What I Did on My Christmas Vacation, Pt 2.

This was a really cute way to display our Christmas cards.  It was also wildly impractical.  The cards are stuck to the door with loops of off-brand Scotch tape, which does not hold well to begin with, and certainly not when a two year old is practicing his door-closing skills.  Next year we'll try something a little sturdier . . .

The star is cut from felt.  I made a stencil using these directions for cutting a five-pointed star with one snip, attributed to Betsy Ross.  Sounds apocryphal to me, but whoever the inventor, it works like a charm.

I had a hard time parting with this last minute gift for my brother's girlfriend.  For that matter, I had a hard time parting with the C.S. Lewis anthology that I gave her, too.  Absolutely should have bought myself a copy, too.

The ornament is a dressed up yarn doll, a model that has been around for decades (I made my first one in fifth grade (almost two decades ago), out of directions from a book from the fifties, and I'm sure the idea is older than that).  There are quite a few variations online; my inspiration came from these directions for an Angel Ornament, with a few mods.  Everywhere she directs to use hot glue, I used needle and thread instead.  Hot glue is messy (and I would have had to dig the gun out from who knows where in the basement).  Instead of wrapping wire around bead garland I made my halo out of size 6 (E) seed beads on 24 gauge gold wire.  For the doll itself I used basic string from the hardware store - I liked the way it went with the plaid ribbon and overall I think it gave the angel a sweet and rustic look, well suited to the recipient's home on the ranch.

Silas likes the ranch

Ezra slept through the ranch