Dancing in the Snow

I just wanted to share some of my husband's latest creativity with you:

I love it!


(He's going to miss Picnik come April.)

When You Do This, Remember Me

If you'be read my blog for any length of time, you may have noticed that symbols are important to me. Easter, Advent, our Blessing Meal -- all are steeped in traditional symbols that hold spiritual significance in our family. 


This morning at church, our pastor prefaced our communion time with the observation that when Jesus used the analogy of His body being bread and His blood wine, and told His disciples to remember Him every time they partook of those elements, He was asking them to think about His sacrifice daily. Bread and wine were staples of the disciples' diet -- things they would consume probably once per day (at least). This meant Jesus was wanting His followers to reflect on Him -- His life, death, and resurrection -- every time they ate. 


Do we do that? Sure, we say grace around here -- but we don't really reflect daily on God's broken body and shed blood and all that means for us today. 


So this afternoon as I prepared dinner, I decided to make up a little "symbol set" that we can easily place on the table each day -- just a goblet and a small loaf of bread (retrieved from our Easter basket) -- with some little glass grapes for colour :) (Note: DH sewed the placemat years ago -- before children. I stumbled upon it while looking for a doily or something to put under the symbols.)

Do you have any symbols or devices that you use to trigger thoughts about Christ's sacrifice?

The Wonders of Photo Editing

I haven't had a chance to do much with any of the photos from our trip to El Salvador, but my DH has been creating masterpieces with some of them using Picnik. The plain photos are lovely in themselves, but he has highlighted some features and added text that reinforces some of the Truths that have come out of our experiences . . .

Vida x vida means "a life for a life." Christ gave His life for us, and we give ours for Him.

I especially like how he minimized my wrinkles ;)

Pretty cool, eh? If you've never tried editing any of your pictures, I encourage you to try because it's lots of fun! (DH printed these photos as posters and laminated them -- for his office, our learning lab, and DD14's bedroom. They are an awesome reminder of our special trip and are really helping to keep the memories alive.) You can download a free version of Picassa 3, which enables you to use Picnik as well. 


Let me know if you try it!

Summer Planning

One creative way to plan for the summer (DH's idea) . . . even if our lists are a tad unbalanced ;)

Alas, the summer months are slipping by so quickly and only a few stickies have been removed. Of course, we always shoot ourselves in the foot by making our lists so long every. single. summer.

How do you plan for the summer? How do you ensure that your goals are realistic?

Family Day Art -- Second Annual

This past Monday, our country celebrated Family Day -- and for the second year in a row, we made memories by creating a collaborative piece of art. We did some simple print-making, and I am quite pleased with the results :)

I used this as a sample to demonstrate what we would be doing:

We each started with a flat piece of styrofoam (cut from grocery store meat trays) and a pen. I added the tape tabs so that the "printing plates" were easier to hold:

Having each selected a colour of acrylic paint, we set out designing our prints -- together this time. (Last year we worked in shifts, which kind of defeated the family togetherness part :{ ) Isn't it awesome how engaged everyone is?!?!?!

Once we were satisfied with our designs, we used a sponge roller to apply a coat of paint to the styrofoam and lay it on a piece of white card stock. Voila! Here is DS4's "monster":

DS12's space galaxy:

DD8's twin deers (she used a stencil):

DD13's  contemplation of life -- demonstrating excellent mirror-writing skills:

DH's symbolic representation of our children, whose nicknames are Moonbeam, Sunshine, Starlight, and Fireglow, and the cross, representing the Light of the world:

And my random flower (I also used a stencil):

DH picked up the perfect frame for our project (I'm so thankful I had the foresight to make sure everyone oriented their prints the same way!!!):

Pretty cool, eh????? Now it graces the kitchen wall along with last year's piece:

The whole project took just a few minutes to create (a good thing, since some people were just humouring dear ol' mom ;) -- but as I mentioned, I'm very pleased with the results!

Have you done any simple -- or not so simple -- projects together as a family? How did they turn out? Do you have any great ideas for our 3RD annual Family Day Art Project????? (I left this one to the last minute -- I'd like to be better prepared next year!)

More Name Art

We've been busy making gifts these days! Here are some wall name plaques that DH and DD8 made for some special girls:

They simply painted a piece of wood, glued on some letters (cut with the Cricut) and decorative pieces of paper, some bling, added some eyes for ribbon to hang, and voila!

 I can't show you what I've been making, but I'm having so much fun!

Have you made any simple, homemade gifts lately? Do share -- we're always looking for great ideas!

Family Devotions

As this school year got under way, my husband and I discussed ways that we could facilitate more opportunities to discuss the Bible in a family context. One of the ideas he came up with (he's so awesome! ;) was to conduct family devotions at the dinner table in a way that challenged us all to be memorizing verses together, as well as discussing their significance. To appeal to our visual learners, and to help us remember the format for the week, he created and laminated this seasonal poster and pinned it to the wall by the table:

And each week he creates and laminates a verse poster with the current week's memory work, and posts it on the wall, too.

Besides making our kitchen walls look more interesting than they did before (an added bonus), isn't this a great way to hide God's word in our hearts and learn together as a family? (I can say that cuz it wasn't my idea ;)

I'll bet some of you have great ideas or traditions for encouraging spiritual growth in your family. Could you share them in a comment? I'd love to hear them!

A Birthday Book of Hope -- and then some!

DD12 has become DD13! To commemorate her entry into young womanhood, DH had the brilliant idea of creating a "Book of Hope." We sent out an invitation to friends and family asking them to write a personal message of hope for the future to our daughter, and include a picture if they wished. The response was overwhelmingly wonderful, and DH created an awesome scrapbook that can be treasured for the years to come.

Of course, I won't show you all the personal stuff, but I wanted to give you a glimpse of this wonderful "Book of Hope" in case it inspires you to create something similar for someone you love:

Here is the beautiful birthday girl about to cut her "Facebook" cake -- another brain child of my DH. One of our DD's anticipated privileges of turning 13 was being able to go on Facebook, so when we asked what kind of cake she wanted (thinking about flavours!), she said "A Facebook cake!" So, using a screenshot of his own profile and then modifying it with fun family photos and comments directed to her, he created an image which he took to the bakery. They printed the image on marshmallow paper, so the cake looked like a computer screen with a Facebook profile:) How cool is that? (Sorry -- you'll just have to use your imagination to "see" the cake ;)

We thought long and hard about how to make this birthday a memorable one, as it marks the beginning of a new era for our daughter, when she really begins to mature into adulthood and independence. Because we want to encourage her to be reflective about herself and who she is, but also to look beyond herself to the needs of others, we hope to do a missions trip with her this year so she can see the world outside of her immediate frame of reference. We have yet to determine when and where -- but we're all excited about the prospects of learning about life by serving others in a meaningful way. She has a heart for "social justice,"  so we suspect that such an experience might be a turning point in her life. The trick is to find something that will be appropriate for her but not "all about her" -- which is the last thing we want to make it. KWIM?

Anyway, when it comes to making a birthday memorable, one thing we never considered a remote idea was enabling our DDs "over 80" grandmother (she's sensitive about her age -- though I think the actual number makes it all the more impressive!!!!) to fulfill one of her "life-long dreams" by

Drumroll please . . .

going for a ride on a motorcycle! But one of our guests was giving rides to the children and my mother decided this might be her only chance to do this thing she'd always wanted to do! So, with a little help from a throng of cheering observers, she did it!

Not to be outdone, my MIL, who is younger but a great grandma now, decided she would go for a ride, since she'd never been before either!

What a riot! DD13, who was thrilled to ride herself, said her rockin', "hard core" grandmas (along with their awesome driver) made it the Best Birthday Party EVER!

She did confess, though, that she almost cried when she realized her dad had not given her his traditional bouquet of roses -- until it occurred to her that her party did not take place on her actual birthday! Here is the happy girl with her birthday bouquet:

What great birthday memories do you have? Are there traditions associated with those memories? Have you come up with any creative ways to commemorate a special birthday? Please do share by leaving a comment!

Silent But Not Unproductive

I know that I haven't posted in a while. I have, however, been quite busily productive. We hosted a baby shower at our home on Saturday, and that meant lots of cleaning (does that count as creativity???? It should!) and "prettying up" the house. For example, here is some of the porch prettiness (more later when the lilies are in bloom):

Oh, and here's the freshly groomed greeter:

In addition to scrubbing all the mainfloor baseboards (a task I've deferred for far too long!),  I dismantled and moved (with muscle help from DD12) the china cabinet and purged it to look a little less cluttered -- finding homes for things in various other cupboards and cabinets. (Let's see if I can ever find anything again!) Oh, and DH primed and painted the ugly grey legs of our board room turned dining room table. What a difference it makes! I didn't get a chance to take "before" pictures, but here is the colour of the legs before, since the top still looks that way (for now):

And here's what they look like now -- though they still need another coat of paint:

(That table cloth looks purple -- it's actually brown, as the colours for the shower were brown and baby blue.) What a difference, though --- don't you think?!?!?

And here is a shot of the "summerized" dining room chandelier (which we don't particularly like) -- DH's handiwork:

DH also created this "wall of fame" (for lack of a better term) by picniking some photos from a recent photo shoot and framing them:

Ahh, it feels good! We need to host events more often so we're motivated to get those little things done around here! Alas, I didn't take ANY photographs of the shower -- which is a shame because my DH and SIL did a fabulous job of decorating. The table, especially, was beautiful! (They've missed their calling as a team of party planners!)

The children have enjoyed a little bit of creativity, too. Last weekend we did a "Family Adventure Tour" during which they got to work with some pottery clay:

Actually -- even the rabbits have been (pro)-creative lately:

(There are five little cuddle bunnies snuggled in there -- just two weeks old.)

And last, but not least, in addition to adding to my Joy Notes booklet, I have been working on a Father's Day gift for my beloved. It's still a work in progress, and of course I can't show it to you yet, but here is how it started out:

(I love Usborne books -- but I've never understood the value of children's books that simply label pictures -- so I felt no guilt about altering this.)You'll have to come back next week to see the end result :)

What are the "little things" you've been doing lately that might not typically be considered "artistic," but that add a little creative flair to your life?

Oh, BTW -- do you like my new signature????