Thursday, November 9, 2017

9 kitties in a basket, rendering a little bit of wax, and my new egg sign


The 2 older siblings, enjoying the 7 warm new babies on top of them..its been cold here, and thats a tiny kitty bed. They are so precious. I can't believe how loving a cat family is. We have Momma kitty and the 2 surviving kittens from her first kitter, plus her 7 babies. They will be given away shortly. They just pile on each other for comfort, and if their bed gets removed you know it, they get very very upset. They feel safe only in a bed. I feel bad for the ones who will go without a buddy, I see the 'emotional' support they give each other.



I made stencils for an outdoor sign. Cricut machine is definitely broken, I have to hold my hand on the blade to cut through the paper.

Its hard to find egg signs *that aren't expensive


I had found clearanced, rough cedar boards from Wal-Mart's craft department and used acrylic paints, I will seal it with Thompson's Water seal. I am going to make a raw honey sign next.



 I had one empty frame sitting on my counter for a week, I didn't know what to do with it, since we aren't opening the bees back up at this point.
So I rendered the wax in the oven at 180 to 190, using a turkey pan and mesh screen- for windows. It came from my bee vacuum supplies, the roll I bought this past summer. I layered 3 pieces of screen. And look how nice it filtered the wax for me. Maybe enough for 2 tea lights! LOL! No wonder real wax and real honey is so darn $$.  Bees aren't out to make a profit, as all their goods comes in smaller quantities. For if they had a use for money, and as hard as bees work for their home- 'busy as a bee', they surely would rule the world better than we!!


We were thinkning it might be fun to get a wax seal to play around with for thank you notes.  One with a honey bee! 

Saturday, November 4, 2017

Marian Ornament, my 5th one and done! Whew

Day # 24 The Blessed Virgin Mary
  I don't think I could have painted a woman's figure very well, so I just went for the Immaculate Heart. That's my 5th ornament for our little 8 man swap.




 I am done! I even got some finished ornaments today in the mail from California. So we are moving along already!


So we are up to 7 completed ornaments for our swap, so far! Yea!



Thursday, November 2, 2017

The Abraham's tent and Baby Moses in a basket ornaments

We got two more ornaments done tonight for our Jesse Tree ornament swap. 
Day #5 Abraham's tent, which is a mini tent.



Knox thought it would be cool to put a little flap on the backside to make it really look enclosed.




The brace across the bottom middle helps it stay in form.


Then we made Day #9 Baby Moses ornaments.
  I found these cute little willow baskets on Amazon for cheap! They are very sturdy too.  



We stuff some fluff and hot glued fabric around them. Then stuck them down into the baskets.




Everything has a hanger and is ready, one more ornament to go.


Wednesday, November 1, 2017

getting our ornaments done, Ruth and Boaz- wheat and baby Jesus- Nativity

We got two ornaments done today (well one needs a hanger on it technically, but I'm calling it done). If you do Mother of Divine Grace you have to make ornaments anyway in 2nd grade..fyi.. This is our 4th swap I think, AND, we normally make multiple ornaments to get two sets back, but because we only had 8 ladies this year, we are doing one set for each of us since we have to tackle so many ornaments. Actually I sort of like only have to make 8 of each, its pretty easy and cheap. Normally I would make 28 to 35 ornaments. What's nicer is most stuff comes in bulk but around 8 to 10 per pack, so this was fantastic!

First ornament we knocked out- the wheat from the story of Ruth and Boaz, Day 11.


Ribbon, gold circle, and heads of wheat all of which I had from an old ornament swap, I just bought the new clothes pins- which I am always out of.



Then we did the Nativity from Day 27. 


oops, broke off the sponge in the bottle of paint...that's the last of that color too. The only thing I bought for this ornament was the pieces of circular cut wood at Walmart.

 We cut the baby Jesus manger silhouettes from the Cricut New Testament Cartridge. Along with a gold circle from the George Shapes cartridge. My paper was all in our paper stock pike along with our modge podge.





Brad will drill a hole in them for us to put hanger on, and then they really will be done.  Next we have the Moses in a basket, Marian symbol, and a tent (which I thought of something completely new for, never been tried..see it here first!) Keep checking back!

All Saints Day 2017


Happy All Saints Day!  This was Sunday taken on the way to their party.




And our goofy picture below from trick or treating.
St. Olaf, St. Mother Teresa, St. Therese, and St. Magnus.







Daddy walking a little nun.




She had 1 big tootsie roll sucker and that's all she cared about *and holding daddy's hand. It was so sweet!