I decided to make a preview of my part of the One Night Kit
download links below!

ONE NIGHT IN BETHLEHEM Collaboration Kit



download (my part - visit links for the rest!)

Finally - this wonderful kit is available to download. A group of us designers have put our heads together to bring together the spirit of the season in a lush, meaningful kit and to do what defines this very special season - a giving spirit. So, with our blessings, we hope you will spread your love around to the generous ant talented designers who have given their time to share with you! The kit is themed on the real reason for the season, the birth of our Lord and Savior! Enjoy, and spread the word. We'll be leaving this kit up for this week only! LEAVE SOME LOVE FOR THESE DESIGNERS, PLEASE - it makes them do a dork dance, trust me!

Acorn Designs

Angels Digi Scraps

Anita Designs

Amy W. Designs


SPECIAL THANKS TO AMY as she pulled all this together folks..
.

BooLand Designs

Derek M. Designs

Heidi G

FreeStyleMama

Gina Maria

JanniScrap Design

Burkhart Scrapzone

Kim B. Designs

Rose Made Designs

Sir Scrap-A-Lot

SKrapper Digitals

SeASCrApS

Quail peeking from a safe place!

We still have just a sprinkling of snow on the ground. The sky is soft gray and the temperature hovers just around the freezing mark. A few brave flakes dance down from overhead, intermittently. The lake is not frozen yet. The snow line keeps moving down the mountainsides. It makes me think of the following poem I'll share with you.

The cows are in the mountains,

The snowflakes fall,

They are leaving the pools and pebbled fountains;

Troubled, they bawl.

They are winding down the mountain's shoulders

Through the open pines,

Through wild rose thickets and the granite boulders

In broken lines.

Each calf trots close beside its mother

And so they go,

Bawling and calling to one another

About the snow.

Charles E. S. Wood

Who goes here?

We were in Penticton shopping yesterday with a friend. Pentiction is a small city, whereas our community is small. We don't get to the city often, and only go when we have to. Four hours there was enough for me - came away with sensory overload, a lighter wallet and no real inroad to any Christmas shopping. It just boggles me the commercialism. Do you know, yesterday I had a good laugh at an advert for Canadian Tire... there is a contraption called a digital boot dryer? You stick a hose kinda thing into the boot, turn it on, it dries the inside and shuts off when done. Oh my! There are machines for everything these days. And we wonder about energy consumption...

Sweet blackbird is silenced with chaffinch and thrush,

Only waistcoated robin still chirps in the bush:

Soft sun-loving swallows have mustered in force,

And winged to the spice-teeming southlands their course.

Plump housekeeper dormouse has tucked himself neat,

Just a brown ball in moss with a morsel to eat:

Armed hedgehog has huddled him into the hedge,

While frogs scarce miss freezing deep down in the sedge.

Sof swallows have left us alone in the lurch,

But robin sits whistling to us from his perch:

If I were red robin, I'd pipe you a tune

Woud make you despise all the beauties of June.

But since that cannot be, let us draw round the fire,

Munch chestnuts, tell stories, and stir the blaze higher.

Christina Rossetti

I will leave you with one last neat thing... if you have computer-savvy kids, and would like to expose them to a 'designing' program (well for sure if you are a scrapper, you've probably had your kids drooling to use your photoshop) - did you know theres a very cool FREE open source program out there just for them? I think its way cool, and so much fun - even has sounds! Its just been upgraded too. Its appropriate for kids ages 3 - 12. Its called Tux Paint and you can check it and download it HERE.

It's Coming!

It's coming....

Yes, Christmas IS coming too, but what I'm talking about is this amazing collaboration kit called ONE NIGHT IN BETHLEHEM - a shared work of well over a dozen talented and generous designers.

This kit will come available for FREE download over the first part of December. Please share the good news with all your scrapping friends - its going to be well worth it. Keep your eyes tuned right here to see a list of all the creators of this magical - spiritual themed kit!

Dinner at Yaxin's - Part 3

We had a lovely evening at the home of our friend Yaxin tonight. Yaxin's hometown used to be Bejing, China before coming to Canada. She and her husband are wonderful, warm and interesting people to know! Tonight they taught us how to make these little savory meat and vegetable filled dumplings - which if you were to have to name them I think would be called 'Potstickers' None we've had in restaurants can compare to these though, hot out of the frying pan! Learned some new techniques and hoping to try our hand at these ourselves. They have the two cute and rambunctious little girls who kept us entertained with their antics.

Thank you Yaxin and family for a fun and relaxing (and informative) evening!

Dinner at Yaxin's - part 2

Dinner at Yaxins

download

I hope this is the beginning to a good week for everyone! I know I'm talking to a bunch of 'turkey tummies' for those of you who live in the USA, with Thanksgiving just behind you. I can smell the mouth-watering scent of homemade turkey soup and casseroles drifting over the border. Hopefully the long weekend gave you a good rest (other than frantic Black Friday shopping) and that you are refreshed and ready for the upcoming busy month leading up to Christmas.

We had our first few flakes of snow fall on Saturday. Nothing that hit the ground, or changed my world to white magic. But enough to get me thinking about making my Christmas Cards, making a List – and checking it twice and to haul out the decorations. I'm planning to decorate using as much natural materias as I can. The first day of 'real snow', when it happens, I've made Miles promise to rent Polar Express. That is one of the most beautiful movies to me. I won't allow myself to watch it but once a year so that it's a fresh treat for my eyes!

a face... I SEE A FACE! do YOU see the face?


will this become another tourist attraction to our town?
Miles picked it out one day, down by our fountain in town.

Speaking of decorating, you may want to check out the new Christmas themed desktop wallpapers available at Vladstudio! There are several themes to help you welcome in winter. Just click here to be taken to the studio.

the fountain in town...
much prettier frozen than flowing LOL!

Now is also a good time to pick out various bulbs to 'force' for over the holidays. Paperwhites, are Amaryllis and Narcissus are good choices. If you've never done this before, you may want to visit Martha Stewart's site to read (and print) an article, or watch the informational video provided.

You can get to the article there by clicking here.

You can get to the video there by clicking here.

Actually – the entire Martha site is a great resource for all your Christmas craft ideas!

grasses all frosty from an 'inversion' we saw this weekend!

Another thing we see arriving in the stores are pomegranates. I've been intrigued by these beautiful fruits since I was a child. I came across an article in a magazine the other day which explained how to properly get inside of one – and since, upon searching the internet, I've located the same information, along with some pictures. Oh how much easier and neater this looks than the way I've dealt with them in the past. To find out more about these fascinating fruit (which were brought over by the Spanish to California waaayy long ago) just click here. There are some delicious sounding recipes available on the site too! Click here to visit.

frosty rosehips

Miles and I are still making our way through the second Chapter of The Beautiful Fight, by Dr. Gary Chapman (link to the right) In this chapter, Dr. Thomas is asking us to try to visualize Christ living in us using the parallel of how we sometimes can be the recipients of organ donors. Did you ever think of it in this way? I think its a very powerful way to call it to my attention. I'm a 'visual' learner and I can completely relate to the way he demonstrates his idea. Breifly, he tells us how a famous sports hero became the recipient of an organ from the body of a 44 year old housewife. The sports hero met the family of the deceased woman (a loved wife and mother) and through the sports hero sharing his story, the donor became 'famous' too, through his – her memory lives on. Dr. Thomas is asking us to visualize Christ living in us as no less of a 'physical thing' for us. We should be conscious of Him inside us as we live and go through each day. Try to think of His Spirit within as a physical thing.

I hope I'm doing the book justice to this point – I'm afraid that though I understand what I'm reading, its not always easy for me to re-share it out in a clear manner. Perhaps the following may help, after all, its always good to follow up with supporting scripture!

“For the Scriptures declare

that rivers of living water shall flow

from the inmost being of anyone who believes in me.”

John 7:38

Don't you know

that you yourselves

are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?

1 Corinthians 3:16

It is strange we go on living our everyday lives -

So carelessly, stumbling, dully we plod

Our commonplace paths, and forget that we walk

Every day, every hour, in the presence of God.

Martha Snell Nicholson

(in other words - live joyously,

knowing that God LIVES IN US

its not merely a thought

its as real as the hand on the end of your arm!)

This robot stuff is all so fascinating... and wouldn't you know but I should come across this TED talk about this very subject. This is a MUST hear - a bit scary even! Will our children be working with robots which think for themselves?

This video of the Lego Scorpion is the only video that is mine... I see there are some more videos linked - I must have clicked a button somewhere... just disregard the others!




We had this critter running about in our kitchen the other day. Miles has been working part of his school hours with the Gifted Kids in the district, and they are learning all about robots. They've been putting together some of the Lego Mindstorm sets, and they are very fascinating and interesting. These robots can detect color, light, noise and I don't know what all else... except they are amazing. Half of the kids made a regular robot kind of guy, while the others made scorpions. The girls in the class are just as keen as the boys. The robots can be programmed differently, and modified, and the kids have already morphed the stinger into a catapult!



I have to relate a story Miles told me about one of the girls in the class. Bear in mind these girls are between grades 3- 5. They spent one session exploring architecture, and the lesson challenged them to make structures out of straws. The guys - in their guys way of thinking, even at such a young age, just went ahead and built functional and not so exciting looking structures which did what they were supposed to do. The one girl, she was fussing so much that Miles softly said " (name), good grief, this isn't a Barbie Doll House!" The girl buried her face in her hands, shoulders quaking and Miles was thinking "OH my GOODNESS - I've brought her to tears, how insensitive of me!"...



...only to discover she was laughing her little head off - and we all know what its like when a grade 3-5'er gurl gets the giggles! (wink)