Category Archives: Family matters

In which we discuss matters of the family.

We totally (snow)flaked on this one

Last night was windy and frigid, and we had what I think were our first snow flurries of the season. None of it stuck, although I can see some snow-capped mountains from the living room window. The sudden burst of winter — and it was sudden; it was 64 degrees out on Tuesday night! — put us in the mood to make some snowflakes today.

It turns out that it is not easy (for me, anyway) to take pictures of paper snowflakes in progress. The kids’ scissors and their little hands weren’t quite up to the task of cutting through the folded paper, so I had them draw where they wanted me to cut. Between the folding and the cutting, I forgot to take pictures of the kids unfolding their snowflakes.

But I did get a picture of the final product:

Poppy's snowflake with hearts

Maybe in the future I won’t need to look up how to do this rather simple craft, but I don’t think I’ve ever successfully made a paper snowflake before today. I’m pretty sure I’ve always had a problem with overzealous cutting. Which manifests itself when you unfold your creation and it all flutters to the ground in tiny bits and strips. I didn’t want the kids to experience that particular trauma, though, so today I asked the internet for help. We followed Martha’s “how to make paper snowflakes” instructions. They’re very straightforward, which is important to a non-crafter such as myself.

Making snowflakes the Martha Stewart way

We used some plain white paper and some scrapbooking paper to make our snowflakes. I really like the way Michele of MicheleMadeMe.com thinks, though. She uses junk mail to make paper snowflakes! It’s “green,” it turns out a lovely finished product, and it might be easier for the kids to cut through.

Trash to treasure! Photo courtesy MicheleMadeMe.com.

If you’re feeling very industrious and fancy, you might be interested in these quilled snowflakes at Reese Dixon or 3D Lacy Snowflakes at How About Orange. They’re both stunning.

Tresa's quilled snowflake. Photo courtesy ReeseDixon.com.

Jessica's Lacy Snowflake. Photo courtesy HowAboutOrange.blogspot.com.

Also stunning: These paper snowflake pendant lamps from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. They’d be a lovely addition to my holiday decor.

Snowflake pendant lamps from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art ($65)

Things I hope to do in December, item 3 of 15. Complete!

Things I hope to do in December

  1. Paper snowflakes. (Done!)
  2. Church window cookies. (Done!)
  3. Decorate sugar cookies.
  4. Christmas photo booth. (Done! 12/19/11.)
  5. Acquire and decorate a Christmas tree. (Done!)
  6. Make eggnog. (Done! 12/23/11)
  7. See “The Nutcracker.” (Done! And my niece was in it, and she was so beautiful it made me cry! 12/16/11)
  8. Make a fruitcake.
  9. Watch “Elf.” (Done! 12/21/11)
  10. Take a drive to see some Christmas lights.
  11. Watch “The Muppet Christmas Carol.” (Done! 12/17/11)
  12. Go sledding.
  13. Go skiing.
  14. Sign up for an “adopt-a-family” gifting program & let the kids do the shopping. (Done!)
  15. Make gingerbread houses. (Done! 12/24/11.)

A NaBloPoMo retrospective

It’s the end of November! And I managed to post every day, as promised. There were a few slacker posts — “It’s whining time,” for example, and also “I drew you a hedgehog” — but I was pretty pleased to avoid doing many of those. The most widely read post in November was “An interview with a lady I don’t see often enough,” thus proving my hypothesis that everyone loves Amy. The least popular post of the month was “My brother is wise in matters of baseball,” which maybe only proves that Butterscotch Sundae is not the internet’s No. 1 source for sports information. The most frequent search terms this month were “tangled tower,” “how to quiet a cough” and “ikea kura.” There was also one person who searched for the phrase “nichole is a dinosaur,” and I don’t really know what to think about that.

Probably my favorite part of this year’s National Blog Posting Month extravaganza was the series of interviews I posted. Most of them went up on the weekend days, which typically don’t see a lot of traffic. So just in case you missed them, here they are!