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Thursday, November 24, 2011

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!


Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing


1. Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.

2. Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I'm come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.

3.  O to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

Text: Robert Robinson, 1735-1790

Music: Wyeth's Repository of Sacred Music, Part Second
Tune: NETTLETON, Meter: 87.87 D

Monday, November 21, 2011

Thanksgiving Crafts

Time flies...that's all I can say.
We flew to Florida earlier this month and attended a beautiful wedding for my friend's nephew.  It was a beautiful wedding and the ceremony was absolutely incredible.
Two young people who love the Lord with their whole heart...so touching!!!
What young bride is not absolutely beautiful and her young "knight" not handsome?
We had a perfect time and the best was spending time with by oldest (not in an age sense) BFF from college.  We've been friends almost 40 years, and I can only look forward to 40 more years of getting to know her heart and understanding who she is.  She is such a joy to spend time with and I always go away so thankful of such a rich friendship!


As for this week, I have the time off.  I have planned out my week for all the projects, sewing, painting, etc. that I want to get done (plus haul out the Christmas decorations.)  I was well on my way to completing the laundry today when I got the "Grema" call...could I watch the grandkidsl while mom and dad did some shopping?
End of my list and enter a  more of a "free form" time zone!

I actually had been thinking of a Thanksgiving project that the two of them could do together (hard to plan an activity for a 9 and 3 year old).  I searched the internet and found the perfect project. A Thanksgiving Turkey!
The turkey begins with paper towel/toilet paper rolls.  (Luckily I had been saving them for another project!)

We began by painting the rolls in fall colors.  Lauren chose orange, brown, yellow and red.


Next...they painted the rolls in the different colors.


I think Austin needed a nap, but he was actually more interested in when we were going to have a 'snack'.



I think the hardest part was waiting for the rolls to dry.


Once all the rolls were dry we cut 1/2 inch rings from each of the colors. Each turkey needs 9 rings for their feathers. 


Lauren wanted to paint the inside of each of the rings...so another drying period.  (By now we've lost Austin...he's moved on to play with the legos!)  While waiting for the feathers to dry we created our turkey body and the feet.  (Lauren also painted these.)


Once all the parts were dry we began building our turkey.


I used hot glue to glue the pieces together, so Lauren placed the colors in the order she wished hers to be so it would look perfect! Next came the turkey body and the feet.


Austin LOVED his turkey.


Lauren affixed the waddle, eyes and beak and hers was also complete.


This was not part of my "TO DO" list today, but spending time with the kids and talking with them while crafting is a priceless time, and I enjoyed the respite from my list!

Now to be completely open...this is not my idea!  I got the tutorial from a blog, ChildMade. Some really cute craft ideas for kids.
I've included a link to complete instructions on how to make this turkey, but she also has some other really cute ideas with paper towel rolls.  Lauren said she will next make a puppy from the rolls!  Looks like I'll be planning another craft day soon!

Till tomorrow...
debi

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Small Christmas Tree Tutorial

'Tis the season for Craft Shows, Fairs and Boutiques!  They are all great opportunities to buy handmade items from local artists and find that "one of a kind" gift for the hard-to-shop-for-person on your list!

 One of the downsides of participating in any type of "manning a booth" is the time between sales.  Sharing a booth can create blocks of time, if you are taking turns helping the customers.  This past weekend there were three of us "manning the booth" in Canton.

I'm never one to sit for too long, so I took along some "hand work" to fill in any time.  My sister also brought along handwork...she strung some new  necklaces...which she immediately sold when she completed them! 

I worked on some Christmas Tree ideas I had.  I saw a picture of a small Christmas tree created from fabric yo-yo's.  Cute, but I didn't want to have to cut and sew something to create my tree.

I had plenty of left over red and teal tulle and fabric from Emily's wedding, and I liked the fabric flowers I recently made, so I decided to combine the two.


You want to start with a 5-petal flower pattern.  I didn't have one, but it's easy enough to draw one.  I created 5 different sizes by the time I had perfected my trees. Each petal pattern is about 1/4" bigger between each petal size.  You may want to adjust yours, depending on how big you make your tree.


I cut at least 4 to 5 flowers from each color and each size.


I started with the tulle and cut 4 flower petals from each of the sizes (1-5).
Here I have the red and teal tulle mixed.


The fabric I used for the petals was the same fabric I used to create Emily's band on her wedding dress.
The wire can be purchased from a hardware store.  It's a pretty strong gage and if you buy a long length you can cut to your own tree size.  You might also want to "grind" down the end a bit so that it will be sharp enough to pierce the fabric.  Any "bauble" can be added to the end.  I used a pretty vintage earring on one of the completed trees.

Here are all the petals cut in the various sizes.

Begin by folding your petal in half...


then fold your flower into half again. (Quarters)


Once you have several petals that have been folded into quarters (half then half again makes the quarter)


You can push the fabric onto your wire. (This is why you would want the point of your wire sharpened.)


Once you begin to get several on the wire you can spread them out a little to see how many more you want to add.  The fullness is really up to you!



For the base of my trees I glued green rick-rack around a "used" wine cork.  The stand for my trees are old facet handles that I glued to the corks.



For these trees I stacked red flower, teal flower, red flower, teal flower.
In between the satin petal rows I added rows of tulle in red and teel.
I did cut flower petals from the tulle, but on a couple of them I cut circles and pushed the wire through the center of the tulle circles.  The tulle circles did not stand up and fill in as nicely as the folded tulle petals, but it did look more like a little petticoat.
I say...just experiment.


The trees were quick and easy (and were mindless work that could easily be put down.)
I'm thinking of making some pink and white ones this week.
OH...I'm gone to a wedding this weekend, so guess there won't be any trees this week!
I'll try to capture the beautiful bride and groom on their special day!
SOOO...till next week,
debi