Advent, 4th Week

I light four candles on the wreath, all made of holly green.

For you and me, and all who shall be,

Four candles now are seen

We await on earth the holy birth, and upon the boughs of green.

Our hopes arise with every flame, four candles now now are seen!

From Mrs Marsha's Yahoo Group

Advent 3rd Week

 I light three candles on the wreath, all made of holly green

For birds and beasts, both large and least,

Three candles now are seen

We await on earth the holy birth, and upon the boughs of green.

Our hopes arise with every flame, three candles now are seen!

From Mrs Marsha's wonderful Yahoo group



This is a Sandy update, she sleeps like this all over the house, but especially likes to sleep on my quilts in the lounge on the back of the couch:) Such a sweet girl!

A Simple Advent Spiral and Centrepiece...

Yesterday, being the 4th Sunday before Christmas, we walked our Advent spiral, Richard and Jenna collected a wheelbarrow of sand and Jen created the most wonderful spiral. An old little tree stump was added to the centre for our candle and rose quartz was placed at it base. It really did look so effective on the green grass... We had plenty of rain yesterday but it did stop for at least an hour in the evening and we quickly took our lanterns and walked through our spiral and then out again, enjoying the process...

This is our simple Advent centrepiece, we have used our birthday cake board, inspired by Sarah's lovely blog they have the most amazing cake board. I think this will be the beginning of another family tradition to use this board for Advent as well as birthdays, it just adds to the flow of the year and continuity, I love it:) I haven't decorated it too much, sometimes less does seem like more, don't you think?

I have surrounded the outer edge with rosemary branches and I have placed crystals and gemstones in the centre to celebrate our mineral kindgom for this first week of Advent...



Last night we lit the first candle while we ate dinner together, the glow was wonderful...

I light a candle on the wreath all made of holly green

For rocks and bones and shining stones

One candle now is seen

We await on earth the holy birth, and upon the boughs of green.

Our hopes arise with every flame, one candle now is seen!

                                                                                                                       From Mrs Marsha's wonderful Waldorf Yahoo Group

Happy Advent to all...

Christmas Advent Calendar Tutorial,Handmade Holiday 2010

Today the girls and I decided to make a Christmas Advent calendar for our family that we will use this year and for many years to come. It was a really  fun activity and didn't take long at all. We decided to use pinking shears, they are quick and easy to use and the result is such a pretty edging, and of course no seams!

Materials:
Two different fabrics
Pinking Shears
Scissors
Yarn
Sewing machine
Ribbon
Pegs

This is our cardboard template we used for the bags 5 x 7 inches.

I love this Christmas fabric, I bought it last year and used it as a centrepiece for our Christmas table. Today we just cut a thin slither off the one end to make our little advent bags.

 Fold your material double, place the base of your template on the fabric fold and mark out your bag.

Erin, marking our the hemp fabric.

Cut out your bags with pinking shears, just around the top and sides.

Jen sewing straight up the sides of each bag on the right side of the fabric. The top the bags have been cut with the pinking shears too so no need for a seam there.

 Here are all our little bags, sewn and ironed, 13 in Christmas fabric and 12 in plain hemp.

We hung a ribbon from one end of our fireplace to the other and wrapped the red yarn around the bags and tied them onto the hanging ribbon with a bow. We were going to add pegs but decided not to. We hung the bags alternating the Christmas fabric and the hemp.

Such a sweet project for mama and her girls... I still need to think about what treasures I will be adding to these little bags for Advent, any suggestions? I would love to hear your thoughts...
xo
Linda

This Advent Week...

We have been having a lovely crafty week during this second week of Advent, this is our centrepiece on our diningroon table, with our stones and pine cones in the centre.

Here is our nature and Advent table in our playroom, with our donkey in the stable in the meantime and our candles that were lovingly decorated by our little ones and all our precious shells, stones and flowers and pine cones...

A Christmas gift I have been busy working on, it is a pair of fingerless gloves for someone... I have knitted the wrist area in Angora that I handspun and then the rest of the glove is knitted in a DK Merino yarn...

Everyone is happily decorating their Advent candles, we have four children so it works out quite well, each one has a turn for a week to light their Advent candle, this Sunday it is Caiden's turn for the Animal Kingdom... great excitement, I love how much enrichment these special days bring to our lives...

Jenna and Erin's decorated Advent candles, Erin's represents the Plant Kingdom and Jenna's the Mineral Kingdom...

One of our Advent gifts this week was a tea party with scones under our generously tall Oak Tree, Kye got there first....

Gathered up his feast and went to eat them in his favourite spot in the kitchen...

Our new pigs, Miss Penelope Pig and Sally Saddleback Pig... I have been thinking about adding hats to our pigs, Jenna has designed and made the first hat for Penelope, and I love it :)

Have a wonderful weekend everyone...

Advent...

Kye was so excited, we have just put up all our Christmas decorations, such excitement for all...

Our Advent walk on Sunday was lovely, all the little apple candles placed in their chosen spots along the spiral path...

The centre light with decorated Calendula and Marigold flowers...

Erin lighting the centre flame...

Our apple candles all ready for us to light...

The felt Advent calendar I made last year of the four kingdoms, mineral, plant, animal and people...

Happy Advent everyone...

Days of Advent

We have moved our wreath, Kingdom Calendar and our Nativity onto a separate table. Each morning my children take turns to light the candle for this week for the mineral kingdom, another opens a window on the Advent calendar and another will have a turn to place one of the wooden figures at the nativity scene. They thouroughly enjoy this and love to see the nativity grow each day and to see which beautiful scene is hidden behind each window on the Advent calendar!

Enjoy your week....




We lit our first Advent candle on Sunday evening, it was very special!