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!