Paper "Pinecone" Christmas craft

Canadian Living Paper Pinecone craft

Materials:

• Tracing paper
• Medium-weight decorative craft paper, such as solid colour or patterned scrapbooking paper
• Card stock or recycled greeting cards (for pattern templates)
• 26-gauge wire
• Sharp-tipped craft scissors (such as Fiskars No. 5 Micro-Tip craft scissors)
• Glass beads
• White craft glue
• Sewing needle or straight pin

Directions:

1. Print out, then photocopy or trace pattern pieces A, B, C and D onto piece of tracing paper; using craft scissors, cut out. Pattern pieces here

2. Trace pattern pieces onto card stock or recycled greeting card to make reusable pattern templates; cut out.

3. Trace pattern pieces onto decorative paper to make number specified; cut out.

4. With sewing needle, pierce holes in centre of pattern pieces B, C and D.

5. Cut piece of wire approx 30 cm (12 inches) long.

6. Glue one end of the wire between the two A pieces (see photo); let dry.

7. From the opposite end, thread two beads along wire to bottom. Thread wire through remaining pieces in the following order: B, C, D, D, C, threading two or three beads onto wire between each pattern piece.

8. Finish the pinecone by threading three or four beads on top of piece C.

9. Wrap the remaining length of wire around a pencil to create a spiral; bend end of wire into a hook to hang on Christmas tree.

Tip: Add a bit of curve to your pinecone by slightly bending each "petal" of the pattern pieces around your finger to give a more realistic look.

Hilarious British Animal Voiceovers

My kids favorite part of a trip to the zoo (and mine too) is what we call "animal commentary". I "talk" for the animals - something like what you see on the following video- although I am sure I am not as funny.

Yucky Chemicals in my Toothpaste

Back in the spring, I started trying to make some healthy changes to my life. I started a test-run of eating vegan and liked what I saw and felt and am still going strong in that department (you can read about my vegan adventures here.)

I also was hoping to rid my medicine cabinet, make-up bag, and cleaning supply cupboard of all things containing chemicals and replace them with natural products or home-made natural concoctions. I am someone who hates waste and is also very frugal, so I figured that I should use up what I have and replace them as they were used up. There are a few problems with that line of thinking. First, I have some products that have been on my shelves for possibly up to 20 years! How quickly I thought I would use those up, I am not certain. Another thing hampering the usage is...the usage. I don't use cleaning or beauty products very often, so even though I have a mountain of them, they don't really get much use. I could possibly take another 20 years just to try and use *some* of these babies up. The last thing is that I keep reading more and more bad things about the ingredients that are in many of these products and I just can't tolerate using them anymore.

So, some time over the Christmas break I am just going to offer up almost all of them on freecycle. I will save only what my non-natural lovin' honey thinks he needs. I have already started putting some things in boxes- let's see if I miss them.

Two things prompted me to finally take the leap.

1. I am so sick of clutter! I came to a breaking point in this. I took pictures of my cluttered house. These are my "before" pictures. I plan on sharing them with you as soon as I feel I can also post some "progress" pictures. I am imagining a life without bottles and tubes and jars of stuff that I rarely or never use. Sigh. Bliss. Love.

2. One change I made early on was a switch to a more natural toothpaste. A couple of months ago, I sort of slipped back into using our normal toothpaste again (which my family is still using). I got two horrible canker sores in a row. I thought this was a little odd, so I googled "causes of canker sores". Although no one is certain what causes canker sores, it is suspected that one cause is a reaction in some people to sodium lauryl sulfate, a common ingredient in many toothpastes. Since I had switched from a toothpaste without, to a toothpaste containing sadium lauryl sulfate in the time I had the canker sores, this was the obvious guess for me. I switched back to my natural toothpaste and haven't had another canker sore.

However, around the time I started getting canker sores, I also got a rash that is a lot like acne behind my ears and on the back of my neck. If I had a reaction to sodium lauryl sulfate in my toothpaste, then it would be pretty likely that I would also have a reaction to the same ingredient in my shampoo! I am just in the process of switching out my shampoo. This was just the motivation I needed, though, to get rid of all these chemicals from my house.

Thank you chemicals for making yourselves known and showing me that using you up does more harm to me than I am comfortable with. It is best we go our separate ways.

Love That Song!

This is a song I love anyway, thanks to Moulin Rouge. However, I happened across this version today and just love it. I love the sound of her voice and if you check out some of their other videos you will see just how musically inclined and talented she is. I love the piano "plucking" that her partner does too.

The Case for Memorization

My family recently watched Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. We absolutely loved it, especially my oldest daughter who is a Tim Burton fan. We are all long time fans of Alice in general though. The storyline is totally different than the Alice we are all used to. I loved how this "sequel" seemed to just fit and feel so right and still be a great story on its own. I loved how Johnny Depp (The Mad Hatter) kept asking "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" through the whole movie. I loved how the Jabberwocky had a main role.

I have been a fan of The Jabberwocky for as long as I can remember, but seeing this movie and later watching You Tube videos of kids reciting poetry



(like this one) reminded me that once upon a time I wanted my kids to be consistantly be working on memorizing poetry as well as scripture.

I had made the decision to start with The Jabberwocky when I happened upon The Case for Memorization, a blog post that coincidentally mentions The Jabberwocky. I was already in the right mind-frame, so the post just solidified for me what I need to do.

3 Year Old Recites "Litany" by Billy Collins

My daughter showed me this video. She said it would "inspire" me. Oh ya. It inspired me all right. Inspired me to want to have another child, so I can "do better" with the next one. (eye roll) Yeesh!

Every Sucess Comes with a Little Failure

I love those stories you hear about famous or successful people that tell of their failures or setbacks on their way to greatness. Stories like how it took Thomas Edison over 10,000 attempts to create the light bulb. Can you even imagine? I would never have the perseverance to keep up with that. Here is a link to a post from A Pilgrim's Progress with a great video on these kind of failures.

I really get inspired and encouraged by this type of thing. I hope you get something out of it too.