Handmade Christmas continued

I wanted to share a bit more about our Christmas and how things went before moving on to the new year and all the wonderful things that come with it. This Christmas was a really special one for us, one that will be treasured forever. We tried our best to make most of our gifts and the rest we bought via Etsy, craft faires or small local businesses. At first this seemed like such a challenge, could we really make Christmas great on such a small budget with out going to a place like Walmart? Well the answer for us was YES! We usually spend about $50 on each of our girls and this year I think we hit the mark at right around $61, so really not to bad! Now in this I have to take into account that I already had a lot of crafty supplies on hand, like the yarn for the slippers, which leftover's from the stash. Most of the stuff used from stash was yarn, buttons, thread, and a bit of fabric, the rest was purchased for these special projects and included in the budget.

What I am really excited about sharing is the earrings that Micah and the girls made for me, so impressive! They are made from hammered out bottle caps and botany prints from the Internet. I think the most amazing part about this is that he let a 2 and a 5 year old wield a hammer! Ah, the things we do for the sake of crafting ;)

This holiday did of course include some thing that were not made by hand and with those we tried to purchase them from small local businesses. Micah totally scored good by getting me this strawberry tea kettle from our favorite hardware/kitchen store. Be still my whimsical heart!

I have to say though that as sweet as my husband was I don't think I did as well. Which I feel is OK since the husband should get a chance to out do the wife once in a while, right? While I did get him a stocking full of sweets and a box filled to the brim with local mandarins his main gift was a nice pair on UNfinished wool slippers.

This photo was actually taken after I seamed them and wove in the ends, now all we have to do is felt them. These were mostly finished way back in October, but like most crafter's I set them down and started working on something else. Oh well, I know he loves me for more then just my knitting.

Handmade Christmas

A glimpse in pictures of our (mostly) handmade Christmas:

Our Christmas was a very special one, filled with family, thankfulness and lots of handmade goodies. It was so wonderful to see the joy in my children's eyes from something handcrafted from the heart. Oh and boy was I surprised to get 4(!) handmade pairs of funky earrings from Micah and the girls! I love how he really takes on the handmade challenge just for me. Well, I'm going to get back to relaxing and enjoying my little bit of free time I have been blessed with this weekend. I hope that everyone's Christmas was a merry one. God bless.

Christmas Cookies

Tonight was cookie decorating night in the Pepper home. We always use Indian Tree Natural food dye for our frosting's and the colors are just so cool. Not your traditional Christmas sugar cookies, but I like it that way.

L and I did the decorating and a bit of snacking....

P has a bit of a lingering cold so she just decorated he own and had a good ole time. Oh yah and check out her haircut! I took off 5 inches!!!!

I almost didn't make sugar cookies this year. This month has been a busy one and I don't like being obligated to bake, I like to follow the whim you know?. Alas, then I remembered that I had just bought a new $20 box of dyes and some all natural sprinkles and I knew I just had to break them out. Since decorating them is really the fun part I forgo ed the cookie cutters. Instead I just rolled the dough into balls and smashed them down on the cookie sheet, fun and time saving!

Happy Birthday Love

(The hat is his birthday present from moi, crummy pic though)


Today I got to celebrate the man I love. I never would have thought I'd end up with someone so amazing. Someone so inspiring that they change who you are without one ounce of effort. He is always surprising me with his love, kindness, and his adventurous nature. Life with this man is just exhilarating and my hope is that will share many more blessed birthdays together. I love you Micah, Happy Birthday.

Guilt Monster

Life has been a bit of a whirlwind this past week. After Phoebe's fall I spent a good few days worrying over what could have happened and pretty much blaming myself for not being vigilant enough. You know, normal mother guilt, that we all put on our selves from time to time. I know it wasn't my fault and I know that it's completely normal for kids to play alone in a room with the door open, but I just couldn't shake how scared I was for days. I relied on my mothering instincts when it happened doing all the right things like checking her over, seeing approximately how high it was and jetting of to the ER taking my little brother along to keep an eye on her in the backseat. Then after it was over the mothering fears, the other side to the mother instinct took over and haunted me for several days.

After much prayer and council with my husband, and time I'm feeling much better. I have to say though that now the nurture mothering side is taking over and that little girl is getting whatever she wants! There has been lots of hugs and snuggles, medicine, ice packs, doctors appointments and even some cookies involved. I know that I shouldn't be babying her as much as I am, but I just can't help it I have a mothers heart.

P.S. The monster pictured above is for my nephew, but P has requested one and of course she will be getting one very soon!

Joy and Heartache

This week started off with one of the most exciting joys that life has to offer. A sweet baby boy entered the family as my sweet nephew. My sister labored like a champ with honestly not a word of compaint, taking it all in stride and even joking around with us. I am truly amazed at the strength we women possess in childbirth, it is such an amazing thing to be apart of. My mom and I were both honored to be there along with my sister husband.


This perfect little guys was born on the first snow of the season and is going to be a huge blessing to our family. What a wonderful early Christmas present!

Then yesterday while still aglow with giddiness we had a very scary thing happen, that makes my mothers heart ache to even think about it. Phoebe tried to fly. Out a window 6-7ft onto concrete. Sick with worry I rushed her to the hospital to find out that she had a broken wrist and a concussion. She is doing much better today and even smiling for us.

I knew that she was wild, but I would have never expected her to JUMP out a window at only 2 years old! She keeps saying "little girls can't fly, only birds can", oh my.

Crafty Time

Today after we finished up some schoolwork and put some brownies in the oven, we embarked on a crafty adventure, one where we all had a great time. A sheet was laid on the table and we set off to have a great time. I made something I have been super excited about ever since I saw it on this blog. I had some vintage bulbs that had been my grandparents that I had been saving, just waiting to put them to good use. I didn't have quite enough so I thought this project just wasn't going to happen, when earlier this week I popped into my favorite thrift shop and they had DOZENS of vintage glass bulbs. I paid $2.50 for the ones I brought home. Next it was off to the craft store where I got a foam wreath and a package of mini glue stick (I use all but one of them!). So it total, this project cost $16.

Here we are working away, my project ended up taking much longer than theirs so they went into the living room to watch Sleeping Beauty. Phoebe kept coming in to check on me though. I ended up breaking only 4 bulbs and with 1 bleeding finger. After all the bulbs were glued on I broke up pieces of an old dollar store garland to fill in the cracks.

The girls glittered, jeweled and tissue papered some construction paper tree. Easy peasy when you already have a huge bag of cut up tissue paper.

Slippers

OK, so you are going to have to pardon the bad photos, these thing are really hard to photograph! They seemed to want to glow florescent and fuzz out no matter what the lighting. I don't know, I'm certainly not the best still life photographer.

I made these using this pattern and stash yarn. The purple ones are actually from the leftover yardage from my last years slippers. Buttons were from my button jars as well. Thrifty Christmas giving is so exhilirating (weird I know).