I have been wanting to get more into embroidering and I thought that this would be a great project.
Not only did I start, but Xavier also joined in and helped… So it has become something that we can share…
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These mitten shapes are all the sizes of their hands….
It is a work in progress but there are enough to put up now and I will be adding more once in a while as I make them…
I love what it adds to the space.
She is so much more stable…
I thought that making some Salt-dough ornaments would not only be fun for the kids and I to do but of course would add colour and more variety to our tree and create some great memories…
I loved doing this project also, so I got my hands dirty and had fun (which is why there are not many pics of the process)
To make the Salt-dough you will need
Mix the Flour and Salt together and the add the water. (start with half of the water and keep adding until you get the right texture… like pie dough)
I also took half of the dough and added cocoa powder to it so that I had a brown dough also.
We rolled the dough and started to cut out shapes…
I made holes in the shapes with a straw so that we could string them up after and then put them on a lined pan and baked them in the oven at a low temp for a few hours until they were dry.
You can also leave them air dry for a few days….
Next was painting…
The boys and I all had a blast painting all of the shapes… we had about 3 dozen to do!
I love the way they all turned out!
Let the paint dry and then string them up!
Edited to add: I had put the link from the video from Flickr not realizing that it had cut the video in half. So if you watched when I had just put it up, watch it again 🙂
I talk to the kids about almost everything in a very comfortable way, but the other morning I came across a subject that was uncomfortable to discuss. My family.
Colin was asking if we knew anyone named Justin, and I almost said no. Weird, since that is my step-brother’s name and we were once close. When my step-dad died almost six years ago, he was going through a tough time and we haven’t been in contact since. So I was telling Colin about him and that he was like a brother and was a brother by marriage but not a brother by blood. That led my to the subject of my half-brother… my dad’s son.
When my mom and dad were still together (before I was 18 months old) my brother was part of my life. My mom left my Dad, packed the car and headed across the country and I only saw him and my brother almost a decade later. I was about 10 when I met my brother again, he was 15. I have a feeling that I took away some of the already limited attention that he got from my father and he resented me for it. On my part, I looked up to him and wanted a relationship with him, but it always led to disappointment. A few years ago I let go of the hope of having a relationship with him and instead decided that I would cut him off completely. The other morning, when the conversation turned to him it became uncomfortable.
It was uncomfortable because as I explained that he was my Dad’s son and not my Mom’s, I saw him realize that parents are not always together. It was uncomfortable because I explained that we were never close and that we haven’t talked in years and I saw his confusion of having a sibling that is out there that you don’t see or talk to. It was uncomfortable because he asked to meet his uncle and I said that he probably wouldn’t, he wondered why… It was uncomfortable because I know that they would get along great if they were to meet.
Some subjects are really hard to talk about and they are often not the ones that I expect….
