The Craft of Christmas Past

hehe. I hope the title made you laugh. cuz it made me laugh. and yes, I do realize how lame that is.

Anyway. Because Brian and I are so poor, I have to get "crafty" (no pun intended) with our gifts. So this year I made a lot of my gifts.

I made this for my Sister in law. She's an elementary school teacher. Ok here is how I did it.

I took a canvas. And hot glued crayons on it. For this one I took the paper off. For the bottom one, I left the paper on. It all depends on what you want. 

ERRRRRRRRR

Rewind. 

FIRST, I printed out the words. "Mrs. Duncan" from my computer. I taped it to the back side of the canvas and took a paint pen and traced the letters. I am sure a sharpie would work. But I liked the paint texture of the paint pen. 

NOTE: I had to use my phones flash light to see the letters through the canvas. 

THEN. I glued the crayons. or if your brian (Kray-ns)... *I love him, he's my favorite*

After you glue them to the canvas next comes the fun part. Blow drying them. Thats what makes the colors run. It's important for all you OCD people out there (me included at times) that there is no wrong  way to do art. There are no mistakes. It doesn't always end up looking like you want, but it will always be cool.

So i heated the wax until it was a big puddle, then i stood the canvas on it's end and let the colors run down. 

It turned out pretty cool. I covered her name with a piece of paper so the wax wouldn't flow onto her name...

For this one vvv... I did the same thing. Only I glued flowers to the end of the wax. See isn't it pretty. I made this for my other sister in law. 

I made one for my mommy. It looks kinda like a snow flake but I guess I never took a picture of it. Fail.

If you haven't tried this, you should. I must confess however.

I stole the idea from brians little sister. She's the real art genius in the family. So shout out to Jesse. You Rock!

Thats all for now. 

-j

The Colligan try at Cake Balls

Last week Brian and I were in Maine. No, not the maine you see in a magazine. This Maine. Aroostook county. (Ah-Ru-St-u-k) - it's french indian i think..

See that dot that says limestone? I live just about there. The Maine you're thinking of looks like this.

(Southwest Harbor, ME - Photo by me)

So yes, Brian and I went to maine for Christmas. And we needed to make a yankee swap gift

(White elephant for those of you Marylanders)

So we made Red Velvet Cake Balls.

You start out by making a cake Like you normally would.

Sorry, I ate a little before I took a picture. It was just soooo good!

Then. You break it up in to your Kitchen-Aid (If you have one).

Just between you and me, I'm bitter that my mom has one and I don't cuz they are WAY cool.

Ok so anway. you need to crumble it so it's this crumbly cake mush.

Then, You take a can of store bought frosting. We used Cream cheese and used the whole tub

of it, you could get away with less. ours had a little too much. yes i said too much frosting, shoot

me.

So you mix the icing and cake together in your kitchen-aid (you know, if you had one)

Then, you have to make them into balls. We tried a mellon-baller, but it was too tough to get the

cake out due to all the frosting. SO, we use an ice cream scoop. I think this was a 2 Tbs scoop.

However, I am probably wrong.

Then you stick this out side... Oh right. most people dont live in

maine and convert your entry way into a walk in freezer. Ok so you put them in the refrigerator.

I almost think we let these chill over night.

Next you melt some chocolate....

.

Now.

there's something you need to know about my family, we are serious chocolate makers. none of

this heat in microwave crap. nope tooooo snobby for that.....

So, we melted some chocolate...

on the stove... over water... with crisco in it...

NOTE: you can use wax, which is what we'd use forever, yes they make special bakers wax.

However, I had a friend tell me she used crisco in her chocolate. My oh My does it make a

difference... .they take longer to set up with crisco, but my dad said "it's not nearly as waxy as

before" .

And, you dip.

We did both dark and white chocolate. the white was extremely tasty... However....

When using too much frosting, the cake balls are very mushy even after spending the night in

the entry way... i mean freezer...

So. tiny bits of cake ended up in the white chocolate after dipping...... which ended up turning the

chocolate pink........ which then we had to put sprinkles on them so you wouldn't notice.

Let set. and enjoy. we made a bazillion cake balls and even gave tons away. so note that you'll

end up making alot.

these are wicked (yes i just said wicked) easy. If you haven't tried them, you should.

thats all for now.

-j

a Savior has been born

This year one of my brothers had his first child. His name is Samuel, and he's the cutest little boy you've ever seen. Christmas night I helped bathe and change him into his little bear footie pj's. He is the first grandchild of my parents. Which automatically makes him the favorite. Anyways.... on to the reason for this post.


Every year before my family opens presents we read the Christmas story. It's a way my family keeps thing meaning real. This year was a little different, because we had a little baby in our midst.

As my eldest brother was reading the story, Samuel was blocking my view so I decided to look at him. I was thinking about Jesus being a baby. About the fact that he was fully God yet fully human.

Being a baby is humbling, which is why I think we don't remember it. He was fully God, yet he had to have somebody change his 1st Century diaper. Let me tell you it wasn't as easy as taking disposable Elmo off his tush. What person of royalty in our world would want to be treated like that? He could command everything and anything he wanted, yet he came to us as a helpless baby.

I hope this smacks you in the face.

I hope it makes you appreciate just all that he did for us.

We sing songs about little baby Jesus. But when do we grasp it? Did he have spit that somebody had to wipe off? Did he cry after he first woke up? He was dependent on Mary and Joseph for everything. They had to bathe him, feed him, change his nasty diapers and maybe his not so nasty ones.

Humbleness at it's max.

Do you think he remembered? Do you think he knew that he was the King of kings as they were cleaning his mess up? Maybe not. But it gives me something to think about it.

I don't like humbling myself. And I'm not even the King of Kings. But he's definitely taught me a lesson.

We truly serve an Amazing God.

thats all for now
-j

While it's still new

Thanksgiving is just a couple of days away but I have something to confess....

Today I started listening to Christmas music. I know it's early, I'm sorry. But my excuse is that I had dishes and other house things to do and that was my motivation.

Coincidently my mother sent me a package.... With Christmas cookie decorations in it!! My friends and I are making cookies for the dorm students around campus and I didn't have anything (being that I just got married) So mom sent me a package. It had two different types of sprinkles in it, edible beads, cookie cutters, and a snowman dish towel. So cute.


Like everything in our society we are on to the next big thing. Christmas decorations were out in stores even before halloween had come. (Brian and I got our Christmas tree on Oct 9).

However by the end of it all, most people will be sick of Christmas.

This is the one time of year that almost everybody looks forward to. Yet we still manage to become sick of it. What does that say about us?

But are they sick of Christmas or just the commercialization of it? Sick of the Christmas songs and the smell of pine trees. Sick of looking at left over Christmas cookies, and eating left over Christmas food especially the fruit cake. And some people, even sick of family. But I think we are forgetting the meaning of Christmas.

Christmas is when we celebrate our saviors birth. We hear it a million times during the season, but it should make us jump for joy and worship our King. Yet we get sick of it. We should stand up and say HALLELUJAH! Yet we get sick of it. Americans want things at a fast pace and don't want to stay focused on one thing for too long, but I see it affection our spiritual walk.

Now I'm not saying it's a SIN to get sick of "Santa baby" or whatever, because honestly sometimes I do want to punch out my radio after it comes on ever day for a month. But next time we say we are sick of Christmas; think about just exactly what are we sick of? And remember you probably waited for it all year long, so it's just pay back.

Just a thought. thats all for now.
-j