One-to-one Swap

For the first time, I decided to participate in a one-to-one swap.  In these swaps you craft for another mama and she crafts for you.  No theme, you just decide what to craft after getting to know her better.  So, my partner has two kids.  A six year old boy and a 3 year old girl.  I thought they would enjoy a stacker.  Lord knows my kids adore our rainbow stacker.  My partner mentioned that her kids might like a gnome home and that became my inspiration.  So here's the finished product...

It needed some greenery, so they are getting the 3 little shrubs too.  And one extra little surprise.  :)

Off to work on the fire stacker for R.  It was his "mama made" request for Christmas. 

Giving Thanks

There has been a lot of struggle this year, but there are still many things to be thankful for.

These are my two biggest "thankfulls":

Martinmas

For the last several years, I've had aspirations of celebrating Martinmas.  Yet, each year we are either "sick" or "off" on this date.  Regardless, we make lanterns (in theory, to celebrate St. Martin's kindness to Jesus and his ability to bring warmth and light to those who were previously in darkness) to take on a nighttime walk. 

Here we are making said (unused) lanterns...

Fall images

Or maybe I should call it "Indian Summer"...

Good idea, gone bad.

I created a co-op account for our family (nearly wholesale prices on natural products *score*!!!) and the first shipment came in a big ol' box.  Those soy packing peanuts looked so fun to me, I setup a sort of "ball pit" in the giant box with the peanuts.  I distinctly remember asking that the peanuts stay in the box.  That lasted about 10 minutes. 

Halloween was a bust and some Fine Art

They had a rough night the night before, so they turned into crabby apples. They flat out refused to put on costumes and refused to trick or treat. So we cancelled our plans to go to our friend's house and stayed home instead.

I got ready first, so I was in costume. I was the only one.

They really enjoyed giving other kids candy, though.

Actually it was a blessing. What with food issues, we would've been stuck with a bunch of candy they couldn't eat and I shouldn't eat.

Since I have no pictures of black cats and lady bugs (wouldn't that have been cute?), I give you fine art instead...