Passing along a suggestion for a fun little book for the snow lover in your life: Snowmen: snow creatures, crafts, and other winter projects includes instructions for making more than twenty creations from snow and easy to find materials. Why make a traditional snowman when there are so many other possibilities for sculpture!
The snowbugs at left are made with wooden skewers, pine needles for antennae, raisins for eyes, twigs for legs, and snow spots colored with dry tempera paint. Just the thing to brighten the winter garden.
I bought this book a few years ago for my husband who likes to play in the snow when he’s not out plowing it. One year he made a big teddy bear holding a bright red heart colored with food coloring on our side lawn – very cute! Mostly I’ve used the ideas in the book and really enjoyed making the porcupine, although those long pine needles were hard to find in the neighborhood. The authors suggest using a layer of leaves instead to make an armadillo. If you have kids or a sense of whimsy yourself, I think you just might enjoy this one. So far, there’s no snow for me to play in, but I know some of you have had a fair amount already. Get out and have a little fun!
Note: All photos are scanned from the book and weren’t done by me.
1. Eggnog or hot chocolate? I’m not crazy for either, but eggnog is much better with kahlua and lots of ice. 2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree? Santa wraps and he prefers vintage papers and lots of bows. 3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? White. 4. Do you hang mistletoe? No. 5. When do you put your decorations up? Usually during the week before. 6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? My SIL’s sister makes a fantastic sweet potato casserole. My husband and I like to make a casserole with brussels sprouts and roasted chestnuts. Growing up we always had lasagna on Christmas and that was the only time my mom made it. My dad used to make a great antipasto platter for Christmas Eve while we decorated the tree. 7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? The first year after my parents were divorced my brother Kevin and I went to my dad’s while he was out and put up and decorated a tree for him, so that when he came into the apartment and switched on the lights only the Xmas tree came on. I still remember him calling and how surprised he was. 8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I’m not sure I know what you mean. Is Santa hiding some dark secret? 9. Do you open gifts Christmas Eve or Christmas morning? Christmas, although it’s usually late that night when my husband and I get around to exchanging gifts because we’re running around to family all day. 10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? When we get a real tree I like to use country-style and handmade ornaments. Our artificial tree is sort of unique and on that one we use all glass ornaments – thousands of them. 11. Snow – Love it or dread it? Love it, love it, love it! 12. Can you ice skate? Sort of. The last time I did was on my honeymoon. 13. Do you remember your favorite gift? (as a child) I think it may have been that game called Simon – I played with that forever. 14. What’s the most exciting thing about the holidays for you? Being off work for a week! 15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Homemade cookies. I love Mexican Wedding Cakes (some people call these butterballs). 16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Going to the candlelight service on Christmas Eve. We also spend forever opening gifts and I love to shake all the boxes and try to guess what’s inside, which drives everyone nuts. 17. What tops your tree? That depends on which tree we decorate. I have a Santa that I put on the real tree. The fake tree is a little complicated to explain. 😉 18. Which do you prefer- giving or receiving? I love to give, but have a hard time coming up with good ideas. 19. What is your favorite Christmas song? “O Little Town of Bethlehem” 20. Candy canes? Blech! Hate them. Give me a cookie instead!
I’m in the middle of one of *those* days. I left work early because I wasn’t feeling well. As I pulled into the driveway the radiator on my car self-destructed, spilling antifreeze all over the place. I’m glad it waited until I got home to decide that it needed to give up the ghost! I couldn’t reach my DH for a while, but finally got him on the phone and he went in search of a new radiator at 5 o’clock. So, here I am trying to figure out how I’ll manage to pick up Cricket and Boomer from the vet later with no car. (Cricket had her surgery this morning to remove the thing growing on her lip.) And I still don’t feel good. And there’s laundry to do. And prep work for my final exam review tomorrow night. Can you hear the tiny violin in the background?
Apropos of nothing there’s this photo of wooden grain shovels that I took at the gristmill at Walnford a few weeks ago. The sunlight was streaming through the windows onto the old equipment on display and I thought it was very pretty. I forgot to use the fill-flash so my original pic was underexposed and didn’t show any details. I played around a bit with the highlights and shadows in Photoshop to bring out some of the grain in the wood. I really had no clue what I was doing, but thought the pic looked better afterwards.
Tdharma tagged me with this because I’m clear across the country from her. Guess she feels safe that I won’t come looking for her to get revenge for making me come up with a list of 5 weird habits/things about me.
Here’s the rules:
The player of this game starts with “5 weird things/habits about yourself “. In the end you need to choose 5 people to be tagged and list their names. The people who get tagged need to write a blog about their 5 weird things/habits, as well as state this rule clearly, then tag 5 more victims. Don’t forget to leave your victim a comment that says “you’re tagged!” in their comments and tell them to read your blog.
So here’s my list:
1. I talk to myself. A lot. I try really hard not to do it when someone’s in earshot, but I’m sure I’ve been caught. I work with a lady that talks to herself in public; we all think she’s nuts.
2. My first kiss was in the 5th grade, in front of the whole class.
3. I always read the last page of a novel first.
4. I could easily be a vegetarian, but I have a hard time giving up the really bad stuff, like bologna, keilbasi, salami, or meatballs.
5. I had shingles when I was 22. Shingles is mostly an illness of the elderly.
That’s the best I could come up with. My friends might say otherwise. I’m not sure who to inflict this on, but will start with Susan because she’s a good sport, Diva Kitty’s Mom because it’ll be fun to hear about the weird habits of her bunnies, maybe Bunnygirl and Tidbit would like to play along too, and how about you, Michelle – you don’t have a blog – but you can add your weird list in the comments on this post. A 5th tag I’ll leave up to anyone who is just dying to share their *dirty laundry* 😉
Feel free to ignore my tag, please.
Just me rambling about birds, books, bunnies, or whatever!
Passing along a suggestion for a fun little book for the snow lover in your life: Snowmen: snow creatures, crafts, and other winter projects includes instructions for making more than twenty creations from snow and easy to find materials. Why make a traditional snowman when there are so many other possibilities for sculpture!
