custom for lighting the wreath with C lighting the candle. Yes, my baby lit the candle! Of course, I helped her but she did most of it herself. I honestly don't know what was brighter, the candle light or the smile on her face!
The custom is: The youngest child lights the candle the first week, the oldest child lights two candles the second week, the mother lights three candles the third week, and the father lights all four candles the fourth week.

We then sang an Advent song (the first verse is at the beginning of this post) and enjoyed dinner.


I have been reading anything I can get my hands on about Advent. I love the symbolism of everything in the wreath.The evergreen tree is a sign of immortality, because it's boughs are ever green and it's topmost branches point straight to heaven. The circle represents eternity, without beginning or end. The four candles placed on the Advent wreath creates a special connection with the Earth's four elements and kingdoms of nature (mineral, plant, animal, human), and to the four seasons of the year.

I look forward to the rest of Advent and adding more to our family's traditions.
I would love to hear ideas and things you do to celebrate in your home!
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I am also happy to announce the winner of the walnut baby giveaway. The randomly chosen winner is:

becky said...
these dolls are super cute! thanks so much for a chance to win :)

Congrats Becky, please e-mail me at farmergopi@yahoo.com! For everyone else, do not despair! I have another giveaway coming up on Friday for something very dear to my heart. Thank you to all that entered and thank you, again, to Marie for the generous giveaway!

The First Light of Advent & Giveaway Winner!

Our Day of Gratitude

Food

Tofurkey


Brussel sprouts


Assorted preps in the works

Family

A veggie breakfast


Enjoying the edible arrangement Nana sent


Gnomey,gnomey, gnomes!


Fun

Our new princess and the pea

Hope you had a great one!
Just a reminder Sunday is the last day to enter the giveaway for one of Marie's beautiful walnut babies!

Wishing you a stress-free, easy going weekend!

Our Day of Gratitude

WIP Wednesday: Preparing for Advent

The girls advent wreath (still in progress)

With the first Sunday of Advent only 4 days away the girls and I have been as busy as elves preparing. We will do a traditional wreath with four candles at our dinner table but I thought it would be nice to do something special for the girls' table as well. Inspired by a picture in 'Winter' by Eva-Maria Ott-Heidmann I decided to make a hanging advent wreath to place over their table. With rascally cats and little hands I knew having real candles in the wreath would not be a good idea. I had to think of some other way to have candles that look like they were lit for them. Wool to the rescue!


A rascal caught

The lovely Fiona Duthie of Living Crafts shared how she made some wool felted candles with those of us who were in the LC Ornament Exchange a few months ago and I had saved her instructions (they are also in the latest issue of Living Crafts, as I just discovered when my issue arrived the other day). I made my candles a lot fatter and taller than the instructions said to so that they would fit in the big candle holders in our wreath.


Helper C gets the ribbon for hanging ready

They were really simple to make and the girls love them. I still need to trim the flames some more but they are almost done. Now I am just trying to decide if I should take them out and put one in each Sunday to represent the candle being lit or if I should just have all four of them in from the get go.


Roving first rolled up

K and I plan on making more of the candles, but a lot smaller, to fit our candle holders on our Christmas tree, too.


After just a couple rolls with hot water and soap

We have a few other Advent crafts in the works, as well, but those are for December 1st.


Fully felted, ready for trimming

Also in the works:


Window stars. I am finding it much easier to make them this year with this quilting set. Now they are finally cut straight!

What are you crafting/planning for Advent this year?
Don't forget to check out my interview with Marie and enter to win one of her sweet walnut babies. I am truly enjoying your comments about your children's relationship with dolls and/or your own childhood memories.

Happy creating!!

*Detailed instructions for making the wool felted candles can be found in the 2009/2010 Winter issue of Living Crafts*

WIP Wednesday: Preparing for Advent

Baby Blues

I recently found out one of my very closest friends growing up is due to have her first baby next week. We haven't been the best at staying in touch over the past few years but even so she is still like family to me and one of the dearest souls I have ever known. I think about her almost every day and miss our crazy adventures.


Me (on the right) and my dear friend right
before a crazy road trip back in 2002. Oh we were such goofs!!

Upon hearing the news I knew I had to get cracking and make something for her. I only had a couple days to make it so that I could get it in the mail to arrive before next week. So I decided I would make my favorite booties and a matching hat. The patterns are both really gender neutral which works out really well because she is having a boy, (all my other patterns are rather girly).


I forgot how tiny newborn booties are!

I knew right away what yarn I wanted to use. I have had this beautiful yarn stashed away for a couple of years now just waiting for the perfect project and I had finally found it. It's O-Wool Balance which is an organic yarn consisting of 50% wool and 50% cotton, perfect weight for a baby living in San Diego, CA. I love the colorway, it reminds me so very much of my dear friend's beautiful blue eyes.


K baby had to model the hat for me

I plan on making more for her little guy but for now I hope this package arrives in time for his appearance in this world.

On another note -
I am excited to announce that my birthday crown tutorial is featured on Apartment Therapy - Ohdeedoh. You can see it here. I was shocked when they contacted me about it. I love their website and am completely honored they would want to include me. There are some amazing crowns featured on there as well, please go check it out!

I am off to rearrange more furniture and try to create a second 'frontier' in our home. Wishing you all the time to reconnect with loved ones this weekend. Have a great one!

Baby Blues

WIP Wednesday: The Heart Of Advent

One of the many beeswax ornaments K and I made the other day inspired by my friend's blog

Last Saturday our future school had their 'Heart of Advent' event. This is a yearly event for the parents to get together to learn new crafts, create beautiful decorations for the holidays, make gifts for friends and family and gather projects to do at home with our children. As soon as I found out about it, I knew I just had to go. Since it was a parents only event the school kindly offered childcare for kids two and older in one of their kindergarten classrooms. This tiny detail was what made it an awesome experience, not only for me but for K as well (She wants nothing more than to be in school right now but her age and finances make it impossible until next year). Kevin agreed to watch C for 2 hours so everything worked out perfectly.


Wooly sheep still in progress

I dropped K off in the classroom and she never even looked back, then I was off to create. I thought 2 hours would be enough time but really I could have spent the whole day there. I only got to three tables, and didn't finish a single project in that short amount of time but it was all so perfect. Everyone there was so kind, helpful and just soothing to be around. Even the atmosphere as a whole was incredibly calming. They had the most beautiful piano music being played by a very talented student, and the smell of warm beeswax all through the halls.


Wool felt photo album

I was able to start a tiny little sheep at one table (and took home supplies to make another one, as well as a camel),and a wool felted photo album (which will be a gift for K for Christmas) at another. But the highlight for me was the wool roving angel, not because of the project itself, although it is very beautiful, but because of the woman teaching it. When I first saw her there was just this kindness and sincerity in her eyes that was so warming. As she taught me we talked about our families and places we have lived. It ends up she runs a Waldorf inspired daycare from her house literally down the road from our house! We could walk to see her whenever we want. Pretty crazy since families at the school drive from all over northern Oregon to attend. After the amazement of finding that out, she asked me my daughters names and when I told her K's name she said she knew a girl by that name back in New York. I instantly knew who she was talking about because K's name is pretty rare, there are only 3 of them that we know of, and all 3 know each other. The two of us were completely taken back by the fact that we both knew this one inspiring family. What are the odds?! I ended up spending most of my two hours at that table talking with her. The girls and I are already making plans to go for a walk one of these days and visit. We can't wait!


Wool roving angel

Every time I look at that angel I will think about what a wonderful time I had at that event. It was truly an amazing, amazing experience. It was an opportunity to slow down, be creative, enjoy the company of other adults (which never happens for me), while preparing for the season that is coming all to soon! I still can't get over how fortunate we are to be here and just how much I love this community.
Now to finish up the wooly animals and the photo album...

Happy Creating!!

WIP Wednesday: The Heart Of Advent

Budding Photographer: A Guest Blogger of sorts

{Photo by K}

Lately, I just have not had the inspiration to pick up my camera at all so I let K do it for me. She knows how special my camera is to me so she was beside herself when I told her she could use it and showed her how.
I know my photography is nothing special and has plenty of room for improvement but even so, it is such a big part of me. Ever since my late teens it has been a huge outlet for me, something I just can't seem to live without, so to see K show such an interest in it made me giddy with excitement. So, of course, I just had to share this moment with you!

K's pictures in her own words:


{My first picture, I was really trying to take a picture of kitty *giggles*}


{I got kitty dressed in Banana Baby's clothes for her session and asked her to sit still}


{The farmer visiting the other Daddy farmer}



Who knows, maybe photography will become K's outlet, too. I look forward to many more photography sessions to come! Perhaps I need to get her her own camera though.....

Wishing you and your little ones many moments of creative fun!

Budding Photographer: A Guest Blogger of sorts

Random Friday Musings

Finished lanterns

I was going to post a tutorial for making the wet on wet painting lanterns but then I saw the wonderful Grace of Uncommone Grace posted one. Hers is really beautiful and easy to follow. You can see it here.

We had our little Martinmas lantern walk Wednesday night. Even though it was just the 3 of us walking around our neighborhood the girls still really enjoyed themselves. I ended up having C carry a plastic lantern that K's friend Fiona gave her last year. We live on a mountain and our street is nothing but bumps and uphill climbing, so it seemed like the best bet. C ended up stumbling and dropping her lantern about 4 times on our walk so it ended up being a wise choice, indeed!


My 'marshmallow' girls, bundled up so cozy warm, before our walk (They could barely put their arms down in those coats, it made us laugh the whole night).


As you can see it was impossible for me to get photos of them in the dark.

As I mentioned in the title, this post is really random!

Thanks to tours at our local Waldorf schools, my friend Marina, and living in such a 'green' area I am now obsessed with tree stumps and reclaimed wood. I am really hoping to find a huge tree stump that would be big enough to put the girls' dollhouse on. I can just see it in my head, it would almost look like a tree house! So far, though, I have not had any luck in my searching. Although, I did get a cute little willow tree stump that a kind man offered us. Haven't decided what I will do with that just yet, though.



Our house is a fixer-upper and we are finding all kinds of things that need to be removed or selvaged. A couple of things I am not sure of that to do with are the wood fencing seen above as well as wood from our deck that we are removing. I don't want to just get rid of this wood, especially the fencing, it has a beauty of it's own. Yet, I am not sure what I could make out of it? My husband is not into wood working so I will be doing all of this myself. I was thinking shelves, somehow or... I don't know. I am having a hard time envisioning the wood as something else. Any thoughts? What would you do with all of this wood?

Last but not least, I wanted to share a couple of beautiful crowns that some talented mamas recently made inspired by my tutorial. These made me grin from ear to ear, especially seeing them on their sweet little ones!




{Crown and photos by Jennifer Griesemer Sullivan}

Crown made by Heidi of Spiritual Knitter can be seen here

I have had others e-mailed to me as well, and I hope to share them soon after I contact the creators. Please keep them coming! It makes me happier than you could possibly imagine!

On that note I wish you a wonderful and restful weekend!

Random Friday Musings

Happy Martinmas!

The daylight fast is dwindling
My little lamp needs kindling
Let your beams shine far
Into the dark night
Little lantern guard me
With your precious light

We interrupt our regularly scheduled WIP Wednesday post to wish you all a wonderful and peaceful Martinmas!

The girls and I have been preparing since Monday, reading the story of St.Martin and boxing up some warm clothes to donate to the homeless. I actually wish we were doing more 'charity wise' but it just snuck up on me this year so I didn't have a lot of time to plan.

Then we started on our lanterns. We did 2 different kinds this year.



We made our first by just simply decorating a glass jar with tissue paper and wheat glue. K had a lot of fun with that one. We decided to keep that one on our table as our meal candle since glass and little ones walking on concrete don't really go well together!



Then on Tuesday we started a lantern out of a painting. This is the lantern K will carry on our lantern walk. K painted some paper using the wet on wet painting technique, then we let it dry. *A note on paper for wet on wet painting. Make sure you buy the good thick paper. We bought some thinner wet on wet painting paper for this project and it didn't hold up very well and also made the paint colors more muted. We learned our mistake!*





I went over her painting with a light coat of oil last night and this morning we are going to assemble the lantern so it is all ready for our lantern walk tonight. We don't know of any public lantern walks happening around here so the girls and I will walk around our neighborhood after the sun sets. It feels a bit strange because this is our first year not celebrating Martinmas with our dear friend Tiffeni. We miss her so much! On that note, I thought I'd share a few moments from the last 2 years here and here (the last one was before I made this blog public. How funny!).



A couple of our Martinmas pictures on our nature table. We have others throughout the house.



Wishing you all warmth and moments of introspection during this special time!

Happy Martinmas!

My Frontier

Photos of my grandpa when he was in the Army Air Force during WWII

I have been thinking a lot about your kind words last Wednesday and they reminded me of something Rahima mentioned at her conference. She spoke about creating a 'frontier' in a house of chaos. Of course, I loved her choice of words! Basically, she was saying if things seem to be chaotic and it seems like you don't have anything in order pick one area to work on and keep up with that area. Once you have it under control it will be easier to move onto other areas. That really does make sense! She spoke of this referring to rhythm as well as areas of the home.



So with your words and Rahima's teachings in mind I decided to make my 'frontier' in our home. I won't lie, I took the easy way out. I choose the simplest room in our whole house - the dining room. There are only 3 pieces of furniture in the room, it needs to be painted and we don't have any blinds or shelves to hang our art yet, so it's far from being done. I just wanted this space to be clear.

After moving boxes out and arranging the furniture, I took a good look and thought about what we use this space for. Meals, of course. The dining room is actually our main eating space. We do not have room in our kitchen for a table. But we also use it for our family arts and crafts. With this in mind I decided to store our art supplies in our cabinet in there for easier access.



The girls and I thought that cabinet would be perfect for our nature table, too. We haven't had a true nature table since we left Virginia in August and we have missed it so very much. This all came together with perfect timing because we received our beautiful Seasons Round package from my swap partner Meg of Sew Liberated. She really did an amazing job!




Preparing for Martinmas


Our beloved bat from mamaroots





So now I have my frontier and it truly is saving my sanity! My slump is a thing of the past and I am excited to get back to creating. I hope this motivates me to continue on and get our house in order so my head can feel in order.

Happy Monday everyone!

My Frontier