Posted by Cindy on December 3, 2008
These turned out so cute, and they were fairly easy for a beginning to intermediate sewing project.
- Draw the shape onto a piece of felt, making it about 1/4″ bigger than you’d like the finished product to be.
- Double the felt and cut out the front and back pieces at the same time.
- Decide which sides will face outward. Go ahead and sew any buttons, beads or other small pieces onto each piece.
- Place the fronts together so that you can only see the “wrong” sides.
- Sew a straight stitch all the way around the felt, leaving about a 1/4″ seam. BE SURE TO LEAVE 1″-1 1/2″ OPEN SO YOU CAN TURN THE ORNAMENT INSIDE OUT.
- After turning the ornament inside out, fill it with popcorn sized pieces of batting until it’s as fluffy as you desire.
- Sew up the opening with a simple straight stitch.
The kids chose to add a little piece of embroidery thread afterward as a hook, but I sewed a ribbon hook into mine (bell) as I stiched around the edges. My hook is much stronger and more attractive.
Posted by Cindy on November 30, 2008
School is slowing down a bit for the next three weeks. (Yay! – Shhh, don’t tell my kids I just cheered about that!) Besides all the real-life skills that come with writing Christmas cards, baking cookies, budgeting for gifts, crafting and such, I’m planning to keep some “real” school alive with the following:
Among anytime readings from the books on my sidebar, I think we’re going to purposefully read a daily chapter from
then
I’m excited about our Bible/unit study – The Names of Jesus from Easy Fun School (which was FREE!) I’ll be sure to post about the notebooks the kids create in a few weeks.
We’re ditching most of the regular math schedule for a geometry unit from AIMS called
We’ll also be keeping up with weekly artist (various nativity scenes) and composer (Handel) studies. I’ll post more about those plans soon.
And that about does it for planned school time this Christmas season. I hope you’re able to take a break from the normal to enjoy something a little different this December. Whatever you do, I hope you enjoy your children and the joy and excitement that comes with this time of year. They’re only little once!
Posted by Cindy on December 20, 2007
I know I gush often about our Keepers At Home Group, but it really is a wonderful thing! Yesterday we took a break from “practical” stuff to party!
Each of the girls was asked to prepare a dish and bring the recipe. (We’re putting the recipes together in a little booklet for them.) After reading the Christmas story together and snacking on the delicious goodies, each of the moms had prepared a fun game.
Besides a rather unfortunate incident with the girls’ brothers who were playing outside with stick swords, the day was great fun. Yes, Caleb was involved, but it really was an accident. Hopefully, a bit more ice and a little more time will heal the giant goose egg under the other boy’s eye. Caleb was very worried about him and didn’t think twice about apologizing. (Hey, that’s a pretty big step for him!) Here’s what I overheard Caleb say after ice had been on the goose egg for about 20 minutes….”Can you open your eye? How many fingers am I holding up?” T, if you’re reading this – we hope your eye is better!
Anyway, back to the party. Mahayla prepared a very yummy cheesball and Caleb made a chocolate fondue with marshmallows for dipping.
I missed out on most of the games because of the unfortunate incident, but here’s a picture from the gift wrapping relay.
We’re officially on Christmas break! I had planned to school lightly through Friday, but sometimes life just calls for a change of plans. 
Merry Christmas!
Posted by Cindy on December 19, 2007
Here’s the latest edition of the Westward Gazette.
Posted by Cindy on December 18, 2007
Here’s a peek at our Christmas Lapbooks that we finished last week. Mahayla’s is red, Caleb’s is green. We used many activities from the Symbols of Christmas lapbook unit from Hands of a Child. All the extra math/logic/problem solving worksheets, plus some science worksheets were stapled together inside the large panel on the right side. This keeps all the unit work together in a nice, neat package.
This week is light. We’re working on math everyday, putting together our newsletter and just having some Christmas craft and baking fun. At the end of the week, we’ll be officially halfway through our school year! And on a well deserved break for a couple of weeks.
