When River was 4 and attending the local Waldorf school, she was invited to a birthday party where — instead of gifts — we were all asked to bring a half dozen small somethings to share with the other kids. It was like a loot bag potluck and I absolutely loved the idea.
Waldorf-y people are so clever like that, aren’t they…
Given the crowd, I knew that I had to come up with something good. Handmade, of course. Ideally from all natural materials that I harvested from Mother Earth myself by the light of a full moon. In retrospect, I might have put a bit too much pressure on myself.
It took me weeks, but I finally came up with the perfect idea: a peg doll roll, just like the one I bought from Purple Lizard Design on Etsy the year before.
Isn’t it adorable? The store that I bought it from doesn’t seem to be up and running anymore, but there are equally fabulous peg doll rolls on Etsy. Possibly more fabulous. I must have one.
For the kids, I mean.
So I was super excited about my amazing idea — except that there was no way I’d get the peg dolls in time for the party. No worries: I’d skip the peg dolls and do a crayon roll instead. Still cute — not as cute — but kind of cute, and very inexpensive. All I’d need was a box of crayons and scraps from my fabric stash.
Over the next few nights, I sewed up six rolls and they turned out beautifully. I was so proud. Seriously, I know I took pictures. It is killing me that I can’t find them.
I arrived at the party excited to see what everyone else had made. To my surprise, I was the only one that felt compelled to give up several nights of sleep in order to craft the perfect loot bag trinket. Some of the families brought candy. Some of the families brought plastic. From a store.
Looking back, I admire those families and their overall life balance.
One family nailed it, though. I remember that they gave out little star-shaped crayons that they had made by melting down old crayon bits. What a brilliant idea! I vowed to do the same thing with our old crayons as soon as we got home.
Three years later…
But of course I never got around to it. Just like the felt food sets I never finished, and the knitting projects I still have to bind off, and the cross-stitch project that I just barely started before tossing it aside. I’m the queen of not finis–
(See what I did there?)
Three years after that party, we started using the Wayfarers homeschooling curriculum for River. The same author offers a free preschool program called Pathways, so I printed it off to use with Harbour. Why not, right? Pathways is essentially a schedule of high-quality stories to read, plus some activity ideas thrown in to keep life interesting. And the very first activity? Gather up your old broken crayons and melt them down using silicone molds. Not just any molds, but financier (financi-what?) molds, which give the upcycled crayons a lovely rectangular shape that will “also prevent little ones from developing incorrect pencil grips which will then have to be corrected,” according to the instructions.
I’m sure I could have used any molds, of course. But I wanted the financier molds.
Pencil grip is important. I think?
Two years after that…
It took me a full two years to find the perfect molds. In a store, I mean. Sure, I could have ordered them from Amazon, but … yeah, I don’t know why I didn’t just order them from Amazon. They’re not even that expensive.
Whatever. Perfectly-sized rectangular molds suddenly appeared at Michael’s, and with my 40% coupon … well … I still paid way more than if I had just used a muffin mold from the dollar store. I didn’t care though — I was too excited to channel my inner-teenaged-pyro and start melting things. Finally.
MAKE NEW CRAYONS FROM OLD CRAYONS
Step 1: Gather Your Crayons
As soon as we got home, I hauled out the crayon bin.
As you can see, it’s a mess. I see beads, wrappers, rubber bands, rocks … and is that a potato? I pulled out all the crayons and tossed everything else.
Step 2: Sort Your Crayons by Colour
Next, I separated all the crayon bits into colours and started ripped off wrappers. That took a long time, but it was deeply satisfying.
Because look.
Happy sigh.
Step 3: Break Your Crayons into Little Pieces
I read about 15 tutorials that all said to cut your crayons into small pieces. Pfffttt… that seemed like a lot of work for something we were just going to melt anyway, right? I decided that snapping the crayons into halves or thirds would be good enough. I aimed for roughly 1-inch pieces.
At first, breaking a crayon in half is kind of fun. It has a bit of that forbidden fruit kind of quality to it. Harbour used to compulsively break every crayon in half whenever we bought a new pack, and I could finally understand why.
Snap, snap, snap. Snap snap.
And then ouch.
Once you’ve snapped 20, then 30, then 40 or 50 crayons in half, your fingers start to ACHE. My 1-inch pieces turned into 2-inch pieces. I didn’t care — I didn’t think it would matter that much.
Ha ha ha ha. I was wrong.
Step 4: Bake Your Crayons at a Low Temperature
I put my silicone mold on a baking sheet and popped it in the oven.
Crayons are actually flammable, so you don’t want to keep them in the oven for a super-long time. You need the pieces to be small so that they melt down as quickly as possible. And not only are crayons flammable, they smell really, really bad when you melt them. It’s like melting plastic. I must have had some super low-budget restaurant-freebie crayons mixed in there or something.
Seriously, in all the tutorials that I read, I can’t believe the smell didn’t come up once. I opened the windows and I blasted the exhaust fan and I started to worry about what would happen to our pet canary, if we had one. We don’t have a pet canary, but if we did, would the gasses endanger it? (Smells make me a bit loopy).
Go Back and Do Step 3 Properly (Optional)
In the interest of moving things along more quickly, I pulled the mold back out of the oven and carefully cut the crayons into pieces, just like all the tutorials told me to. It helped. In no time, I had crayon soup.
Once the crayons were melted, we used a toothpick and swirled the colours around a bit. After that, it didn’t take long for them to harden, and then we popped them out of the molds and spread out our new crayons on the counter so that we could admire them as they cooled down.
They were so, so pretty.
In fact, my two-year-old spends just as much time playing with the crayons as he does colouring with them. The crayons have a wonderful tactile feel — and I love playing with them too. They’re like waxy, colourful Jenga blocks.
To be honest, I don’t enjoy actually colouring with them because I’m far too uptight to handle my crayon changing to a different colour while I’m in the middle of shading something in. My kids are far less picky, thankfully.
This is one of my son’s masterpieces: it’s actually the first lesson from Harbour’s All About Reading’s Pre-Reading kit, but she has ZERO interest in anything that hints of busy work; now it’s pretty much an expensive colouring book for my toddler.
(If I ever sign up for the AAR affiliate program, please forget I said that. I swear, it’s not the program, it’s my kid.)
Anyway, there are tons of tutorials for making crayons available on Pinterest. These are the directions for the crayons that I followed, as found in the free Pathways curriculum.
“Break crayons into small pieces. We use a dinner knife when necessary. Place the silicone financier pan on a metal pan for easy removal from the oven. Fill each block; you can add different colors to each block, or you can keep each crayon a solid color.
Heat at 150 degrees for 15-20 minutes or at 250 degrees for 10-15 minutes. Watch carefully; the wax will scorch if heated too long.”
And smell. The wax will also smell if heated too long. I wonder if that’s why Waldorf-y people always use beeswax crayons?
Another post for the Yarn Along link up, where bloggers share their knitting projects and the books that they’re reading. This post contains affiliate links.
I remember now why I stopped reading books nine years ago: I have absolutely no will power. I just can’t stop in the middle of a good story.
It was never really a problem until I had a child to care for. Then, after a few too many novel-fuelled late nights, I realized that self-inflicted sleep deprivation does nothing to enhance my parenting skills. I decided to stick to magazines for awhile instead. And besides, I had other things to do at night anyway — I was enrolled in university part-time back then, and I was doing some freelance web programming too.
Geez, when did I even have time for books?
Well, it’s not like I have that much more time now, what with three stay-at-home kids running around.
I think the difference is that I need my books now, because I need a break. So much.
I need to escape into other worlds where all three kids aren’t fighting constantly. Right now, for example, they’re fighting over who gets to dress the mannequin that my two-year-old hauled over to the front window.
My five-year-old wants the mannequin to wear a fur coat and a sun hat but my two-year-old is insisting that it wears a knitted cowl instead. Makes sense — that’s what he always sees me putting on it.
It actually started off as a … scarf? Cowl? I can’t remember what the end product was supposed to be. I know that I used the Marshmallow Fluff pattern, but when I finished (aka ran out of yarn), it just wasn’t the right length. It was too long to be cozy but too short to loop around my neck a second time. I should have made it wider and shorter, and since I knew that I’d never wear it, I never bothered to weave in the loose yarn or knit the ends together. As you can see.
The project has been sitting in yarn purgatory for at least a year, until finally last week I frogged the whole thing and made my second Three Turn Cowl.
Now it’s nice and cozy and kind of looks like a neck brace. Not exactly the effect I was going for. I don’t care though — I still wear it. Hey, if a neck brace really was warm and cozy, I’d probably wear that too.
The yarn is super-bulky and the colour is a white-ish cream. A creamish-white? I don’t know. Off-white with brown flecks. I think it’s Rowan Drift in China Clay, but I’ve long since thrown the tag away. I know that Drift has been discontinued, and that makes sense because I bought the yarn on clearance years ago. Here’s a closeup of the pattern and the colours.
It’s plain, but I like it. It’s nice to have something neutral. Neck brace neutral.
As for books, I finished Little Women last week and moved right into 1) Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation by Richard Rohr with Mike Morrell and 2) Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. I’m enjoying them both a lot.
Divine Dance is about finding a different way to understand God — less as the judge in the sky and more as pure love between three divine beings that’s being pouring out and then received, over and over and over. It’s not a new idea –in fact, it’s an ancient one. Rohr writes:
“At the heart of Christian revelation, God is not seen as a distant, static monarch but — as we will explore together — a diving circle dance, as the early Fathers of the church dared to call it.”
It’s a great book, but sometimes I want something a bit lighter. Then I turn to Gilead, which is a letter from an old man to his seven-year-old son…? I know, I know, that doesn’t sound interesting at all. In fact, when I first heard of the book, I didn’t think I’d be into it, but so many people have said that they loved the story that I wanted to read it for myself. I don’t know that I love it yet, but the writing definitely sucks me in. And the constant jumping around from memories to musings to other random thoughts is great for me because I can put the book down whenever I need to. Like when I need to break up a fight about who gets to put hair clips on a headless mannequin.
It’s headless.
Thankfully the mannequin has been moved out of the front window for the night. It’s propped up in my room, kind of hovering beside my bed. I’m sure that will go over well at 3am when I get up for a drink of water.
Maybe I’ll just save myself a scare and just stay up until then, reading.
It’s Yarn Along Wednesday where I share what I’m knitting and what I’m reading.
Last week I knit maybe two rows on my cardigan. Maybe.
I’m at a confusing spot in the pattern with short rows and button holes and I’m supposed to be tracking my rows and my “surely I can just wing it without counting, even if it didn’t work last time” approach doesn’t seem to be panning out. I need to actually sit down and concentrate on what I’m doing.
So yes, here’s a picture of my sweater looking pretty much like it did last week. I’m using two balls for yarn and alternating them as I go because the yarn is hand-dyed and there is a lot of variation. For non-knitters: because this yarn is dyed by hand, the colour can actually differ from one skein to the next. If you aren’t careful to alternate the skeins, allowing the different colours to blend visually, you might end up with a sleeve that doesn’t match the rest of the sweater. I hate alternating skeins — I don’t know why I insist on hand-dyed yarn.
Oh yeah. The gorgeousness.
I love this yarn — it’s just so pretty to look at, and the moss stitch really makes it glow. Oh man, I can’t wait for this to be finished. Which at this rate, should be sometime in 2047.
In a desperate attempt to have something better to post today, I started another Three Turn Cowl, like the one I made for my sister-in-law at Christmas. I guess a blog link up date just doesn’t have quite the same pressure as a Christmas present for the person you see twice a year, so I haven’t even got halfway through. It is going quickly though — it’s just that I haven’t been sitting down much to knit.
As for books, I’ve pretty much abandoned everything in favour of Little Women, which I’m reading on my phone and kindle. I am enjoying this book so much, but I’m also ready to be done. Mostly because this one showed up in the mail today.
See how I snuck my cowl in that shot? It will be nice, right?
I saw Liturgy of the Ordinary on another post in the link up a couple weeks ago and I wanted to read it immediately. For the life of me though, I just couldn’t decide on which format to get.
Ebooks
I LOVE ebooks because they can be read anywhere — on my phone, my ipad, my kindle, and even my computer if I’m desperate. I do the vast majority of my reading on my phone in the dark at nap times and bedtimes, and at those times, I cannot sing the praises of ebooks enough.
I also love that I can download sample chapters. I love that ebooks take up less room in my house. I love that ebooks can’t be lost, ripped, or dropped in the bathtub. I mean, sure I could drop my kindle in the bathtub, but the books themselves would be okay even if my eReader doesn’t survive. And I wouldn’t even cry, because I want to upgrade to a backlit kindle (see note on reading in the dark).
Paper Books
On the other hand, ebooks … they just aren’t the same. How do you explain the joy of a good paper book in your hands? Do I even need to explain it? You’re reading a post about the books I’m reading — clearly you’re a fellow book lover too.
Audiobooks
I have become such a fan of audiobooks, because I have so much less time than I used to to just sit down and read. I’d blame my three kids but it’s probably more due to time wasted on Facebook and Twitter.
I listen to audiobooks all the time. I listen to them when I’m cooking dinner, or driving my kids around, or even knitting.
Especially while knitting.
I’ve tried three or four different audiobook services over the last couple years and I’ve found that Amazon’s Audible has the best selection for the type of books that I like to read. I love that if you have a monthly subscription, you can exchange a book if you don’t like it. And I’ve done that several times.
Okay, I’m actually embarrassed by how many times I’ve gone and exchanged my books. I even contacted customer service a couple months ago to make sure that I haven’t angered the Amazon gods with my exchanges. Thankfully they told me I was still in good standing, which is great because I don’t even know what you would go about sacrificing to them. Besides my credit card. Which I’ve already done.
Right now I’m listening to the Book of Common Prayer: a Biography by Alan Jacobs. I stumbled across this book at the library. It’s absolutely fascinating. The author writes about how the Book of Common Prayer was created by the Church of England, how it was changed as different kings and queens came and went, each exerting their political and religious influence, and how the prayer books was received in other countries as England spread its power around the world.
Okay, I hear you: possibly not that interesting. But I love the book because a) I’m fascinated with prayer books, and I love to both read them and about them, and b) we’re covering the same time period in Story of the World for River’s history lessons and it’s fun reading the very same stories with totally different focuses. Oh, and I guess c) I’m a nerd.
Given that a biography of a book might not be everyone’s cup of tea, I thought I’d list some of the other audiobooks that I’ve enjoyed. They’re all Christian non-fiction, which I didn’t realize until I read through my first draft of this post. In fact, are they ALL about rest or the rituals of the church? Hmmm… not Finding God in the Waves and not Misreading Scripture through Western Eyes. Okay, I’ll have to give them their own post another week. And we’ll all agree to ignore those two books in the top photo until I have another day with sunlight and I can pull out the camera. 😉
My Five Favourite Audiobooks for Christians Seeking Rest and Ritual
1) An Unhurried Life: Following Jesus’ Rhythms of Work and Rest by Alan Fadling
I loved this book. Fadling shows how Jesus values a slow life, which we can see in both his own actions and in his stories. Think of the Good Samaritan: who was the one that helped the man beat up and left for dead? The Samaritan, of course; the religious leaders walked right by him because they had other things to attend to. Is the point that the religious leaders lacked love? Or it the point that they were simply too busy to allow themselves to be moved by the man’s troubles?
2) Rest: Living in Sabbath Simplicity by Keri Wyatt Kent.
This is another book about unhurried living, with a focus on making the Sabbath a priority and what that would look like for us. It inspired me to look at my Sundays (and it could be any day, really) and find ways to make it a different day for the rest of the week. I really need to listen to the book again and then do a full post for you on the ways my “day off” has made my life better.
3) Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans
I actually wasn’t planning to buy this book, but I unexpectedly ended up with an audiobook copy – and it turned out to be my favourite of all of Evans’ books. I don’t even know how to describe it: it’s not so much a story, but reflections about the church, organized around the sacraments. I think that my own new interest in the sacraments made this book all the better for me. Geez, I suddenly want to read it again (as soon as I finish Little Women, The Divine Dance, Gilead, and Liturgy of the Ordinary).
4) Teaching from Rest: a Homeschooler’s Guide to Unshakeable Peace by Sarah Mackenzie
You might know Sarah Mackenzie’s name from her popular podcast The Read-Aloud Revival. The book Teaching from Rest has spread like wildfire in the homeschooling community. I’m so glad — every homeschooling parent will enjoy the perspective that she brings to our hectic homeschooling lives. TWO of my homeschooling groups are working through this book together right now because it’s so good. I’m not one to highlight my books (I bought a paperback before the audiobook), but I could not resist because this book is filled with so much insight — and then I had to stop because I realized that I was highlighting more than I was leaving blank.This quote from C.S. Lewis on page 9 and her reflection around it made the price of the book worth it for me:
The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s “own.” or “real” life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life — the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one’s “real life” is a phantom of one’s own imagination.
5) Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner
The last audiobook that I finished is Mudhouse Sabbath. I already own the book (maybe as an ebook?), but I grabbed the audiobook version last week because it’s on at a great price as of right now (January 18, 2017): only $3.49 (US, I think).Winner is an Episcopalean who used to be Jewish, and in Mudhouse Sabbath she compares and contrasts the rituals of the two faiths, with a lot of explanation of the Jewish culture. It’s just so interesting. Girl Meets God is another one of her books that I loved — it talks about the spiritual journey she took while converting from one to the other.
There are a few more audiobooks that I have absolutely loved, but I’ll leave them for another post. I think there are a couple that I must be forgetting too, probably because I borrowed them from my library instead of buying through Audible and they aren’t in my listening history. Or maybe from the free audiobook site Libravox, though Libravox tends to be classic literature only. It’s all read by volunteers, so the quality can be hit or miss. But free, right?
If you’re a fan of free, sign up for an Audible trial. Audible will give you any two books that you want. You have 30 days to try the service out and you get to keep those two books, even if you cancel your subscription.
I LOVE meal plans — but I hate writing them up. I usually make them for 4-12 week periods, but this being the year of structure, I made one that would last 365 days.
It seems a bit extreme, doesn’t it?
The thing is, making a year-long plan didn’t take me all that much longer than making one for the month or the season.
I’m sharing the steps that I went through so that you can make one too, if you feel so inclined. It’s not hard. Boring, yes, but not hard. If you decide to make one too, just make sure you have something good to watch on Netflix (and tell me what that is, because I need a new show to love!).
Ready? Let’s get started.
1 Create Categories
Go ahead and open your favourite spreadsheet program. On the first worksheet, we’re going to brainstorm as many dinner meals as we can. Let’s break it down a bit so it’s more manageable.
First, come up with seven categories of meals. The seven categories can be anything — for example, you could go with cooking method, like this:
Sunday: simmer (think soups and stews)
Monday: bake (maybe roasts? Definitely pizza)
Tuesday: tacos (it is Tuesday, after all)
Wednesday: bbq (okay, I don’t have a BBQ, so you have to figure this one out on your own)
Thursday: stir-fry (except… what do you stir-fry besides a stir-fry?)
Friday: slow cooker (pulled pork sandwiches. So good)
Saturday: microwave (I’m not judging)
Another idea? You could embrace stereotypes (now I’m judging) and cook your way around the world:
Sunday: Italian (pasta and pizza)
Monday: Chinese (have you tried this baked sweet and sour chicken recipe?)
Tuesday: still Tacos (still Tuesday)
Wednesday: American (ummm… burgers and fries, I guess)
Thursday: Polish (perogies!!)
Friday: Thai (all Thai food is amazing)
Saturday: … I’ve got nothing. Australian food — is that a thing? Kangaroo meat and vegemite, I guess.
Personally, I find it easiest to organize using a combination of meats and meal styles
Saturdays started off as Fish, but that’s never going to happen in this family. Then I made it Vegetarian, and then I finally settled on Misc. It’s code for Bacon.
2 Come Up with Dinner Ideas
Once you’ve chosen your seven categories, type them as the headings for seven columns in your spreadsheet and get ready for some more brainstorming fun (the fun will probably come from the hilarious show you’ve chosen on Netflix).
Under each category, write down as many supper ideas as you can. When I made my list, I aimed for 12 meals in each category, which would have me repeat each one 4-5 times a year.
For example, Sunday: Soup
broccoli and cheddar soup
cream of mushroom soup
tomato-zucchini soup
tomato soup
potato-bacon soup
potato-leek soup
potato-parsnip soup
curried carrot and ginger soup
cream of celery soup
corn chowder
cream of cauliflower soup
chicken and ginger soup
thai chicken soup
That’s 12 types of soup. With one soup scheduled each week, I’ll be making each of the 4-5 times this year. Although to be honest, these are suggestions more than anything, in case I get stuck. I suspect that most weeks will be “this is what I found in the vegetable crisper” soup, simmered in a broth and topped with a few herbs from the garden. It’s always good.
Some of the categories can be easier than the others. For example, Pork only inspired a few ideas for me:
spare ribs
pork chops
pork fajitas
pulled pork (which I actually bumped to slow cooker Fridays)
ham
That’s okay though. The lists under each category don’t need to all be the same length because you will loop through each one individually.
One suggestion: it’s much better to have a short list of meals that you can make confidently than a long list filled with random recipes that you found on a gourmet blog.
That’s not to say that you can’t experiment in the kitchen — you can certainly scrap a scheduled meal anytime you feel inspired to try something different. However, the whole idea behind this meal plan is to reduce your stress. And you know what? The day that you schedule a fancy new meal like Vegan Celery Root and Mushroom Lasagna will inevitably fall on the day that you come home to find your toddler painted a mural with Worcestershire sauce on your living room carpet. And your couch. And did you leave your new coat on the floor? Yeah, on your coat too.
Don’t sabotage your meal plan with fussy recipes. If you stick with dinners that are basic or at least familiar, you’ll be able to do them even on days when you feel less energetic. Like last week: I was so tired, and the last thing I wanted to do was stand up make supper. Despite my lack of energy, I still made meatballs from scratch without any hesitation — because that’s what was on my meal plan. It was easier to just do it instead of coming up with something else. (Something else for us is always scrambled eggs. I’m so sick of scrambled eggs.)
Once you’ve got your supper ideas typed out, move on to breakfast and lunch. These lists are both much easier: I recommend that you come up with one breakfast and one lunch idea for each day of the week and that’s it.
I cannot tell you how much less my kids complain when they have a consistent breakfast and lunch schedule. My oldest is far less likely to whine about “homemade waffles with fresh whipped cream again” when she can see that pizza is coming up the next day. Homemade whipped cream, people.Kids.
Our breakfast | lunch schedule is as follows:
Day
Breakfast
Lunch
Sunday
Muffins
Grilled Cheese
Monday
Scrambled Eggs
Grilled Cheese
Tuesday
French Toast
Chicken Nuggets
Wednesday
Pancakes
Nachos
Thursday
Oatmeal
Rice Bowls
Friday
Cinnamon Rolls
Picnic Lunch
Saturday
Waffles
Pizza
Finished your lists? Before you sign off on your meal plan, take a step back and see if it makes sense. Is there a day that you’re rushed with afternoon swimming lessons and dance class? Why not move your slow cooker list to that day so you don’t have to fuss with a meal on those nights.
I originally had Grilled Cheese on Sundays and French Toast on Thursdays — but given that I bake my own bread on Saturdays, it made sense to move French Toast earlier in the week, when we have bread. Apparently, bread is important for French Toast.
4 Create the Master List
Once you’re satisfied with the general flow of your week, it’s time to create your master list. On a fresh worksheet, enter four headings at the top: Date, Breakfast, Lunch and Supper. I have a fifth column for Notes, where I paste in web links if I remember to. Which is almost never.
In the first column, under Date, you’re going to enter every date from now until the end of the year. Don’t worry, it just takes a second. Type out January 1, 2017 (or whatever day you want to start on) and then grab the fill handle on the spreadsheet cell and drag it down down down until you’re at December 31. (I like to see how close I can stop to December 31. Often I’m off by a few years.)
Next, you’re going to copy and paste all your fabulous meal ideas into the list. I’m not going to lie — this is pretty tedious, so load the next Netflix episode up. Or hey – you could get your kid to do the cut and pasting for you, and count it as a homeschool lesson in computers. There’s a good chance that your kid knows way more about computers than you do and will automate the process with macros or something, finishing in just minutes. But she also might go ahead and replace all your meal ideas with “pizza” as she goes. Gah! All that hard brainstorming work gone! Okay, let’s agree that we won’t let the kids do it. We can get through this ourselves.
First, copy and paste your list of seven breakfast ideas into the first seven days of your master list. Then copy it again to the next week, and then the next week. Do it again and again until you finish the year. Do the same with lunch.
Now for supper. Copy the first entry in your Sunday category (for me, that’s soup) and paste it into the first empty Sunday cell on your master list. Then go back and copy the second entry in your Sunday category and paste it into the next empty Sunday cell on your master list. You get what I’m saying, right? You’re going to copy the first category meal ideas to each Sunday on your mast lister. It’s a lot of back and forth, but you’ll get into a rhythm.
When you get to the bottom of your category’s list, start again at the top and keep copying and pasting until you reach the end of the year. Move to the next category. One by one, populate your list with the meals that you came up with.
A few tips:
You might want to change the order of meals a bit while you go, and of course, that’s allowed. For example, I made a point to paste the chilis and stews in the colder months more often and skip them entirely in the summer months.
You might also want to eat one particular meal (tacos, obviously) fairly regularly. When I made my master list, I pasted tacos every second Tuesday for the entire year, then I went back and filled in the remaining empty spaces with meals from the rest of the category.
It works the other way too — there might be a meal that you want to eat less often. For me, that’s Spare Ribs. I don’t have a lot in my Pork category, but I can’t afford to eat spare ribs every single month. If you saw how many I eat, you’d understand why. To make sure that we weren’t eating spare ribs too often, I added four extra instances of Pork Chops to my Pork list.
You might be wondering how you’re going to eat seasonally when your whole year rotates through the same meals. I’ve never found that to be a problem — I just adjust my recipes to include the fruits and vegetables that are currently available. For example, chicken wraps in the winter might have mashed sweet potato with cinnamon, while in the summer I garnish them with mango instead. Mmmm… those are the best. With Epicure’s Chipotle Aioli? AMAZING. I’m literally drooling as I type. Which is kind of gross, to be honest. I need to clean my laptop keyboard more often.
5 Print Off Your Fabulous Meal Plan
I suppose that you could go ahead and print the whole list out and stick it on your fridge, but that would be a bit much, no? I copied and pasted a week’s worth of meals into a pretty (well, not-ugly) Pages template and printed that off instead. I also included space to assign meal-time chores to my kids so that I know who I’m supposed to be nagging to set the table or peel the veggies.
You might be happier to go paperless and read your meal plan off a screen, or maybe you like to write your menu plan on a laminated sheet that you can reuse week after week (which automatically makes you 47 times more organized than me). Do whatever works for you!
And remember that you aren’t married to the schedule. It’s only a tool that will make life easier — there is no reason that you can’t ignore what’s written on any given day and have tacos instead.
These DIY doll beds are made from plastic bins, decorated to look like beds but leaving lots of room to store a growing collection of doll clothing. My favourite part? When your child outgrows dolls, you get a new plastic bin for your storage room.
I have a child who has trouble falling asleep. She’s often up until 11, 12 or even 1 am, and she’s been that way for as long as I can remember.
I have talked to doctors, chiropractors and naturopaths about it. We have tried magnesium and melatonin. And yes, of course we have tried earlier bed times and earlier wake times.
One doctor asked me what time she falls asleep. “Between 11 and I”, I replied.
“And what time does she get up?”
“Between 8 and 9.”
He quickly did the math and then announced that she gets enough sleep for a child her age; I should stop worrying, he said, because she just has a different inner clock than other kids.
Ok, fine, maybe she gets enough sleep — but what about me?! My two-year-old doesn’t share her clock. My five-year-old doesn’t share her clock. No matter what time I’m up, I have a child up too. Unless it’s three in the morning and I’m eating ice cream from the carton, watching reruns of Fresh Prince on Netflix with zombie eyes.
Must. Not. Give up. “Me” time.
To be honest, it’s not as bad as it used to be. I’ve learned to live without my 8-10 hours of beauty sleep, and really, a nine-year-old that gets up 53 times a night to tell you what’s happening in a book that she’s already read 869 times doesn’t require the same amount of energy as a two-year-old who is big enough to reach the carton of eggs in the refrigerator.
Christmas is the only time that I truly regret having kids that don’t sleep better. Because how am I supposed to make gifts when one of them could walk into the room at any moment?
This year, I tried setting firm rules: if you leave your bedroom after 10 for any reason, I said, Christmas is cancelled. It worked pretty well, and it was blissful: two more whole hours to myself, every single night. And I wisely used that time to watch Poldark each evening before pulling out the sewing machine at midnight.
Don’t judge. I know you understand. You know what it’s like to have a long day and have 600 things to do once the kids are in bed but you just. can’t. move. And Poldark! How do I pull myself away from that?
Somehow, though, I managed to finish off the gifts about a week before Christmas (which is probably a record for me to be honest). I made two dolls beds, one for each of the Waldorf dolls that I made for Christmas 2013 and then fixed up last year.
I found the tutorial on the Beneath the Rowan Tree blog — it’s such a genius idea. The beds are made from plastic bins, and even though they’re decorated to look like beds, the bin is still available to store a growing collection of doll clothing. Brilliant, right?
And I’m sharing how I did it so that you can make your own.
(1) The Bin
I chose bins that were short, though I suspect that any bin size would work. My only real concern was to make sure that the bed was long and wide enough to fit each doll comfortably. (I ended up stashing the tops in our “where did all these lids come from?!” bin down in the basement. The mattress is stiff enough that it doesn’t need any support.)
(2) The Bed Skirt
My first step was to sew a skirt to cover the bed. The bed on the BTRT blog has an adorable dust ruffle (and there is a quick tutorial on the blog post) — but at 2am, sewing a super long piece of fabric with casing for elastic seemed like too much work. I did a more fitted skirt instead.
Don’t think lazy — think modern chic. Lazy chic?
To be honest, I think the dust ruffle would have been much, much less work, because I ended up adding darts to my fabric to make it fit the curves of the bin better. Yeah, a dust ruffle would have been far easier. I wasn’t thinking clearly though — you have to remember that it was after midnight, and that I was emotionally raw from Poldark, so I wasn’t thinking clearly. Especially after finishing that last episode. Wow.
(3) A Mattress and a Pillow
So what was next? Well, after I finished Season 1 of Poldark, I needed to satisfy my insatiable need for more British drama, which led me to rewatch Downton Abbey. Didn’t I stay up all night watching Downton Abbey last year when I made those gorgeous amber wrap bracelets? It seems that spending the wee hours with the Crawley family is a bit of a Christmas tradition.
After a night or two of Lady Mary and the Dowager Countess, I was relaxed enough to continue on with the doll beds. With the bedskirt was finished, I started working on the mattresses.
I pulled out two pieces of foam that I had purchased for the beds. I got them from a specialty foam store which cut the pieces down to size for me; all I needed to do was add a pretty cover, which I made using this DIY from the Ana White site.
Warning: it’s one of those tutorials where you just have to blindly follow along and trust that it will work out beautifully. And it did. Honestly, the finished corners look so darn good that I didn’t want to cover them up with a fitted sheet, so I skipped the sheets entirely and moved on right to the doll pillows.
Pillows are crazy easy, of course. I dare say that you could manage those even if you were watching that horrid Downton special that ruined Christmas for all of England in 2012. Like I did.
Oh Masterpiece Theatre: why must you hurt us so?
Sigh. I need see another shot of a mattress cover corner.
I feel better now.
(4) Doll Quilt
I was so, so excited to make the quilts. I’ve been wanting to make a quilt for years, and this was my first try. Okay, technically I didn’t even do actual quilting stitches overtop (because tick tock, tick tock), but I still sewed a bunch of squares together and that was delightful enough for me. I probably broke all sorts of quilting rules but I don’t even care. Seriously. I have to jump on the quilting bandwagon for real.
Once the squares were sewn together, I laid it on top of an old fleece blanket that I cut down, and then I finished it all off with plain fabric on the back. I followed this tutorial by Cluck Cluck Sew here.
My one regret is not making the doll quilts bigger — they both could have used an extra row on both the top and the side — but I don’t know if I would have had a piece large enough in my fabric scrap pile for the backing if the quilt was any bigger. Meh. They work, right?
(5) Doll Clothes
I had originally planned to sew a whole bunch of doll clothes so that the bins wouldn’t be empty when the girls opened them on Christmas morning. I even cut out a bunch of pieces for the shirts and pants. Then, about half way through December, I realized that my project was taking a lot longer than I expected, given how much time at the beginning I had to dedicate to Poldark. Sigh. I’m such a sucker for dark, brooding Heathcliff-like characters, much to the chagrin of pretty much all of my friends.
I decided that instead of staying up an extra hour or two each night to sew doll clothes and enjoy the sunrise, I would just go to a used clothing store for children and buy adorable clothes in the clearance newborn section.
Yikes. What a terrible folding job. Clearly I did not take Marie Kondo’s advice to heart.
Anyway, I had great luck at the clothing store, like always. It’s such an inexpensive way to get doll clothes and I highly recommend it if your family includes an 18 inch doll or two. I suggest that you bring your child’s doll along so that you can pick the clothes that work best, but I don’t worry too much about the perfect fit. It’s not like a doll is going to trip over a hem, right? However, if you do bring the doll to the store, I feel that I should warn you that you will be that crazy lady with a doll in the shopping cart, trying clothes on her and chattering to her excitedly when you find something that’s just perfect. It really is best if you can avoid talking to the doll while you’re there. I’m not so good at that.
Oh well, it’s not like I’m going to see those people again, right? And now our two beloved dolls have brand new wardrobes tucked away in their own little beds, where they can get their full 8-10 hours of beauty sleep each night.
My grandma made me a ceramic music box with Santa Claus on it when I was little. Every year, my mother put it out on the coffee table on December 1 — and not a day sooner. I so clearly remember the ragged cardboard box that we stored it in, and the way that the old shredded newspaper fell to the table as I lifted the music box out. It was the same every single year.
It would still be weeks before we put the tree up, of course. It was the 80s; Christmas wasn’t a two-month marathon in the 80s. But even without the tree, the music box meant Christmas to me. The music box was the start of the season.
I have the music box in my home now, and I still love to pull it out at Christmas time and show it to my own kids. I haven’t found a place to display it yet, but that doesn’t matter — as you can see, it’s broken.
Not too badly, mind you. Last year an elf lost his head, though it looks like my husband was able to glue it back on for me. A couple points on the star are broken off, and there is a chip at the front. The part that bothers me most is the tree; it broke off a couple of years ago, maybe more. The tree is the part that you turn to make the music start. My music box has been silent for a long, long time.
We never got around to fixing it last year, and we didn’t fix it this year either. I’ll just put it back in it’s box as it is and we’ll store it with the rest of our Christmas decorations until next December. I don’t mind. It’s just one of many things that we didn’t get around to doing.
Like our advent calendar: my daughter and I sewed a beautiful banner-style calendar like the one from this post, but once we put the calendar up, we did a total of … zero … activities from it. We scrambled to buy candles for our advent wreath at the last minute and we never lit a single one. My wooden spiral that I envisioned as a beautiful table centrepiece is still in the bag on my dresser. My Jesse Tree ornaments haven’t even been printed off yet.
We didn’t go ice skating (no ice). We didn’t go skiing (okay, that wasn’t ever on my list). Scaredy Squirrel Goes to the Beach beat out the Christmas-themed storybooks under the tree every. single. night. We didn’t embroider the ornaments that I fell in love with, and we didn’t go carolling around the neighbourhood (but that’s on the list right after skiing).
We didn’t see old-timey fireworks at Westfield Heritage Village, and we didn’t visit Dundurn Castle to see how the MacNabs celebrated Christmas in the mid-19th century, though I suspect that hasn’t changed since we went last year.
It doesn’t matter though. We still did some things. We put up a tree. We put out our shoes for Sinterklaas. We watched our favourite Christmas movies and we listened to my three favourite Christmas albums 673 times. We made presents. We saw Santa. We spent more time at church. We hosted Christmas dinner. We ate turkey for a week.
So who’s to say that we didn’t do enough? Why do we all have a crazy vision of what Christmas is supposed to be anyway? And who even came up with the idea of doing a different “Christmas” activity every day for 24 days? When I was growing up, we just ate the chocolate in our Advent Calendar and carried on with our day as usual.
Thank goodness Jesus wasn’t born in the 21st century. Poor Mary might have gone nuts trying to create the perfect royalty-themed nursery (okay, so some of these are actually really cute). I suppose though that the whole rustic homebirth-in-an-open-barn might have appealed to the crunchy homesteading crowd. I’m willing to bet that it’s already a hashtag on Instagram. Even by first century standards, though, I think it’s clear that the God of the Universe wasn’t looking for “perfect” in the events of Jesus’ birth. Or maybe He was, but His definition of perfect can’t be found on Pinterest. Maybe His definition of perfect is more about doing what we can with what we’ve got — with humility and gratitude.
Going forward this year, let’s be less. Let’s do less. Let’s focus less on the big over-the-top moments and embrace the small everyday ones. Let’s worry less when things don’t work out. Let’s aim a bit lower but appreciate a lot more.
Let’s take a dream vacation, as an example. Maybe this year, you just can’t make it happen. Maybe you’ve been dying to take your kids to Disney World but it’s not in the budget, or you can’t get the time off of work. It’s okay. Be disappointed — but not too disappointed. When your kids are grown up, they’ll have just as many fond memories of a weekly game night at your kitchen table as they would of riding Space Mountain or meeting Cinderella.
It might not feel like you’re creating memories when you’re in the moment. I get that. My game nights is often just a weekly exercise in frustration because my two-year-old keeps stealing game pieces and my five-year-old keeps throwing tantrums when she doesn’t win and my husband keeps wanting to play Risk, which is just the most boring game in the world. You too, right? It’s okay. Just keep showing up, because over time these weeks that turn into months and years will feel like perfection when we look back on them with a hefty dose of nostalgia.
And Christmas? Honestly, I don’t think my kids are going to remember any one Christmas in particular. They aren’t going to sit around as adults and say, “Hey, remember back in 2016 when Forest was two and he had a wicked fever on Christmas day and he screamed and screamed at mom’s feet while she rinsed off the turkey and she cried and cried because she hates touching raw poultry and then the kitchen flooded and covered them both with water and in the commotion mom put the turkey in the roaster upside down and then later when she tried to flip it over, the turkey flipped it’s wing out and she couldn’t get the lid back on so she flipped the bird at the bird that wouldn’t flip and then she punched it so hard in the wing that it we probably should have reported her for cruelty to half-cooked animals?” No, at most they’ll remember how much they enjoyed eating the turkey. Or rather, how much they would have enjoyed it, if they all hadn’t refused to try turkey.
What I know they’ll remember are the little things that we do year after year: the traditions, no matter how small they are. My kids will remember how their dad liked to hide Lego Santa in a fun new spot each morning. They’ll remember putting their shoes out for Sinterklaas on Dec 5 and their stockings up for Santa Claus on Dec 24.
They’ll remember how much their dad loved to bake for the entire month of December. They’ll remember how excited I got every year to put my big golden star in the window and my cheerful bells on my door. They’ll remember how nice it was when the smell of pine filled the house, courtesy of my essential oil diffuser.
And I hope that they will remember that the Christmas season didn’t officially start until I put out the ceramic music box that my grandmother made. It’s not perfect, but magic isn’t found in perfection.
When’s the last time I did a books and yarn post for the Small Things Yarn Along link up? It looks like i haven’t posted any knitting since … August 25. Yikes!
I was inspired by my Making Christmas post from last year and set out to make all the gifts this year. Tell me — why is it that December rolls around and I assume that I have all the time in the world? As if I don’t have to keep the house clean and cook the meals and — was I supposed to still do homeschool lessons? Yikes. Oh well, we’ll double-down in January. Um… Mid-January.
This year I had hoped to make Muji Painting-inspired cowls for anyone and everyone using my fantastic knitting machine. Someday I will have to show you how it works — it blows my mind how quickly I can knit on that thing, even though I’m really not that good yet. I can only knit stockinette in straight lines, which works for scarves and cowls.
I made a test cowl on the machine and it turned out great. I love it. I happily bought more yarn to make a similar cowl for my sister-in-law but for some reason, I didn’t like it all. The knitted fabric curled up on itself and it just wasn’t flattering. I spent a good week wondering if I should buy a second skein of yarn to make the cowl wider and longer, but in the end I just decided to knit something different by hand. In 24 hours. Thank goodness for super bulky yarn, right?
This is the cowl that I came made. I wanted something that was snug around the neck and tall so it can be bunched up or folded down — I just think that they’re more cozy than long and skinny cowls.
I picked the Three Turn Cowl pattern from CreatingLaura.com; my yarn was Freia Handpaint Yarns’ Super Bulky in Canyon. I love the colour-changing effect. The pattern was quick and easy and I’d like to make a couple more with yarn from my stash.
Right now I’m back to working on my Gloucester Road Cardigan. I love the colour of this yarn and I love the moss stitch contrasting with the stockinette. I’m at a part where I have to start decreasing so I need to sit down and read through the pattern a few times before I can get going again. Easier said than done, right?
As for books, I’ve got a few on the go. I started Gilead by Marilynne Robinson but I can’t find it anywhere. I suspect my two-year-old has something to do with that. The second book I’m reading is the Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation by Richard Rohr. I’m not far in, but I’m enjoying it so far.
The third book I’m reading — the one I can’t put down — is Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. It’s my first time reading the book (don’t laugh), and I think it’s delightful. Don’t tell me what happens if you’ve read it. I think someone dies, because I remember Joey putting the book in the fridge in that old episode of Friends?
Gah! I just looked up the clip on youtube to link to and now I know who dies.
ARGH.
Oh well, I’m too far in to stop now.
Have you had time to knit or read over the holidays?
Some old friends met me for a coffee recently and commented on my perfect life.
My perfect what-now?
Apparently my blog gives people the impression that it’s nothing but sunshine and roses here, which is kind of hilarious. Life is not perfect. I generally suck at it. There is not a day that goes by where I don’t feel like a total failure at some point, usually because I’m fighting with the kids about messy rooms/skipped meals/messy kitchens/missing homeschool lessons/messy everything.
If you want to know how my life is going, check out the dates on my blog posts. Have I put a few new posts up this month? Then we’re probably doing pretty good. Have 6 long weeks passed without a single update on my site? It’s likely that I don’t have time to write; I’m probably too busy searching the local school board’s website about late enrolment dates because I. am. done.
I sat down to write my summary of Blogging 2016 with a bit of sadness. After all, I never have time to write, my traffic is down right now, my income was practical nil this year, and I’ve failed to master Pinterest in any way, shape or form. Probably because the lords of Pinterest keep seeing me post online about how much Pinterest drives me crazy. They hate me now. It’s mutual.
So, 2016: lousy year.
Or was it?
When I set out in 2016, I made some very specific goals:
Blog weekly. Ideally more than that. FAIL
I did not blog weekly, but I did post 23 times, which is like every two and a half weeks? That’s not as bad as I’d feared. I can work with that. I’m not completely hopeless.
Increase the traffic to my site. SUCCESS
Why did I think traffic is down? It’s been better this year by far. And I plan to double it next year.
Create a regular newsletter to complement the blog. FAIL
I did not create a regular newsletter, but it’s still on the to-do list. Like, the top of the to do list. I might even send the first newsletter out tonight. Or not.
Make a bit of money so I can chip in for household bills. FAIL
Nope. Didn’t happen. Truthfully, this might have been my worst year yet in terms of income, but it’s because I didn’t go after sponsored posts. I just didn’t have time.
Post on a big site, someday. Like the Huffington Post. SUCCESS
I did this! I did post on the Huffington Post Canada site — FOUR times! AND I was lucky enough to have each of my four posts promoted on the HuffPo Facebook and Twitter accounts, AND one of those posts was translated into French and Spanish AND featured on the site’s home page! I totally have a screen shot (I’m such a nerd): you see my teeny-tiny face in column one, a post about the competitiveness of Canada on the international markets in column two, and then a big old tampon ad in column three — which is probably the only reason that I haven’t framed it ha ha ha.
There were other successes too, not related to my goals. At the beginning of the year, I signed up for a free 6 week blogging mentorship course run by Julie Nowell. She’s the one that connected me with the HuffPo editors, and she’s also the one who inspired me to try making a video for Facebook. Oh, the Easter Egg video. It’s been watched over 12,700 times now, though I suspect that 700 of those views are my own kids. Funny, but the other video that I made – the video of me ironing to promote a blog post – only garnered 350 views. Still, I can’t believe that over 300 people watched me iron pockets on a shirt.
Other successes? One of my posts hit the StumbleUpon jackpot and brought 14,438 page views in a single day (an astronomical leap in traffic for me). Finally, I published another article in EcoParent magazine this year. You wouldn’t believe what a treat it is to go to a magazine rack at the bookstore and see my name in print there! Honestly, I feel like I might actually get to be a writer when I grow up after all!
After making this list, I don’t feel so bad about the year at all. In fact, I’m excited — and I’m excited to see what happens in 2017.
I’ve set some more goals, though they look suspiciously like the same ones I had for 2016:
Blog weekly. Ideally more.
Grow my traffic.
Write a regular newsletter to complement the blog.
Make a bit of money so I can chip in for household bills. Actually, my goal is to make enough money blogging that I can hire childcare once or twice a week — so that I can blog. Because I love it.
Post on a big site, someday. Like Well Family on the New York Times website. Lofty goal, I know. But you never know…
Are you curious to know what posts were the most popular in 2016? Here’s a list of the top posts, based on page views — but before I get to them, let me thank you for being my reader. I keep hearing that blogging is dead, so I’m delighted to have found people who will faithfully visit my site, leave comments, and share my posts with their friends. I never, ever thought I’d love blogging as much as I do, and I suspect that part of the reason I love it so much is because of all of your support. ♥
“School moms, I don’t know how you do it. … You somehow manage to drag your kids out of bed and then feed them and dress them and groom them enough to meet the generally accepted level of hygiene, and you do this all before 9:00am.
I can confidently say that this is simply beyond my skill level as a parent.”
“I had no idea that I would love these little lessons so much.
Simple? Yes. And so perfect.
Not too long, not too short. A pleasant mix of “teacher-led” and “independent” learning, covering grammar, poetry, picture study, and copywork using quality literature. The Charlotte Mason in me was like, “wwwwwwwhaaaaaaaaat??!?” (Just kidding, the Charlotte Mason in me is far more articulate and dignified and even has a haughty British accent.)
#7: Our Kitchen Makeover
“I didn’t love my kitchen but I didn’t hate it either. But now? Now it’s the most beautiful space in our house – you’d never believe it was the same room!”
“Harbour was more difficult to get in. First, you cannot adjust the carrier’s body while the child is on your back (unless your double jointed, I suppose). This meant I had to put her on my front first to do the adjustments while she did her best to claw my face off and escape (refer to paragraph two). The fabric is clamped tightly in the rings, which is great because you know that it’s secure but a bit more difficult to manipulate when your child is punching you in the kidneys.”
I don’t even know why this post gets so much traffic. I don’t see many shares on Facebook or Pinterest. I’m baffled.
“I grabbed a copy of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo from the library, in hopes that rereading it would give me a jolt of inspiration. Instead I was reminded that I’m the only person in North America that doesn’t love that book. Oh, right…
I read this book a few years ago, expecting to fall madly in love with the Konmari method. Instead, I nearly sprained my eyeballs because I was rolling them so much. Why wasn’t Kondo’s charm working on me?”
“I was left with two wingless fairies on my hands.
I wanted to get some gorgeous silk wings from a toy store down the street. But when I casually mentioned them to my husband, he casually mentioned the garage door that broke last week. And the iPhone that I shattered on the weekend. Not exactly the best week to be buying fancy costumes.”
“When I downloaded the curriculum samples, I discovered that the curriculum was more than just history; it was science, geography, composer study, art, literature, Bible and more — all conveniently scheduled in a day-by-day planner.
It was the open-and-go Charlotte Mason homeschool curriculum that I was looking for. Cue church bells and angel choirs.”
“This post is for all the moms out there with a stash of old amber necklaces just begging to be made into something new and pretty. Because if you’re anything like me, those necklaces have been gathering dust for half a decade now. Go on and dig the necklaces out of storage – I’m going to show you how easy it is to make a wrap bracelet using the amber beads.”
“On Saturday night, we set up our Catan board with the hexagonal shapes and the number discs, then we placed the frame carefully over top to keep everything in place. It fit perfectly. Like, so perfectly that every future Settlers game should come with a $6 gift card to Ikea.”
All the items in this list are for gifts that you can make yourself — they are not finished objects. If you don’t have time for crafting during the holidays, cut yourself some slack and let someone else make the gifts for you!
Two years ago, I knit up a whole bunch of Christmas gifts. That was the year that I knit up the cozy cowls and those epic Star Wars mittens. It made sense, right? I had a perfect newborn baby that liked to sleep on my lap, so I had a lot of time to sit around and knit. Sigh. Happy times.
But then last year? Last year I had a one-year-old who didn’t let me sit for a moment. That was fine, of course — we just tried the “shopping” thing like everyone else. And it was great! Until shortly before Christmas when I realized that I desperately missed the act of making gifts. I swore I wouldn’t make the same mistake this year. This year I vowed to start early. Like in January. Or maybe spring. August for sure.
DEFINITELY by November.
30th.
Normally when I’m in a crafty mood, I browse Pinterest and Etsy for inspiration. Often I don’t need much of a pattern — I can figure out how to make something with a bit of trial and error. However, when a deadline starts to close in, I have ZERO time for experimentation — I just want the pattern and I want to start right away. Because it’s ALMOST CHRISTMAS and I have a HUGE list of things to make so EVERYONE LEAVE MOM ALONE ALREADY.
Personally, I’ve found Etsy is a lifesaver during these times. If you search Etsy for “pattern”, “pdf” or “printable”, you’ll find a ton of tutorials that will tell you exactly how to make a craft and the supplies you need to buy for it. There’s no guessing. And there is no need to worry about shipping times either — many of the products are available as instant downloads.
I’ve made a list of some pretty amazing ideas from Etsy that you can make yourself, gifts that are way more unique than what you’ll find at the mall. Some of the gifts involve sewing, some involve knitting. Some gifts might require you to print off a few sheets and then cut them up with scissors. Some gifts just need you to print off a page and stick it in a frame. Bammo! Done!
With love, of course.
20 Patterns and Printables from Etsy for Fabulous DIY Christmas Gifts
How much do I love these paper dolls? They are soooo cute, and I know for a fact that both my 5-year-old and my 9-year-old would happily play with them — because both my daughters happened to walk by while I worked on this post and both were absolutely smitten. Of course, my two-year-old would love them too, but more in a rip-off-the-heads kind of way. That’s okay, though. He’ll flash his dimples at us and we’ll all melt and then we’ll just pull up the PDF file and print more.
The file comes with six different dolls and 29 outfits that you can colour yourself or leave for the child to do. This could seriously be the simplest gift on this list but it’s one of my favourites.
(2) Paul the Toadstool Pattern by Lalylala Skills required: crochet
Skill level: suitable for beginners (level 2 – easy), according to listing
I’ve already started making this toadstool doll for Forest, and then I’m making another one for my niece. Even though I’m much more comfortable knitting than I am crocheting, this project is going very well. I’m always amazed at how quick crocheting is compared to knitting! If I get both dolls finished off soon, I might have to make a couple of dolls for my girls too. The hardest part is picking which doll to make because they are all so cute. Seriously, it took me weeks to settle on the Toadstool. Maybe I’ll do the kangaroo? The dragon? I can’t decide!
We’ve been using dryer balls for years now. I made them myself and I’ve never had to replace them, though I could easily use a half dozen more given that my kids play with them all. the. time. Honestly, I could never make white ones, as pretty as they are in this picture. My kids would decide that they’re snowballs and then they would toss them at me and then they would have to run because mom never loses a snowball fight.
Really, the only downside to wool dryer balls is the cost — they’re surprisingly expensive to buy! Go ahead and make them yourself for next to nothing — it’s so easy, and they’re so practical.
(4) Madawaska Mittens by Rebecca Mae Designs Skills required: sewing
Skill level: beginner/intermediate, according to listing
I have a pair of upcycled sweater mittens that I adore — they’re so warm and cozy and they’re 100% unique. Upcycled sweater mittens would be a lovely gift for anyone really, so grab those sweaters that your significant other shrunk in the wash last winter (not bitter, not bitter, not bitter) and give them new life!
(5) Cardboard Dollhouse by Dolls and Daydreams
Skill required: Box cutting. And possibly gluing, if you plan to get fancy.
I really think this is just the most clever gift idea, especially if you don’t want to spend much. This tutorial from Dolls and Daydreams tells you exactly how to cut a cardboard box out to make a dollhouse that you can decorate as you please. Or, if you prefer, you can purchase the additional house skins, print them off and paste them onto the cardboard and voila: instant farm house. Or doll house. Or school.
(6) Knit Fox Hood Cowl Rene by MukiCraft Skills required: knitting, but crochet patterns available as well Skill level: easy/intermediate, according to listing
I don’t know about your kids, but my kids hate wearing hats — unless they’re fun in some way. It’s the same with coats, actually. Harbour would have worn an unlined duck raincoat every day for three winters straight if I gave in. Now my two-year-old is the one throwing fits when I make him wear a winter coat on chilly days.
Clearly these cowls would be a big hit in our home and I’m kicking myself for not making some already. I’m thinking the Fox for Forest, and I know Harbour has her heart set on the reindeer. Although I wonder if she’d go for the bunny poncho? It’s crazy adorable. I should probably just do both to be safe.
(7) Bible Verse Print by Salt Studio Prints
Skills required: sending file to printer
We have a fair bit of “word art” in our house, but I know our “Make More Forts” print is going to look out of place in my mother’s living room. No problem.
Etsy has a wide selection of beautiful prints to choose from, like my (okay, everyone’s) favourite Bible verse done up beautifully by Salt Studio Prints. Once you’ve chosen your word art, you can print off at home or send off to Staples for an extra spiffy print job. After that, all you need is a nice frame and you’ve got a lovely gift that people will haveto like. Because it’s from the Bible. 😉
I have had my heart set on making these gorgeous Christmas tree ornaments since I first saw them. I’m particularly fond of the swans a-swimming, but I might have to admit to myself that I’m not going to have time to make them all this year. For the sake of my sanity, it’s probably better to start at the beginning of the song and do one or two a year.
I think that would be a pretty cool gift, too. Family would look forward to the handmade ornaments that you give them each year, and then you’re gift list is covered for 12 whole years. Sweet.
Crayon rolls are easy-to-make, incredibly handy to have stashed in your bag, and just make a snappy-looking gift. I’ve actually made a stack of them up as party-favours before — they’re that quick and easy!
A crayon roll doesn’t just work as a gift for kids, of course. With the adult colouring fad still going strong, you could adjust the size of the roll to accommodate pencil crayons or markers and give it to your trendy friends.
Do the pubs in your town host colouring nights too? This whole thing baffles me, because moms have been colouring to relieve stress for decades! We never needed fancy “adult” colouring books to do it, either. You should see the depth of feeling that I can inject into an outline of Elmo. It’s masterful.
(10) Essential Oil Carrying Roll by Everything Nice Sewing
Skill required: Sewing
Skill level: it will take an afternoon for beginners, according to the listing
I stumbled across this amazing idea when I was looking for a crayon roll tutorial. It’s brilliant! I have so many friends that carry their essential oils around with them and this would keep the bottles safe. Although breaking a few random bottles in a purse might create a fabulous new signature blend. “Wow, what’s that your diffusing today?” “This? Oh, I call it Bottom of the Bag blend…”
I rarely carry oils around with me — they’re stashed way up high, far out of my children’s reach. Even so, I think carrying rolls would be a handy way to keep them organized, rather than all loose in my cupboard.
(11) Wee Dwellings by Beneath the Rowan Tree Skills required: knitting, felting, needlefelting Skill level: both newbie and veteran, according to the listing
How sweet are these little gnome home from Beneath the Rowan Tree? Pretty much everything on her Etsy store is fabulous — I often visit it for inspiration.
These little homes are hollow inside, perfect for stashing all sorts of “treasures” inside. That’s pretty much Harbour’s favourite thing to do, which is why I can never find my keys when I need them.
I almost want to make up a whole Christmas village that I take out in December. They could serve as homes for our Kindness Elves. Who am I kidding, though? My kids would never let me pack them up for 11 months of the year.
I love advent calendars — or the idea of them, at least. I have tried several times to make one for our family, but usually it’s last minute and I do something in scrapbook paper because it’s easy and inexpensive. Unfortunately, paper don’t last from year to year and I end up scrambling again when December rolls around again.
One year, I was clever and I bought a beautiful wooden calendar at 50% off on Boxing Day — I just knew it would become a beloved family keepsake. Except that each year another door falls off — it’s like a reverse advent calendar. A really slow one.
The advent calendar is gorgeous though, and I can imagine that it would be cherished by the recipients for years to come. A family could put in toys, chocolates, Jesse tree ornaments, Bible verses, activities – anything really!
I don’t just make flimsy Advent Calendars — I rarely even fill them up. Yup — I totally stick blank cards in half the slots, hoping that inspiration will strike before we get there. To date, I don’t think my kids and I have ever once finished a whole advent calendar because I always run out of activity ideas. How many times can you use “watch Elf as a family”?
OK, bad example. Everyone knows you can watch Elf non-stop and never get sick of Buddy.
I think this Advent Kit is brilliant, because not only does it offer 60 different activities for parents to choose from, but it has a matching boolket that includes craft instructions, templates and recipes. And let’s face it — I’m never going to get around to finding the instructions for a twig and ribbon Christmas tree on Pinterest. I’m too busy crocheting toadstool dolls and embroidering goose eggs.
Having everything organized for me in advance would be a wonderful gift, and I’m willing to bet that most moms with little children would appreciate this ready-to-go family tradition that can be used year after year after year.
(14) Maria Wrap Apron by Maven Patterns
Skill required: Sewing
Skill level: advanced beginner/intermediate, according to the listing
Aprons — particularly aprons with pockets — are THE BEST, especially if you’re a mom with a newborn that spits up six times a day. And then a mom of a toddler who thinks you’re a walking Kleenex box. And then a mom of a preschooler who gives you 42 handfuls of rocks to carry home every time you leave the house.
I have an apron just like this one and I absolutely love it. The criss cross back makes it extremely comfortable — much nicer than an apron that loops around your neck. I wear it all the time and I constantly get compliments on it, which is likely because I hang out with a lot of people who love aprons as much as I do. Because aprons are amazing.
(15) Midori Weekly Planner by Happy Digital Download Skills required: Printing, stapling and trimming
Do you have someone that uses a Traveller’s Notebook like the one I made last week? Are any of your friends a fan of bullet journalling? Etsy has beautiful notebook templates that you can print off and assemble yourself. It’s a lovely handmade gift that would take very little time to make, yet be very practical!
I like this weekly plan by Happy Digital Download in particular. When I designed my own booklets, I found it very hard to make the pages look nice but not require a lot of ink for printing. This one is so much more stylish than anything I came up with, but it wouldn’t cost a ton to print.
If I new that mermaid tail blankets would take off, I would made a set for my girls when I made the tails for their dolls three years ago! Mermaids have always been big in our home and I know that both of my girls would get a kick out of a mermaid tail blanket.
I picked this pattern in particular because it promises to knit up fast with super bulky yarn, which is always appreciated when Christmas is closing in. I even have the exact perfect yarn somewhere in my house — now I just have to figure out where I stashed it…
They’re soooooo cute, but so different from standard baby room decor — the perfectly unexpected gift for your hipster friends setting up an animal-themed nursery. Just like the other prints, you simply need to print it and frame it and your gift is done.
Okay, another one. I can’t resist.
It’s a baby owl! And it’s adorable! Okay, that’s enough. But you should go check out the other ones. Especially the koala bear.
(18) Felt Gingerbread House by Tiny Little Dots Skills required: cutting, embroidery optional
This pattern had me at the words “no sew”.
The parents of toddlers are going to love you for this Christmas-themed gingerbread house that’s — and this is key — completely quiet AND small enough to pack away in a bag when the season is over.
Do you remember playing with felt or flannel boards as a kid? I remember them from Sunday School: I remember the way flannel Zacchaeus felt when I pulled him off the flannel grass and then stuck him up at the top of a flannel tree so he could see flannel Jesus. Then I smoothed everything out with my hand.
This activity back all the memories, and I’m pretty sure I’ll happily be down on the floor with my two-year-old and my five-year-old, decorating the gingerbread house over and over and over.
What is it with kids and mailboxes? My five-year-old never gets tired of making cards, then “finding” them in the mailbox a few minutes later. I remember my oldest doing the same, and I have no doubt our two-year-old will follow suit. This little mail set would be used many times over at our house, I know.
Not only does it have a mailbox, but it also has a snail mailbag, a pigeon crayon holder and fabric envelopes.
When you check out the listing, be sure to click over to the plush chicken pattern too. I need that chicken in my life.
Etsy has a lot of fabulous cross stitch patterns that you’re never going to find at the local craft store. Harry Potter, Star Wars, Totoro — there are so many cool ones! We’re on a big Harry Potter kick right now that I expect to last … 11 more years, give or take a few? So Harry Potter-themed anything is a safe bet.
I’m planning to give this pattern to my daughter, along with the required fabric and thread. As in, do it yourself, kid. And believe me, she will be thrilled.
Embroidery is a nice, relaxing hobby that not enough people do anymore. Why not find out what your favourite tween is in too and find a pattern that they can do? It will give them something else to do besides Minecraft over the Christmas holidays.
When I started this post, I never expected to find so many great ideas — and I want to do them ALL. Thankfully it’s Harbour’s birthday in February, so if I don’t finish these crafts by Christmas, I can use them as birthday gifts. Although I’m sure that by then I’ll have found 21 more amazing ideas that I just have to do!
Need even more gift ideas? Head over to iHomeschoolNetwork.com for a massive list gift ideas!
This post is for letter “J” in the 2016 ABCs of Homeschooling Through the Holidays series on Life of a Homeschooling Mom. Click here to see all posts.
It is HARD to stick to the lesson plan when the holidays are in full swing. Sometimes I’m so preoccupied with Christmas planning that days come up where I suddenly realized that it’s 11 o’clock and we haven’t done any school yet. Has anyone even eaten breakfast? Christmas cookies? Those have eggs in them, right? Sometimes?
On those frazzled days, it’s nice to throw lesson plans out the window and do a fun activity with the kids instead. Especially if that activity results in beautiful gifts to share with friends and can be documented in the homeschool agenda as a lesson. Like making a delicious hot chocolate mix from scratch, as an example. It’s the perfect Christmas gift to make with your kids.
Making mixes is so easy and SO tasty. And so homeschooly, too, because I make my kids double and half the recipe, based on the size of the mason jars that we find. Math lesson? Done.
Head on over to Life of a Homeschool Mom to find the recipe and ways that you can up the schooliness while you do it. Or just make it for yourself and stash it in your secret drawer of mom treats. I won’t tell.
