The Annual Family Ornament Exchange

I know I've shared about this before, but it's one of my favorite family holiday traditions! For longer than I've been married~I can't remember when it began~my mom, sister and I have been exchanging ornaments on Thanksgiving. My mom started it and then we joined in the fun and we even include the guys now and, of course, the kiddos make a haul each year:) And any friends who are joining us for the day are also included. It's always so much fun!

This year I received some beautiful ornaments that I just had to share with you:

Vince surprised me this year with this gorgeous Princess and Prince Charming! Isn't it absolutely beautiful with their coach and castle?! I love it~he IS my Prince Charming:)

The kiddos and I found Yoda for Vince this year. I hadn't seen a blown glass one, he's so cute! Needless to say, Vince loved him. Now he has Darth Vader AND Yoda~who could ask for more?!

My mom gave me this adorable Santa with his bag all packed for Paris~she knows my love of Paris!

My dad brought me this cute little pottery ornament from Guatemala. I love it when he brings ornaments from around the world!

My mom got Vince this cute little zebra. At least, I think it's a zebra, but Vince likes to call him his *zonkey*. That crazy guy:)

My sister made me this wonderful giant snowflake. Well, I'm pretty sure she didn't carve it, but she painted and glittered it and it turned out so pretty!

Our friend Tiffany joined us again this year and was so sweet to bring wonderful ornaments for everyone. I love my *L*!

So those are the new additions to our tree this year.

Boy, am I ever hoping and praying that I can one day again use my 9' tree because this 7' is completely full. And I really don't want to stop collecting ornaments:)

The Making of an Egyptian Death Mask

We are learning all about the ancient world this year with Story of the World I and loving it! We've been learning a lot about Egypt, of course, which is completely fascinating. Most recently we have studied the New Kingdom of Egypt, which includes the story of King Tut. So we decided making an Egyptian death mask in the style of King Tut's would be a fun project. First since it was too cold at the time to paper mache in the garage (it probably would have frozen instead of dried-ha) and it was too messy to do it in the house, we decided to pick up a couple of cheap craft masks at Hobby Lobby. Next we cut out cardboard shapes to complete the shape of the death mask, attaching them with hot glue. Vince even put a little detail on the *beard* with the hot glue per The Princess' request. Then the kiddos started to paint them with this metallic gold tempera paint. It worked okay for the cardboard, but would not coat the plastic of the mask. We thought maybe a second coat ...

Door Hanger Chore Charts

My kids have had a chore chart for a while. It's one of those magnetic boards and they share it. However, it's not by their rooms and often they (and I) forget to update it. Plus it's a little bulky. When I saw the concept of a door hanger chore chart on Pinterest, I loved it! It was compact, right there were the kiddos could see it coming out and going into their rooms, and it costs almost nothing to make. I headed over to one of my favorite stores: Hobby Lobby, of course. They have these little wooden door hangers for .79. I also grabbed a couple of packets of decorative buttons for $1.99 each. I already had the clothes pins and the paint so those cost me nothing. I began by painting the door hangers (I used tempera paints because that's what I had). Then I grabbed a fine point Sharpie and the clothes pins and started writing chores on them, making sure to write them correctly so they will ...

Making Notebooks

Recently I tried out a new craft idea~and it was SO much fun!! And extremely frugal, too. That's always a bonus, right? So here we go: 1. Take your basic composition notebook (purchased at the back-to-school sales for .99 each). 2. Go to your craft supplies and get your Mod Podge ready, along with a good paintbrush. 3. Look through all those scrapbook papers you've been randomly collecting and choose some. 3. After choosing your paper for the cover of your book and trimming it to fit, start *painting* the cover with the glue. Next, give the back of your paper a good coat of glue, too. (I left the binding uncovered so that I could use a contrasting paper there later on). 4. Glue it on! Remember to smooth out any air bubbles under the paper. 5. Flip the cover open and make a few cuts on the corners so that they will fold over nice and neat, then add a little more glue to the edges of the inside cover and a little more to the paper edges. 6. Fold them over and press...

my blessed life

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