A Handmade Christmas Week 6 {Filling Shoeboxes}

Oh boy, am I ever running late at getting this posted today! Between trying to get extra cleaning done and a couple of trips to the hospital today to see a very dear friend I just didn't manage to get online very early.

This past week we had quite a lot of fun (and I admit some stress when I had 3 or 4 children all wanting my help with their particular project at the same time) working on things to send in our Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes. Each child got to send a box to a child of their age and gender.

We enjoy doing these boxes as it gives us a chance to help out someone that has far less than we do and it is an opportunity to spread God's love across the world. I love seeing my children getting excited about sharing with some child they have never seen and I love hearing them talk about "My girl" or "My boy" as they plan what to send, write or just think about what they might be like.

My mom also got in on the action this year, first by finding us shoe boxes (we just don't buy new shoes very often around here) and then looking through her gift storage too and finding t-shirts for the two older children and some other things and then one morning last week we went over there so the kids could play with cousins and the boys could help Grandpa with the sawmill and Mom and I did some sewing for the boxes too.

 Here is Mara with her box and its contents. She decided to have a purple theme this year. It was very pretty - we hope the girl that gets it likes purple!

 Here are some of the things we made for it: A braided headband, a fabric flower clip and a jumper to go along with the cream t-shirt. Mara also made a purple notebook.

 Mara sent her one of her very pretty beaded flowers. She found the instructions online it is called a Russian Beaded Netted Flower (I think that link has the correct instructions). She has made quite a few of these- she has more patience than I do for intricate work like that.

 Mara's purple box all packed up.

Here is Jonathan with the stuff for his box:

 The stuff we made for it were: A tote bag, a notebook, a washcloth (out of some textured t-shirt fabric, double layered) and a jump rope.

 Here is Aaron and the stuff for his box:

 Things that we made to go in his box were: A tote bag, a little leather bag (totally made by Aaron) , a tic-tac-toe game and a washcloth. I also appliqued a car picture on the front of the plain white t-shirt that I had on hand.

 Here is the stuff for Megan's box: (She was away from home when I was taking pictures)

 Some of the things we made were: A braided headband, a beaded gecko, necklace and bracelet,

 An elastic waist skirt and a t-shirt that I decorated with lace and a fabric flower,

 A Fairy/Princess wand and a crown

 and some Paper dolls. With the paper dolls we printed two dolls, each with two outfits. Megan colored one set (something that she could do to contribute to the box) and the other one we left for the other girl to color. Here is the link to where you can print these off it you like.

My goal is to have my kids be as involved as possible in the creations of the gifts, here are things that Megan did to work on the box: She colored paper dolls, she painted the stick for the wand, she picked out the ribbons for the wand and sewed the flower in place, she glued jewels on the wand and the crown, she made a gecko and necklace, she wrote a letter, she packaged things up and decorated the box.

 We do try to keep our boxes quite economical - this year we only used things that we already had on hand or made with things that we had on hand. I do pick up things throughout the year (flashlights for example) when they are on sale so that I can have them in my gift cupboard and ready for things such as this. My opinion is that it doesn't require a lot of money to show someone you and Jesus love them.

Do you pack shoe boxes or do anything similar to this? Do you have any handmade ideas to share? I would love to hear them!

I would love to hear about any Christmas/gift projects that you have going on at your house. Please leave your ideas and links in the comments!

We are cleaning the house!

 Lately I have found myself better able (after the business of summer and harvest) to keep up with the housework, cooking and such but I was still noticing a bunch of different details that needed attended too. Light fixtures were dirty, the were some cobwebs up in the corners, cupboards that needed to be cleaned out. walls needed to be washed and stuff of that nature.

 I decided it would be pretty nice to get it all cleaned up by Thanksgiving as we will be having company over and that just seemed like a nice deadline. I came up with that thought on Saturday morning and thought it might be nice to "attack" one room and a time and get it really clean.

What would be the best way to get the kids involved and interested?......

 I decided to write out all the rooms (we have 13) and then under each one I wrote a list of things that needed to be done in the room. Now which room to do first?

That is when I got my good idea. Beside each room I wrote an estimated time and then I cut apart all the rooms and stuck the papers in a basket and announced that we would take turns drawing which room we would do, we would all work hard and fast at it and try to get it done before the timer beeped (I set the timer for the estimated time).

 Megan drew first and the Laundry room was the first trial of my idea. It went pretty well and we were done cleaning it quite quickly (I think I allotted 20 minutes for that one).

In between each cleaning (which last from 10-40 minutes) we take a break of at least 1/2 hour. We did 4 rooms on Saturday, took a break on Sunday and we were planning on doing 3 rooms a day today, tomorrow and Wednesday but got the hardest one this afternoon (the kitchen) and then we played a game as a family this evening (so no time for cleaning) so we only did two rooms today. We have mostly easy ones left now so tomorrow we will try to do 4 rooms again.

 This method isn't all fun and games but it is going pretty smoothly and our house it getting a pretty good deep cleaning so I am feeling pretty happy about it!

 How do you get your cleaning done for the holidays?

Preparing for the Future {Water}

 

 Something I have been thinking about lately is the need for water and how to be prepared to have that should we face some sort of emergency when electricity (which powers our pump) is not available. Thankfully so far we have never lost electricity for any extended period (beyond a few hours) of time but many others in our nation have. This summer even in our area after a storm went through many people were without electricity for days. Of course just recently many in the East that were hit by Hurricane Sandy lost their electricity. I have also heard talk of blackouts possible for other reasons besides storms - I think it would be great to be prepared!

  I have in the past worked and doing somethings to make sure we had some water. Here how we are prepared so far:

• I have some cleaned out milk jugs filled with water and stored.
• We have a water filter. The type that you use when backpacking. This is only good for a limited number of gallons and you are supposed to filter the water from a swift moving place like a river. Thankfully we live in MN where there are a lot of lakes and rivers but still the only water we are really close to is a swamp (not so good for drinking water!) and so we would have to travel (car or bike) to get to water to filter.
• We have water purification tablets. (Stored in our van- in case we need water when out and about.)
• We have activated charcoal which though it makes a rather yucky looking drink it works to make it safe from bad stuff. We have this in both the van and house.

Here are some things I am planning on doing:

• Filling my canning jars as I empty them of food with hot water and seal them before place on the shelves again. I have seen this idea elsewhere but haven't put it into practice yet.
• Buying a hand pump. This is something I have been doing a lot of research on lately. I am leaning towards getting a pump that will fit on our current well along with our electric pump. We would be able to use both at the same time but of course if the electric one quit working we can fall back on the hand pump. Another possibility is buying a cheaper hand pump that needs to be on its own well. I believe that could work in our area because the water may be fairly shallow. We could possibly dig our own well -but there might be codes against this - I haven't really checked that option out.

The hand pumps that I am looking at are:

Bison

~The Simple Pump. This will probably run over $1,500. I think it would work well. This is probably my top choice right now. But we haven't made a decision yet.

Simple Pump

~Bison Pump. A lovely pump but still more expensive.


~An EZ water do-it-yourself kit for much less. We think it would work okay just not as easily. (around $250 cost). This is the other option that we are thinking about.


Have any of your bought hand pumps for your place? What have you purchased? I would love any advice that you might have!!!

What do you do at your home to be prepared concerning water?

 I am linking up with Amy from Homestead Revival, Jill from The Prairie Homestead and Kendra at New Life on a Homestead

Do you pray?

Thanks for joining me and I read about Jesus time here on earth and think about how I can follow in His steps!

Something that we see over and over in the gospels is Jesus praying. Has it ever crossed your mind as to "Why?" I mean after all He is God, He knows everything, Why did Jesus feel the need to pray?

 Jesus had chosen to come to earth for our sakes as a human but He still desired that close relationship with His Father (Of Course!). That is what praying is about - Have a close relationship with the Father- we should want that too!

 Here are some examples of Jesus taking the time to pray.....

Mark 1:35
"In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there."

Matthew 14:23
"After He had sent the crowds away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray; and when it was evening, He was there alone."

Matthew 26:36-46
"Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, "Sit here while I go over there and pray." And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. Then He said to them, "My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me." And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will but as You will." And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping and said to Peter, "So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
  He went away again a second time and prayed saving, "My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done." Again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. And He left them again, and went away and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more. Then He came to the disciples and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going; behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand!"

Some observations from these scriptures:

• I don't think it was always easy for Jesus with so many people so constantly around Him to always find time to pray- He MADE time to pray. We have to do that too.
• Jesus was willing to get up early or stay up late in order to have that time of prayer.
• He prayed with others and all by Himself.
• He prayed for strength.

Do you set aside time to pray? This is something I do but I certainly could do more of. I hope to grow in my prayer life.

Let's go outside!

I very much love the outdoors, I love seeing so many different things that God has created and I enjoy different activities like gardening, biking and camping (and much more!) that are done outdoors. I also like many different inside activities like crafting, reading, homemaking (and much more!) - nobody could ever accuse me of not being well rounded in my interests. :-)

    I spend quite a lot of time outside in the summer but when cold weather appears and I have just been busy outside doing all sorts of harvesting and such and I am totally ready to spend some time inside. And that is what I have been doing lately - I have been making things, cleaning, organizing and homeschooling my children and it has been fun.

However.....
I have been lacking a little bit of fresh air. So today after our rest time it was beautifully sunny and I decided everybody could clear out of the house for a while. Some fresh air would be good for all of us!

It was so lovely! It reminded me of the importance of going outside even if it is chilly (and you are "cold blooded" like me). We cut some wood up (The boys and Megan were all quite busy at that with hatchets and saws and then I helped with it some later) that had fallen in the summer storm and I checked my bees. The bees are still alive (we shall see if that lasts!) and even they were getting some fresh air today.

I was so glad that I spend part of my afternoon outside - I want to do it again soon!

So if you are feeling sluggish and you have been holing up in your house - I encourage you to go outside!

A Handmade Christmas Week 5 {Hats!}

Anybody that knows me very well knows that I like to wear hats fairly frequently. There are various reasons for this but one reason is I think they are rather fun. They add character to your outfit.

 This year we have made some hats around here and as I think that hats make great gifts (I have some in mind to make for that purpose but haven't gotten it done yet) and so I thought I would tell you about them.

A hat that I made for myself that I find comfortable and practical is a denim (lined with cotton) beret.

 I kept mine hat pretty simple but you could add more excitement to it if you want. Here is where I found the idea and instructions.

 

Another hat that I made was a wool one for Jonathan to wear while he played Orville Wright. He is quite adorable (don't tell him that- he wouldn't be to happy with that term) when he wears it with a bow tie and suspenders.

 

This hat was also quite simple to make. I found the idea and instructions here.

Have you been working on any projects lately or have any great homemade gift ideas? I would love to hear about them! If you have projects written about in a post or other homemade hat ideas would you please leave a link in your comment so we can come see them too? Thanks!

 I linked up at Common Sense Homesteading.