This could be YOU......

This is your brain.......






This is your brain after Christmas crafts.......







and these are your hands.........

Any questions????




*No digits were injured in the creation of this blog post. heeheehee Merry Christmas, One and All!

Just Us Girls!

This past Saturday me and two of my favorite and my best (that's a little "Charlie and Lola" for ya) girlfriends hit the road and headed toward Ft Payne, Alabama- home of Orbix Hot Glass. Our mission? To hand blow our very own Christmas ornaments! The drive alone was beautiful, but their gallery was uh-mazing! Please check out that link up there...you won't regret it!

This was their bathroom sink, for Pete's sake! I mean, that alone should give you a clue to the talent and creativity of the people there! Did I mention uh-mazing?

So this was my blob of dripping hot glass in the oven.....

then I commenced blowing while Cal Breed manipulated my blob into a stunning ornament!

And these are my girls! And by the way, my precious hubby won the "Least Interfering Husband of the Day" Award! Yeee Hooo! Oh I had the greatest time...and look forward to our next adventure.......underwater basket weaving! ;o)

Cookies a la Benji

Ben enjoys cooking so much. And the truth is, he's actually a pretty good sous chef! He has some mad prepping skills! What's that line from Matrix:Revolution???? "I see you have skills." Ha! Totally Benji in the kitchen.

I do believe he mostly enjoying wacking the bee-jeebers out of the peppermints for our Peppermint Snowball Cookies!

Second favorite activity in the cookie-making process would have to be maneuvering small electric appliances. He said the mixer tickled his arm!

And I have to say that he was NO fan of rolling dough! Something about the ooey-gooey texture did NOT please him! But he was a trooper and helped anyway! I had a great time with him- he's so much fun!

P.S. The cookies were fabulous and came from the Gooseberry Patch Christmas Book 11.

The Ever So Simple Ribbon Chain Garland

So I'm going to try my hand at a shorty tutorial for you because I just love how this ribbon chain garland looks on our "All- Handmade" tree! Hobby Lobby has some adorable ribbon this year!

Gather your supplies of ribbon, fabric glue and paper clips.

I cut 12 lengths of ribbon that were 8 inches long. (My spools of ribbon were 3 yards each)

Glue to one end of the chain and attach other end.

Continue this process until you have the desired length. Mine is too short and would like to have twice as much, so you may want to start off with 8 spools of ribbon rather than only 4.

Keep going..........

I put a paperclip over the seam until it was good and dry so that it wouldn't pop apart. This worked GREAT!

And this is the adorable finished project. I love this chain becuase it is so incredibly easy! We are making all of our tree decor this year...so stay tuned to see what else we can come up with!

Advent

The Advent season is upon us. If we were all honest, most of us, I believe, would say we didn't celebrate "Advent". What is that?

This year we have decided to try to honor this holiday season for what it really is, the celebration of the coming of Christ. It's more than presents, a trip to see Santa at the mall, and how many Starbucks gift cards we'll have to buy for all of those silly "Bring a $10 gift" parties.

This year we are celebrating Advent by:
1. Having a traditional Advent wreath with the five candles, one lit each Sunday with a scripture reading.
2. Intentionally spending our time together as a family and not apart. We will not be attending functions that our children are not a part of (except we went to Andy's company Christmas party- how else am I going to know who he is talking about when he does mention someone from work?)
3. We are making 90% of our Christmas gifts as a gesture of thought, care, and love.
4. Focusing the children on others who are not as blessed as we are with material things...we will try this in many ways- beginning, as always, with Operation Christmas Child.

I'm hoping the Advent season will grow in our hearts each year- that it will be a time of great spiritual growth and reflection on Jesus.

What are you doing to celebrate Advent and the Christmas season? I'd love to know!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Joy, sweet JOY! There's nothing in the world like the sight of precious snowflakes falling in Momma South! At about one o'clock this morning, when most sane people are sleeping, I was up crafting (of all things!) and looked out the window to see it ever so gracefully falling from Heaven. That's where it's from, ya know. A gift straight from God Himself! I just love how Cainberly looks in the snow. She's so nestled and sweet in her light shade of pink. (Off white, if you ask Andy- who obviously has issues with admitting to living in a pink house). Oh how embarrassing- pumpkins still on the porch and hummingbird feeders still hung! Poor porch has been neglected for a few weeks!

Abby is tickled everytime the bird bath freezes. How exciting that the birds will have the opportunity to ice skate, she says! Sadly, as of yet, I have been unable to actually document this momentus occurrence. However, last March, we found a tiny scarf draped over one of the bird ornaments. Honest! ;o)

My day

Have I ever mentioned how precious my children are?

*winkwink*

Abby made up this "badge" for me to wear on Tuesday. They get so excited about my birthday (and Andy's too for that matter). I love that because I am a HUGE fan of birthdays! And I was really bummed because Andy was out of town for it.

So we went to Edgars (the best bakery in Alabama) and each picked a yummy gourmet "pupcake"- mine was strawberry. Then we headed home and I broke out the depression glass from Momma and we had Shirley Temples and a big time!

Abby and Ben kept my gift a secret for a week. Andy left it for them when he went out of town and they even wrapped it all on their own! Didn't they do a great job?! ( phillips MP3 player to replace the lost iPod, incase you're wondering)

And this was the end of the big day, me and my babies at Surin, our favorite Thai restaurant. They are really the BEST gift, every year- hands down.

ooo-la-la....

and Oh my goodness! I received, what could be, the most uh-mazing craft book ever today!!! I had some free points from my bank-card rewards and so I shuffled right over to Amazon to use 'em up......embroidery, needle-felting, and one of my most favorite books of all time, A Life that Says Welcome. I had ordered another book, but seems Amazon couldn't put their finger on it so they sent me a message asking if I'd like to cancel the order or be patient, and since it is- after all- a virtue, I decided waiting a bit longer would be the prudent and proper thing to do.

Well GLORY BE! She arrived today... Sew Darn Cute: 30 Sweet & Simple Projects to Sew & Embellish by Jenny Ryan of SewDarnCute.com.

Oh sweet Jiminy Cricket- how's a girl to choose????? I think I'm going to have to just start at the beginning and try every "darn" thing in there! Though I am especially excited because she has a very adorable doll quilt that I think I will try out for Abby's new "Sarah" rabbit she stuffed over the weekend as her handmade Christmas gift! (Cross your fingers for me, first quilting project!)

Sew go take a look...I'm sure you'll just LOVE it! Let me know what you think!

Have you ever seen.....

such a handsome little man? I just had to share! Mmm, mmm, mmm! Eat him with a spoon!

OCC with a side of eye (and tummy) candy

Well, at the time of my last post I was headed to Otium Sanctum which was absolutely fabulous! We were free to bring some of our handmade items to sell for Christmas gifts if we wanted to. There were beautiful aprons, ornaments, and some artwork to support a trip to Peru. Having a special tie with Peru (Andy having gone there to distribute shoeboxes-more on that to come-) I decided I absolutely had to have this beautifully perfect piece for my bedroom. I ask you, is it NOT absolutely fabulous? The colors, the bird, ahhhh fabulousness indeed! The secret? Transparencies. She uses transparencies. Mind blowing.......

"Shoeboxes? What is she talking about?", you may ask yourself. Well let me just tell you....Operation Christmas Child. This is a ministry run by Franklin Graham (yes, Billy's son) where you pack a shoebox full of little toys and hygene items and they send them ALL over the world. The gospel goes with them and it is a magnificent opportunity to be a missionary from your very own livingroom. We have been volunteers with this organization for 12 years and finally our dream was realized when Andy was given the opportunity to distribute boxes to children in Peru in February of 2008. (Andy is the Birmingham Metro Area Coordinator and I'm the Birmingham Community Relations Coordinator).

This is a meaningful chance for you to teach your children the blessing of having much. My children and I sat down this year to decorate, rather than wrap, our boxes, and I think they are little masterpieces! Click on that link up there and go check them out! This is National Collection Week and all boxes must be in by Monday!

And so to the tummy yummy......I love Gooseberry Patch, don't you? Well I checked out some of their Christmas books from the library and found this simple, yet ever so delectable, recipe for Victorian Jam Cake in their Christmas: Book 11. It is going to be a tea favorite, I just know it!

In other news, I am currently hard at work making Christmas gifts. It is so terrible that I can't share what I'm working on because some of the loves of my life actually look at my blog- and wouldn't THAT be a disaster??!! SO instead, I thought I would share some of my favorite "web-lings" of the week: Posie has a beautiful laceweight scarf that I actually dream about here, I want these to COVER my tree, and have you seen how BEAUTIFUL Lolly is?

Be blessed, my friends and family! I'm off to kiss my boy......it's been at least 10 minutes!

So much to post, so little time......

I wonder why I think of so many things and post so few? I think it is because I believe every great blog has great photos, and I just don't seem to constantly have the camera dangling around my neck like Posie. (And may I say how tickled I am that I finally learned how to make links!?!) I envy her photo taking abilities. However, with that being said, I have 2 poor quality photos to share with you of what I consider to be major things.

#1)Today marked the passing of an era. The Foundry came to take "the green car" away. Why so sad, you may ask? This was the first car that I actually got to pick out for myself. It was chosen for me, or a hand me down........I picked it! The color, the interior, the transmission even! Loved this car, until it started behaving like a Ford.

#2) Tonight is one of my most favorite and anticipated nights of the month, Otium Sanctum at my neighbor and friend's house. Otium Sanctum means "Holy Leisure". We meet at her house (we=women) and we discuss a book, currently Eat This Book by Eugene Peterson. After book-talk, we discuss other topics such as handmade crafts, natural remedies/cleaning, etc. One person each month brings a few of their "favorite things" and we pass them around as they tell us why they are so special to them. This is a real treat because I am fairly new to the group and it helps me to learn something intimate about each of the beautiful ladies. Well tonight is my night to share, so I though I would post a pic of my "favorites". Go ahead, ask me some ?s about the pic- I'd be glad to share!

hmmm......

Well I have lots to blog about but no pics to go along with my thoughts- and how interesting is that? I'll try to come back in just a little bit with something interesting....I have an idea....

Up for a fun sewing challenge?

My friend, Samantha at The Handmade Dress has a challenge out to embellish something that you have lying around your craft supply piles! She did a canvas bag and sewed in a liner and some pockets. Then she used her favorite scraps to decorate the outside of the bag along with some hand-embroidery and it is absolutely adorable! Just click on The Handmade Dress over there to the left and take the challenge! You have until Nov 6 and the prize is a $25 gift certificate to her store for patterns or fabric! What a fun project for while you're watching a movie or lounging by the fire! If you do acept the challenge, send me pics and I'll post em here too!

He's turning 5 *sob*sob*

This was how his entire party went......

he was nothing but a blur....

for two whole hours! (Sorry for the sideways headtwist!)

My boy. My precious boy, half of my heart- is turning 5 on Sunday. (She says as she glances around the diningroom for signs of a tissue box) I dreamed of having this little boy since fourth grade, and I won't even begin to mention how many years ago THAT was! (Green computer screens- that will give you some idea!) He is everything I hoped and dreamed of and can only be rivaled in adorableness by his sister. Soon five will turn into fifteen and then twenty-five......and I need more tissues.... and then time will sweep him out of my arms and into his wife's.

5.

*giddy*

Oh my goodness! Is it not the most adorable thing? So we got home from a FU-REEZING soccer game Friday night, turned on "psych", and I got to poking! For those of you who know I am a complete and total needle-phobe, this was a daunting task! But the joy of creating overcame my fears! (And I only bled once!) Oooooo, I wonder if I'm ready for the birds???

IT'S HEEEEERRREEE!!!!

Isn't it lovely? Do you know what it is? It's an adventure- that's what it is!!!!! A whole new adventure for me to get lost in! And OHHH BOY, I can't wait!

Sadly, it came just in time for a soccer game...and a birthday party tomorrow. Looks like it's gonna be a late night! Diet DP and Rice Krispy Treat kinda night! (They cancel each other out, ya know!)

What to get into next......????

It's official! I've found a new craft to dabble in! Needle felting!! I checked out some books from the library and it looks so easy...especially to have such an adorable finished product! My first shot at it will be pumpkins and I can't wait until my kit gets here which I ordered from Bear Creek Designs on Etsy.
Then maybe on to the birds..cause you folks know how much I love birds!

Meanwhile, I've been embroidering and trying my hands at a few other things. I'm taking the "handmade challenge" (www.buyhandmade.org) for Christmas this year and am trying to make all of our Christmas gifts or support other handmade-artists by purchasing their wares as gifts.

Well, I'm off to scrub the bathroom and then, if time allows, cut out a dress pattern for Abby that I have been dying to make! (Check out that link over there to the left for The Handmade Dress- we're doing the Miss Madeline!)

God goes before you!

Marla

Just about me....

So this has nothing whatsoever to do with the kids, or family, or gardening, or homeschooling......it's just about me.

I have been inspired by some new and precious friends to be more me. With that in mind, I'm announcing to the world, via Blogspot, that I have decided to come out from under the "merely exist until my kids hit a more independent stage" cloud that I have been under the last eight years. My children are big enough now to do more on their own and I find that I have a little more time for me now. Time for sewing. Time for reading. Time for embroidering and cross-stitching. Time for doing the things I enjoy, things that make me me!

So I'm back, World! Get ready for some creativity!

P.S. Are you under that cloud? May I inspire you to find the you that has been lying asleep for sew long? (Intended mis-spelling, by the way) Come have a cup of tea- I have an open door and a lovely cup just waiting for you. And I can probably find a needle and a piece of fabric underneath this Operation Christmas Child stuff somewhere........

Bend it like...Babsy?

Abby doesn't have too high of an opinion of soccer. I am quite proud of her for giving it a shot...but I definitely don't see it becoming a life-long pursuit or dream of hers! Though I must say, she looks awfully cute in her soccer get-up! This is Coach Andy with his girls. They like to play with their hair, turn cartwheels, and play with each other MUCH more than they like to listen to Coach Cain. DO you see the level of attention given?

I mean, Cristina's face pretty much says it all!