Still more yarn.

I want to let everyone know I am not using the computer much right now. I have so many things I need to get done in the next few days. I will try to post a few things here to catch up a little as I get time.

Yarn coils. I remember doing this in 5th grade art class. It has been on my list of things to do with my children for a few years now but I never got around to doing it until last week. I am happy that the unplug project was yarn it gave me a reason to do it. I am guessing that many of you remember doing this in school. It is a piece of clothesline with yarn wrapped around it. I had some clothesline left over from the line Rob hung me on our porch this summer. I am happy I found a use for it. I remember in school making coasters, trivets, baskets, placemats, and being told we could keep going to make a rug. Travis, being the unique child that he is, decided that they are Christmas tree ornaments. LOL! Our tree gets more colorful each day. The small green ones in the middle are ones Travis made. I think he made about 4 or 5 but I didn't feel like pulling them all off the tree to take pictures. The rainbow one on the right Demi and I made together. The one on the left I am making myself. It was a coaster, now a trivet, I hope it grows into a small table runner, and my goal is a rug but we will have to see how far I get with it. The one on the left and the one on the right are both made with yarn I spun. I don't knit so finding ways to use my spun yarn makes me very happy.

For anyone who has never made one before, and wants to know how, you start about 1 inch or so from the bottom and start wrapping to the end. You keep bending the bottom of that inch until it folds (make it touch the long end of the rope). When it folds and you are at the end of the inch it should be touching the long end of your rope and you just wrap on that you follow a pattern of 3-5 wraps then make a figure 8 (loop into the row in the middle and back up). I remember the directions in school being wrap 3 times then once into the center, then 3 times and again in to the center. I have been doing 5 times with very thin yarn and it seems to be holding OK. I will take pictures of how I started them for anyone like me that needs to see a picture to learn. I might not have time to get that done until the first week Jan. To make a basket you can stack the coils on top of each other (making a tube) or you can just slightly shape it in the shape of a bowl. My mom still has the bowl my brother made when he was little.

Gingerbread houses.

My children wanted to eat our real houses. Travis understands he can eat them on Christmas but Demi does not understand. She cries for the candy on them all the time. I didn't have any crackers on gingerbread house day and I am not as ambitious as Kate (wouldn't bake my own). Rob picked up crackers for us several days after gingerbread day so we called that day gingerbread day at our house. LOL! Below are a few pictures of what they created/ate.

This is a picture of my icing faced girl. She wanted to wear her brothers shirt for a "cover up" to keep her clothes clean. LOL! Look at all the icing down the front of the shirt.

Happy baby Zee! I love it when she is happy. She is laughing at her big brother in this picture.

This is a picture of some of our yarn ornaments. They took 5 days to dry all the way! Pealing them off the waxed paper was a lot of work! I am not going to be in a rush to make any more any time soon! I still have a large amount of them that I need to peal off to hang on the tree! I am tempted to toss them and look like I have no idea what happened to them. Maybe I will have Travis peel them off! Then when he gets frustrated with it I can suggest we toss them out! I think 10 is plenty for a tree. Don't you all agree?