Philippians 4:13
I can do everything through Him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13
Each year for Christmas, we make something to give as a gift for friends, family and teachers. Sometimes it's something we bake, sometimes an ornament we make. When I think about the clay ornaments we made this year, this is how I feel...
I guess they weren't all THAT bad, but they certainly didn't turn out as amazing as I had imagined. Really... my calling it a fail was simply because the result didn't meet my own personal expectations. We still gave the best ones as gifts, so it really wasn't a complete fail.
These are the clay ornaments we tried to make - click the link for instructions if this looks like something you'd like to try. They are just so plain and simple and I really loved them. Or I love hers. Hers look so perfectly round and perfectly stamped and perfect.
I have never really worked with this type of clay before (oven bake clay). My older daughter didn't like the feel of the clay in her hands, so she did not stick with the project. My younger daughter and my neighbor's granddaughter who happened to be over stuck with the project and helped roll, cut and stamp ornaments. They enjoyed it, so I guess that's the important part.
I was disappointed to discover that I ruined my pastry roller. If you decide to work with this type of clay, do not use utensils you want to continue to use for food. The blogger did not mention that in her post (and it was not mentioned on the clay packaging), but I noticed later that it was mentioned down in the comments, which I did not read until after we'd done it. Really... I'm not disappointed. I'm kinda mad. But it's just a pastry roller and not worth the effort of being mad.
So these are some of ours. Actually they're the worst of ours, because I have already given away the best of them. Some of them are very obviously not the same thickness around. Some of them have the stamp too light, or pushed in too heavy. I guess we didn't HAVE to bake all of them, because we could clearly see how they would turn out. Baking them didn't change how they looked. So I guess we could have scrapped some of them and started over. And in some cases we did.
I know... I'm being too hard on myself. And I wanted it to be a project the girls helped me with, not a project by myself simply so they could meet my personal level of perfection. But I did have quite a few that I didn't feel were okay to give as gifts.
However, these three were perhaps my favorite, so they ended up on my tree. We were running out of clay and instead of cutting perfect circles (for the two on the left), I just slapped a little clay on the table and stamped it. Strange how these imperfect ones became my favorite. Maybe we should have skipped the round cookie cutter and done them all that way.
The one on the right was a bigger circle with a larger stamp, and I thought it turned out pretty nice, too. These were the kind we gave away.
Merry Christmas!
How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He’s the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son. Ephesians 1:4-6
I admit. I listened to Christmas music all day today. And I admit it was not the first time I've had it on this season. I admit I enjoy looking at all the Christmas decorations as soon as they come out. And though our neighbors have already decorated their yard, much of it even before Halloween, I'm not ready to decorate my own house yet. And I decided I needed a Thanksgiving wreath for my front door.
I remember the Snowman Wreaths we made not long ago, and I thought it might be fun to make a Turkey Wreath for Thanksgiving.
To make our wreath, we purchased a small grapevine wreath and some feathers. The rest of the materials I had at home, some pipe cleaner, a brown sock, pom-pom, stuffing, felt and a pilgrim hat.
For the tail, we simply stuck orange, red and yellow feathers into the grapevine. I used a bit of hot glue to secure them.
For his head, we stuffed a brown sock. We attached it with a piece of pipe cleaner. I trimmed a yellow pom-pom into a beak shape and used red felt for the waddle. I intended to find a craft pilgrim hat, but I found a small box and used some pipe cleaner to build a hat.
We used more pipe cleaners to make feet.
And this is our final product. He turned out pretty cute and will make a great Thanksgiving addition to our front door until it's time to replace him with our Christmas Wreath (the snowman).
Praise the LORD. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. Psalm 106:1
My oldest daughter told me the other day, "wouldn't it be neat if we could make some Halloween things like those things we made at Church?" She was talking about the paper wind socks we made during our lesson about Jesus calming the wind and rain.
So that got me to thinking about how we could put together a fun Saturday afternoon project to make some Halloween decorations.
This Halloween project using stuff we found around the house turned into cute wind socks for our front porch. I gathered some aluminum cans, ribbon, beads, and paint for our project.
I started with some soup cans, the kind with the pull tabs so we wouldn't have to worry about the sharp edges from the can opener. I drilled holes around the top edges of the cans, near the open end, and another hole in the center of the bottom of the can.
Then we painted.
My oldest made Frankenstein.
My youngest a four-eyed monster.
While we waited for the paint to dry, we chose thin ribbons and strung some pony beads on them, just for a little decoration.
The ribbons were threaded through the holes in the can and knotted on the inside to keep them secure.
We threaded another ribbon at the top (or bottom of the can) as a holder.
And now they adorn our front porch. My oldest said, "finally some Halloween decorations for our house!" I guess our 3 carved Jack-o-lanterns wasn't enough for her taste.
Jesus Calms the Storm - Mark 4:35-41
That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
