Happy Thanksgiving Card

Hope you have a terrific Thanksgiving!  The Lord has blessed us so richly and to Him goes all the glory this harvest season.  Hope you and yours enjoy a very blessed time together this Thanksgiving (and lots of turkey and yummy sides dishes and desserts, too!)  Card supplies: Huntington paper pack (CTMH), Harvest Home stamp set (CTMH, retired) in cocoa ink colored with watercolor pencils, durables round studs.  As always, thanks for stopping by!

Isaac's Paper Pumpkin

My 5 year-old son brought home this adorable little paper pumpkin from preschool the other day.  He made it by gluing 5 paper circles together back-to-back and then sliding a brown pipe cleaner through the middle to form a stem.  How cute and easy!  I saw something similar on this post here from Brenda Rose.  Love this simple papercrafting decorating idea and thought you might, too :)
Thanks for stopping by, my friend!

Recipe Quick Album

 How are you organizing your favorite holiday recipes this year?  Are they all in one place, or do you find the need to hunt-and-peck (like a chicken with their head cut off) to find them each year?  Well, last year I rounded up all of our favorite family holiday recipes and placed them inside this cute little album from Creative Memories.  This particular album design has a strap that transforms the flat book into a little easeled display--how fun and functional!  Here is the introduction page--me with the three kiddos in the kitchen!

 There are recipes for Easter, birthdays, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas in here.  Below is a recipe for my Mother's Cornbread Stuffing and the page also includes a picture from one of our Thanksgiving dinners several years ago--so special!

 Hmmm....pumpkin pie....

 And a look at the Thanksgiving menu (below).  I include holiday menus throughout the book even though they vary a bit year to year, just to give me a basis to work from.  Again...helpful to have this put together for me ahead of time!

All patterned papers, recipe cards, stickers, and accents were part of the Recipe Quick Album kit from Creative Memories--so sad they are not in business anymore to be offering these!  But if you are interested, they might be on sites like Ebay.  Hope you are able to round up your family's favorite recipes this year and have them all in one place.  This makes for stress-free holiday meal planning, but it also provides such a wonderful keepsake for generations to come!

Giving Thanks Box

 Just wanted to share with you today an adorable little box that helps my family and me express gratitude this time of year.  This was a club project designed by Lisa Stenz a few years ago--check out this post to see her version of it.  For my version, I used the cornucopia image from the Harvet Home stamp set (CTMH, retired) stamped in black Stazon ink and colored it in with watercolor pencils and a blending pen. 

Let me explain how this box works.  We keep this beautiful box displayed in our kitchen and pass it around the dinner table in the evening during our meal together.  Inside it contains corn kernels and each of us takes out however many kernels we'd like.  We count them up and then share THAT number of things we are especially thankful for that day.  It is fun to do, especially for the kids!  The instructions are beautifully displayed inside the box lid, and the corn kernels tuck inside the orange tissue paper.

Supplies used: chocolate striped grosgrain ribbon, Dreamin' paper pack (CTMH, retired),  my creations card box (CTMH), foundry pewter mini medley accents (CTMH), preprinted Giving Thanks title and instructions (Lisa Stenz)

Hope you and your family can incorporate a creative way to express thanks and gratitude this harvest season!  Thanks for stopping by!

Preparing for Advent

I know it is still November, but it is not too early to start thinking about the upcoming Christmas holidays and preparing our hearts and minds for the Advent season.  Here are two wonderful resources to help you do just that!  Treasuring God in our Traditions by Noel Piper is a wonderful book containing many creative ways to incorporate meaningful family experiences and symbolic teaching for your children.  It not only speaks about Christmas, but also ANY holiday...even birthdays and just about ANY day as you make use of teachable moments with your children to tell them about God and what He has done.  Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room by Nancy Guthrie is a wonderful personal devotional for advent.  It is a compilation of writings from classic and contemporary Christian authors that speak to the meaning of Christmas.  Also, there is a Free ebook for Advent by John Piper that you might be interested in as well!  Blessings to you and yours this Christmas season!

Jesse Tree

 Today I wanted to post about one of my family's favorite Christmas traditions...the Jesse Tree.  I find that most people have never heard of a Jesse Tree, so I'd love to share about it with you because it is very special for us and might be for your family, too, this year!  We use the Jesse tree during our morning devotional time throughout the month of December, and it helps prepare us for Christmas Day and the celebration of Christ's birth.

What is a Jesse Tree?  Well, in it's purest form, it is a tree that depicts in visual form the geneology of Christ (the "root" of Jesse), starting from Creation and Adam up through Christ's birth.  However, my familiy has adapted it a bit to include some other favorite and familiar Old Testament (OT) Bible stories such as Jonah, for example, who is NOT part of Christ's lineage.  You know, Christ did not just appear on Christmas morning--we see Jesus starting in the first chapter of Genesis as God states: "Let us make man in our own image" (Gen 1:26).  From Creation, we see that God has been preparing the way for Christ's birth that would come thousands of years later.

Our Jesse Tree has evolved from several sticks secured in a tin can with rocks and paper ornaments....

to a greenery tree (Michael's) and felt ornaments like the one pictured at the top of this post.  I received this felt set last year as a gift from my parents, but I have seen many on etsy.com or you can make your own!  In fact one year, we were moving in the month of December and didn't have a true Jesse tree--instead, we had a box of ornament cards that taught through the Jesse Tree and we were able to take this with us on the road!  Check out this previous post to check out that box.  So the beauty is it is as basic or as fancy as you want to make it.  The point is teaching CHRIST through ALL of His Word!
Here's how it works...each morning, starting on December 1st, we do a short devotional about that day's particular ornament and Bible story.  Most of these stories are familiar OT stories and are found in most children's storybook Bibles--so even little ones can follow along with the story and pictures.  Then, after our devotional time, we hang the day's ornament on the tree (we keep the tree on a kitchen countertop or in the center of our table) and we watch the tree fill up with ornaments thoughout the month.  On December 24th, we hang the last ornament and read the Christmas story when Christ is born--that day's ornament is Baby Jesus in the manger.
There are many websites with Jesse Tree daily devotionals.  I have used this site for years for the devotionals and have paired it with the printable ornaments from this site.  Last year we switched to this red booklet that came with our felt ornament set.

 

The kids and I have truly enjoyed doing the Jesse Tree during the month of December.  We learn a lot of the OT in such a condensed period of time--it serves as a fabulous OT review and also prepares our hearts and minds to focus on the REAL reason for the season....Jesus Christ!  I hope this post has been helpful to you and yours!  May you have a blessed Christmas this year, and as always, thanks for stopping by!

Butterfly Journal

Back again with another canvas journal--I think I mentioned that I scored these for a mere $2.25 from CTMH's clearance website a few weeks ago!  I bought some teal spray ink and a mask at Michaels from Heidi Swapp, and then bought some adhesive gem flourishes.  The end result was this and it took 5 minutes at MOST!  Plan to tuck this away for a teacher gift.  Thanks for stopping by today--have a creative day!

Chevron Journal

Remember this post from last month?  Well, I left off these chevron shapes off the cards from the SU Paper Pumpkin kit and glued them on this canvas journal to make a trendy little gift for my sister-in-law.  I also used a button from the kit, too.  Supplies used: Noted backgrounds stamp (CTMH, retired) in slate ink, seriously stamp/dots/ink splatter stamps in outdoor denim ink from various SU Paper Pumpkin kits, red baker's twine (SU), canvas journal (CTMH).  Have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by!