Our Family. . . in miniature

This will be one of C's homemade Christmas gifts this year. (I made one extra little girl, just so there's no confusion!) I thought she could be one of C's cousins or a friend. I really enjoyed making these and I will eventually make more to represent our extended family. She will love playing with these in her little wooden dollhouse. The house came with a little family but, in my opinion, they are not very cute. So I thought these wooden figures would be more fun and a little more personal as well.

Our Jesse Tree

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. -Isaiah 11:1

I am finally finished! As my Uncle Kenneth would say, "Praise God!" I am thrilled that I was able to complete the ornaments before the start of Advent and I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed making them. I LOVE crafting and painting, so this was a perfect combination of the two. I found each image online (based on the scripture passages that we are using for our tree) and used graphite transfer paper to trace the images onto the wooden ornaments. Then I hand painted each one using acrylic paint (and a very tiny brush) and finished them off by outlining each image in black. I also painted the backs of each ornament black so I could easily write on them (see below). Here are days 1 through 10:

Days 11 through 20:

And days 21 through 27:

My husband and I are determined and having been praying for God's grace and guidance to instill in our daughter a biblical focus on Christmas rather than the secular perspective that our society is so easily caught up in these days. It is important to us that we teach C the true significance of the Christmas season. I researched family Advent traditions and the Jesse Tree seems to do a beautiful job of spotlighting the major events/ figures in the Bible leading up to Jesus' birth. The Jesse Tree is a way of telling the story of Jesus' genealogy and the history of God's plan for salvation. It starts with the story of creation and ends with the birth of Jesus on Christmas day, with such important stories as the fall of man, the flood, the chosen prophets, and the lineage from Jesse to Jesus in between. There is an ornament and Scripture reading for each day of Advent. We will use this tradition (along with others) to teach C the Old Testament lineage of Jesus and it will also serve as our count down to Christmas and the celebration of Christ's birth here on earth.

We will start on the very first day of Advent, November 29th, which makes 27 ornaments total.
On the back of each ornament I wrote the central figure in each scripture story, the scripture passage(s), and the order in which they will be read. For the next several years, until C is able to fully grasp scripture from the Bible, we will use her child's version of the Bible.

I am still in search of the perfect Jesse "tree" to hang our ornaments from. What I have in mind is very specific and it may be that I don't find what I'm looking for this year. Not a problem! I will continue to look for what I want (or make it myself) and we will just hang each ornament on our Christmas tree for now.

Here is the handmade Advent "box" that C will open each evening at the dinner table.

We will light our Advent wreath candle(s) and C will open the Advent box to find the Jesse Tree ornament for the day, an Advent prayer, her Bible (to read the coordinating scripture), and a sweet little treat to help count down the days until Christmas.

And here is the wooden box I made to store all of our ornaments in from year to year.
I am so excited and feel God blessing us in our effort to teach our precious child in His ways. My hope is that someday C will look back on our time during Advent with fond memories and appreciate the time we spent together as a family in anticipation of the birth of Christ.

Here Comes Grasshopper C!

When I asked C several weeks ago what she would like to be for Halloween, she replied, "A grasshopper, Mommy." I asked her again a few days later (thinking surely she had just said the first thing on her mind and that her mind would be changed by now) but, again she replied, "A grasshopper, Mommy." Sooooo. . . A grasshopper it is for my sweet C! (We have really large grasshoppers that jump onto our kitchen windows and C loves to sit and watch them from inside so she can see them up close.) Grasshopper costumes aren't readily available as a common choice in the stores and online, so I got my creative juices flowing and this is what I came up with. Everything is handmade except for the wings and the hat.

I used a very simple, no-sew pattern to make the tutu and the shirt pattern is made from felt and rhinestones. I just love this picture of her with the hat covering her eyes. C was playing peek-a-boo with the photographer so she was able to snap this picture before C lifted the hat back up! So fun!
Hope your Halloween is as festive and fun as ours! We are spending the evening eating and trick-or-treating with some good friends.

"Novice Crafter"

Okay, so in my "About Me" blurb, one of the ways I described myself was as a "novice crafter." I have always loved crafting (thanks to my Mom), I'm just not so sure how good I am at it. I tend to perseverate on one thing for a period of time, get burnt out, and move on to something else. My biggest (and most expensive) crafting hobby by far is scrapbooking, but since C was born I have not had a whole lot of time to dedicate to this craft. I tend to make the online books for documentation and as gifts since it is a whole lot faster than traditional scrapbooking. But, I keep all of my supplies, materials, and photos in hopes that one day I will have time to "catch up." Ha! In the meantime, I really enjoy finding quick projects that I can make with materials I already have at home and that only take a day or two to complete. I rely on my blog hopping to find these fun little projects and tutorials. So without further ado, I will unveil my first "mini craft" that I found on this fun and fabulous blog. It was so simple to make and looks great on our mantel as a Halloween decoration. Of course, I like to involve C as much as possible and this was a great project for her to get involved with. She enjoyed "helping" me. Her help consisted mostly of tearing up tissue paper, but hey, she had tons of fun and that's all that matters. By the way, after I was finished, C said to me, "I really like your pumpkin faces Mommy, but I really only like that orange one, and that orange one, and that purple one. The white one and green one are scary." So honest!

Happy Crafting!