Take a Guess
Our nieces & nephew got into the whole homemade Christmas this year. The oldest one is really starting to understand the concept. She made a special gift for my dad this year and was so excited to give it to him. It’s the first thing she’s made all by herself and she was very proud of herself.
I thought I’d give you all a chance to guess what it is. (Lucy thought it was a rawhide chew and wanted to eat it).
So what kinds of animal do you think it is, take your best shot?
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The First Snow of the Season
We had our first snowfall on Friday night, we woke up Saturday to a bit of a mess outside. Unfortunately, we had to drive to a few rural areas and the roads were less than ideal.
It snowed more throughout the day on Saturday and into Sunday morning. I woke up Sunday to the most beautiful sunny day with the ground coated in a blanket of fluffy white snow. It was beautiful! This is the kind of snow that everyone dreams of having on Christmas day. Since we celebrated Christmas on Sunday with my family we had a white Christmas.
It always helps me get into the holiday spirit when there’s snow on the ground. It lifts my spirits and makes me happy. I think part of the reason I love it so much is because it makes the days so much brighter!
My Christmas decor looks even better now that there’s some snow on the ground!
What helps get you into the holiday spirit?
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Handmade Gifts: Doll Bedding
My sister found this great doll bed at a garage sale this summer. She was planning on giving it to the girls for Christmas and asked if I’d make bedding for it for it. I had a great time at the fabric store picking out the perfect fabric. I picked out some bright colorful fabric that I thought the girls would love.
I found a remnant of black-out fabric that I used for the mattresses (it feels like the plasticky kid mattress fabric). I used an old pillow for filling the mattresses and the pillows.
The sheets were made fitted so they could be taken off and washed easily, as were the pillowcases.
Mr Chiots made afghans to go on the beds, he learned to knit just for this project. I made little tags that said, “Handmade with love by Uncle Brian” with a few photos. The girls were thrilled that he had made them. I almost forgot to get these photos, if you notice he’s on the last row of this blanket finishing it off.
He even made them in a striped pattern to match. I think he did a great job on the pattern! Now they’re dolls can sleep all cozy warm in their new flannel bedding.
My sister told me that on they way home my oldest niece told her that her doll bed was one of her favorite gifts. When I was young my dad & mom made us this big doll house. My dad built the house and my mom made lots of the decor. She even made framed art from magazine photos. It was on wheels so my sister and I wheeled in all over our house and played with it all the time. We loved it!
Do have a specific homemade gift that you remember as a kid?
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Handmade Gifts: Superhero Cape for Kids
My little nephew Orin requested a superhero cape for Christmas. Since I’m the crafty aunt, my sister asked if I’d be willing to make one for him. These are the kinds of gifts I love to make, it’s so much fun picking out fabrics, trying to figure out the perfect design, and adding those little touches that set it apart from a store bought item. I decided that a proper superhero should have not one, but two identities. So I made his cape reversible, so he could be super blue or super red.
One of the reasons I like making gifts instead of buying them is because they can be personalized. His favorite colors are red and blue and I decided he couldn’t be a random superhero. So I included his name on the back -BAM-.
It’s cut out of felt and stitched on, I know this cape will be getting lots of wear and tear since he’s an active little boy. I figured gluing wouldn’t last long enough, and beside stitching allowed me to add a little extra -ZOW- by stitching it on it a different colored thread.
The stitching around the edge is also alternating colors, the thread is blue on the red side and red on the blue side.
And since a superhero isn’t complete without a mask -POW- I made a mask and laser wristlets (which are also reversible).
Since we celebrated our family Christmas yesterday, Orin got his gift. Mr Chiots got this great photo of him seeing himself in his costume. This cape and mask will go beautifully with the wooden sword and shield his sisters made him for Christmas.
I spent about $5-$6 total on this gift and it took me about an hour to make. Mr Chiots has fond memories of his superhero cape as a kid, I’m sure Orin will have the same great memories. My favorite toy as a kid was a weaving loom, I made all kinds of wonderful things with it.
What was your favorite toy as a child?
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Organic or Local?
Cal-Organic Farms, along with Earthbound, dominates the organic produce section in the supermarket. Cal-Organic is a big grower of organic vegetables in the San Joaquin Valley. As part of the consolidation of the organic industry, the company was acquired by Grimmway Farms, which already enjoyed a virtual monopoly in organic carrots. Unlike Earthbound, neither Grimmway or Cal-Organic has ever been part of the organic movement. Both companies were started by conventional growers looking for a more profitable niche and worried that the state might ban certain key pesticides. “I’m not necessarily a fan of organic,” a spokesman for Grimmway recently told an interviewer. “Right now I don’t see that conventional farming does harm. Whether we stay with organic for the long haul depends on profitability.
Philosophy, in other words has nothing to do with it.”
– Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
For the last several years Mr Chiots and I have been focusing on eating locally and organically. When I have the option, I like to buy local organic. When I don’t have that option, I chose local over organic. I could buy certified organic apples from Chile in the supermarket to eat instead of my non-certified semi-organic apples from a local orchard, and they’d probably be cheaper. Why do I choose a local product that probably has a few chemicals & pesticides on it? Because it’s important for me to know where our food is coming from. I know exactly what is on that apple because I can talk to the guy that grew it. I can visit his orchard and see what he does. I can’t visit the orchard in Chile, so how can I be sure it’s actually “organic”?
I’ve had a few great conversations with our local dairy/beef/chicken/egg farmers about this topic. They used to be certified organic and it got too expensive and too constrictive to keep up their certification. They had trouble finding good quality organic hay to feed the cows in the winter. Someone they knew had good quality hay that wasn’t certified organic, but since it’s wasn’t certified they couldn’t use it. They finally decided to drop their certification. Now they label themselves as “Voluntarily Organic”. Personally, I don’t mind that they don’t have the government seal, I’m glad they’re putting the health of their cows ahead of a label.
I’m guessing some of you have heard of the 4-year study conducted in Europe that concluded that organic food (including vegetables, fruit and milk) contained up to 40% more antioxidants than conventional food and were more nutritious (the percentage were up to 60% more antioxidants for organic milk). I wonder how the raw milk from the farm would stack up to conventional milk? I’m pretty sure it would be way better than 60%.
The problem with studies like this is that it’s hard to know what kind of organic products they used in testing. Did they use big-box organic, or small organic? Did they use produce that had been grown, picked, processed in another country and was flown halfway around the world, then sat on a grocery store shelf for a couple days before heading to your home. Did they leave it in the fridge for a few days before testing to make the study more authentic? I try not to put too much credibility in studies like these, even if they support my viewpoint. Studies can be done in such a way to get the desired outcome (sometimes looking at the funding will give you a good idea of what the outcome will be). I try not to get caught up in the hype about what’s “healthy” what’s not, what’s the “in” vegetable, fruit, nutrient, vitamin at the moment. It’s really too much to keep up with. We now try to focus on eating real whole food. Our diet would probably not be considered healthy by some because we eat lots of butter, drink whole milk, eat lots of animal fat. Bacon anyone?
The search for good quality real whole food is main reason I started to grow some of our food. I know exactly what’s in it, I know how it was grown. What I grow in my garden is the healthiest food available to me. It’s as organic and local as it gets. We’ve developed a hierarchy of food for ourselves.
Homegrown
Local Organic
Local
Organic from local health food store
Organic from big chain grocery
Conventional
I still buy food from far away, mangoes and plantains will never be local for me, and they’ll never be out of my diet. Coffee is a big NEED in this household as is good chocolate, local sources for those are not feasible either. I’m not striving to make my diet to be 100% local, but I want eat local when I can! I don’t want to rule out delicious food from far away, but I don’t want to eat only long distance food either. I really appreciate some of the things that local eating had taught me, we’re enjoying a much wider variety of food now. I also appreciate that organic is gaining popularity because I am able to find an organic option for just about everything I want. It seems like in our lives we’re finally achieving that balance between local, organic, and exotic.
Which do you focus on Local, Organic or a patchwork of both?
