Blessings

Wishing you a day spent celebrating the blessings that fall all around you.

Joy to the World on this Christmas day!

We'll be up opening presents early (the kids wake at the crack of dawn to open their stockings!), then after breakfast we'll be off to my parent's church where I love to sing the old Christmas hymns. Then we'll spend the rest of the day relaxing, enjoying being all together, maybe going to a movie in the evening after dinner.
How about you? I'd love to hear how you spend Christmas.

New York visit

Happy Christmas Eve!

This week we made the 13 hour drive up to Philadelphia, we're here at my parent's house for Christmas, and we took advantage of being back up north to take a quick trip back to visit New York City, only 2 hours drive away from here.

We spent 3 days there, staying with friends and stopping by lots of our favorite places and really trying to make it about what the kids wanted to see. The Museum of Natural History was at the top of the kid's list,

Climbing rocks in Central Park was another one that was up there,

We all enjoyed the misty winter beauty of our old city. Being back there for the first time after our move (how can it be 6 months ago already!?) had me feeling nostalgic and completely energized by that energy that is only in NYC, but it also confirmed our move for us in so many ways.

Seeing the city decorated for the holidays was fun and we visited the holiday market at Union Square along with my favorite cafe close by, both of which I had been missing at this time of year,

and more than one of NYC's cool playgrounds.

We left feeling tired, and also feeling like New York city will always be one of those perfect places for us to visit as a family, since we know it so well and there are things that we all love to do there. But we feel perfectly placed at our new home and city in Charleston, which was an end of the year gift for me....
Looking back we have come so far in a year, from deciding to leave New York, to organizing and making the move to adjusting and settling in Charleston, and while it was one of the hardest and most strenuous years of my life in many ways it also was full of the gifts of clarity and strength which have forced me to grow in ways that I was ready for.
So our visit back to NYC reenforced all of the choices that we have made, and for that I feel deeply grateful.

Tutorial: Wrist Ribbons

These wrist ribbons are one of the fun things that I have made for some of the kids in the Stocking Stuffer Swap, and they are so easy and fun that I wanted to share a tutorial with you so that you can make your own. Maybe even to stuff in a little one's Christmas stocking?

The supplies that I used are three different colors of ribbon all the same width, thin elastic (about 3/4 inch wide), needle and thread, and also a hot glue gun.

I measured my children's wrist and then cut a 6 inch strip of the elastic. I make this into a circle with about an inch of overlap,

I like to begin by putting a line of hot glue on that inch of over lap,

and then press together until set.

Here are my freshly glued elastic wrist circles,

Then I take my three different colors of ribbon, cut into about 1 yard long sections, and stack them lining the cut ends up. I've got my needle and thread ready to sew. If you don't have a glue gun you can begin at this point and just secure everything with your needle and thread.

I place the stacked ribbons against the part of the elastic that I just glued,

and sew, crisscrossing the thread on the side that will be visible when worn,

so that when I am done sewing the stiches look like a little star.

Now they are done and the fun begins, they get put on the wrists,

and away we go!

They seem to make dancing, running, spinning and even gazing just more fun!

Deep Space

I'm obsessed with these images on the Hubble telescope photo-album site where you can download any of these images in super high resolution to print them out at home. I mean really aren't they just mindblowingly amazing!

I think the first one is my favorite, I'm picturing it framed it in my studio and maybe the last image in the kid's room. So many possibilities.

Ballerina Girl

After spending about 2 years of her little 4 year old life talking about and pretending to do Ballet, I finally decided that the time was right for Carys to take an actual Ballet class this fall.

She was so excited to put on her leotard for the first class, and I could tell right away that being in a room with a bunch of other little girls wearing pink leotards was heaven for her!

Every week there were smiles on the way to class, and more smiles afterwards. 

Then, this afternoon was her first recital, they performed their version of the Nutcracker, and to say that it was precious and that I was proud are both terrible understatements.

Hugs and squeezes all around!

Tree Skirt

 Making a tree skirt for the base of our Christmas tree is a project that I've had in mind for a few years and finally this year, after being inspired by this tree skirt, I thought it would be fun to make something similar. So, I pulled out the felt and got to work. The rainbow theme is just one that interests me and the project came together as I laid out the dots.

The most time consuming part so far was pinning everything in place. Now, I'm starting to sew the pieces on, I'm wishing that I had a sewing machine for this one, I'm sewing them all on by hand in the evenings while Frank and I watch past seasons of Survivor (our guilty pleasure). I'll post pictures when its done!

Also, I just wanted to mention that tomorrow will be the last day to order from my shop before the holidays, in case you had your eye on something. I'll be closing my shop for a two week holiday break as we leave for our trip to celebrate up north.

Merry and Bright

Once we got our Christmas tree up the decorating began in full force, along with some ginger bread fun which was clearly hard for some people to hold back from,

The kids and I had such a great time setting up this mini Christmas tree for all of the fairies and small animals who live on our family nature table,

We unwrapped the beloved wool Nativity made by my amazingly talented friend Nicole, and placed it in the middle of our living room where Carys gazes at and caresses the baby Jesus figure multiple times a day in the sweetest way.

Our stockings are hung by the chimney with care,

Our stag head even got in on the decorating this year,

On our front door I hung a straw wreath from Ikea that we've had for a few years now and was such a great bargain as its simplicity goes with anything and it seems like it will last forever. This year I stuck some pieces of dried Hydrangea flowers in it to spice it up.

On either side of the door I placed small Lemon Cypress plants, which smell really amazing and make me happy every time I walk by.

Our front door has 6 window panes and as I was going through our Christmas decorations I found these six small gilded paper birds. I hung one in each pane, they hover there and move when the door opens,

they look great in silhouette too,

Finally,  I found the perfect spot for these hanging star garlands above our stairs. I bought them a while ago at the Union Square holiday market, which you should definitely visit for amazing creative gifts if you are ever in NYC during the holiday season. That holiday market is one of the things that I am missing about NYC as this season approaches, but we are heading north for the holidays and we've got a short visit to our old city worked in there! It will be our first time back since our move 6 months ago and I am a bit scared and nervous to go back since leaving was so hard, but mostly I'm excited to see old friends!

I enjoyed this post about holiday decorating on a design blog that I've been visiting lately

with some really great easy DIY ideas for holiday decorating, and this clever craft tutorial that would delight my kids for our family nature table.