Make Something Day 2011

Make Something Day, the antidote to Black Friday, is this week!  I'm feeling a little behind this year.  But maybe I do every year.

Since all of our family live in other states and only one or two relatives will end up venturing this far for Christmas, I need to get gifts in the mail by December 10th.  The kids and I haven't even begun our homemade items this year.  Google is being my friend tonight.  On Wednesday we're hitting the road for a short getaway and I want to be able to take some things with us that we can work on.

Last year we made several things to give as gifts.

1: Paint Your Own Pottery:  This outing was also co-op with our homeschool group.  Each boy picked a male in the family to paint a trophy cup for.  Their dad uses his for pocket change.

2: Hemp Trivets:  Hot glue, a cork square, a lot of hemp cording and even more patience helped J make these for his female family.

3: Truly Handmade Cards:  B drew this leaf design in art class. I wish you could see it up close because there's a ton of little design work in it.  We copied and shrunk it down and printed it on cardstock, he stamped and cut and assembled notecard sets to give to Grandmas and Aunts and friends far away.  Signed the by the artist and totally cool.

4: Homemade Granola:  I used two recipes, Maple Walnut and Coconut Almond, packed a few cups worth into clamp canisters and gave them out to all of dh's co-workers.

5. Fleece Pillow:  For my sports fan son, I thought it was time for his Thomas the Tank engine pillow to grow up, so I covered it with a football motif fleece fabric. Easy.  And he hasn't even missed Thomas.

6: Framed Brochures:  In the summer of 2009, dh took me on an 8 day trip to Great Britain.  I saved all the ephemera from the trip and finally did something with it. I cut these brochures and maps and train tickets all down to the same size, centered and adhered them to a mat and framed them.  It hangs in our office to remind us to do it again someday.

7: Felt Tissue Covers:  This was the boys biggest project.  Not only did they send them to relatives, but they passed them out to all their teachers at their Friday classes and anyone else they could think of.   It was a  simple piece of felt, cut to size with pinking shears, folded over and hand stitched along the edges with a little monogrammed applique.  My boys really love to hand stitch.  This was perfect for them.

What are you making this year?  I'd love to hear your ideas.
Here are some sites I'm drawing inspiration from this year:
sew mama sew
etsy.com
studioofmae.blogspot.com
www.marthastewart.com/275134/handmade-gifts-for-her/@center/307035/santas-workshop
www.myrepurposedlife.net/

Have a happy Thanksgiving.

October Catch Up

October came and went.  It was busy and good and mostly normal.  My least favorite day was when S ran over his finger while sitting on a skateboard.  We're still waiting for that fingernail to fall off.  It's barely hanging on.  I did not take a picture of it and you're welcome.  

My favorite days were the two afternoons that dh and I had lunch dates.  I love, love, love that all three boys on are in classes all day on Fridays.  Originally I thought, "Yay, I get a day for me!"  But then I discovered that even better than that was to have a day for my marriage.  Whoa.  So good.  

Additionally, I made a little cash to go toward our summer trip to India by selling more kids items at the Just Between Friends, Denver sale.  If anyone feels like donating to that cause, let me know!  For you locals, I'm going to do the Spring JBF sale too and I'm accepting your in-kind donations so I can sell them.  Let me know if I can take your kids' stuff off your hands.

I've started mentoring an amazing young seminary student recently and now I've added another young woman from our community. I'm loving this season of life wherein I feel comfortable with who God made me to be and am actually stepping out and trying to fulfill what I think that looks like.  

We've been doing plenty of school and I'm rejoicing that we're finally in a groove that's not too restrictive.  On Tuesdays we take our work to a coffee shop.  On Fridays, like I said, the boys take classes away from home.  And I'm trying hard to protect all the other mornings to keep them designated for getting our work down.  We've had several co-ops with our local group and a couple more are coming up in November. 

Other than that, here's a few snapshots of the month:

 A little board breaking in tae kwon do.  

A little home repair on the rotting fascia boards (this is a before picture). 

Some sequencing with S. 

 Making mummies as we studied Ancient Egypt.

B's living history museum at Options.  He was Jackie Robinson and his other classmates were Sally Ride and Amelia Earhart.  Martin Luther King, Jr. showed up late.

Snow storm #1

Museum Day with a Robotics class (and real mummies!)

J's Lego creation: a giant Ninjago minifig. 

Our harvest carnival outing. 

Snow storm #2: this morning!  I just finished shoveling the driveway.  Fall in Colorado is all about upper body strength between raking leaves and shoveling snow.  I'm still questioning why I maintain a gym membership at this time of year.   But my resting heart rate just clocked in at 50 so I think it's doing me some good.