Guest Post at About Proximity

Today I'm writing a guest post on my friend Lisa's blog, About Proximity.  Lisa and I met in Michigan and she's seriously one of the warmest and kindest people I've ever met.  Because of her openness to share about her faith and life, I felt that her blog was the perfect place to share about my decision to quit my PhD program.

Click here to read my guest post.

Bottled smiles and laughter

If I could, I would bottle up all of Baby Chuck's smiles and laughter and keep them in my pocket.  Then, whenever I met someone who was sad or going through tough times, I'd hand them the bottle and have them take the goodness in.  

Hand and feet salt dough ornaments

(Warning:  If your name is Nana, Pops, Gong-gong, Puo-puo, or Tita Tina- STOP!  Please do not read this post.  Please do not look at the photos.  Baby Chuck wants you to be surprised by the gifts he made you.)

Are they gone?  Good.  Now, for the rest of you-

This Christmas season I find myself crafting, and crafting, and crafting some more.  It's like someone opened up my blocked crafty gates.  My mind keeps churning and my hands making.  Mind you, not everything turns out the way it's supposed to (like the time I boiled cashmere for hours to felt it... big mistake... we just ended up a horribly smelly sweater), but it's just fun to make stuff.

Since Christmas (or as I now dub it "Craft-mas" get it?  Tee hee...) is just a couple of weeks away, I'm crafting more holiday items.  First I made the fortune cookie advent calendar and the geometric straw ornaments.  This week we tried our hand at making salt dough ornaments.  Patty from Make it Cozee posted such clear directions and cute photos that it was easy to get super cute results.  (Thanks, Patty!)

We painted the hand prints gold and we had a whole bunch of dough left so we made some tinier ornaments too.

  

Hopefully we can make this a yearly tradition.  Then we can see Baby Chuck growing.. and growing.. and growing... (Hmm... does this mean we need plate sized ornaments?  Oh well, we'll cross that bridge when we  get there.)

Landfill Orchestra

I don't usually post on the weekends, but I had to load this video up.  It's beautiful and hopeful and inspiring.

Landfill Harmonic film teaser from Landfill Harmonic on Vimeo.