freedom in the messy

Christmas was a few months ago, but when you are busy with 3 little people, just feeding and cleaning people is enough. I am just now looking at these pictures. 

I love this picture. 

Sums up my life. 

Books, clothes, artwork, beads, pillow forts, bird feathers, papers. They are usually all over my house, not organized, not put away. I am learning to be still, to enjoy my little people and to let the mess go. 

Freedom in the messy. 

Once in awhile, you sneak in a sit at the sewing machine or a quick read. Or you do a project together with your kiddies. It makes it more fun and special anyways. Like this:

Thanks to the all the diaper boxes, we have free canvases and cardboard ready. I cut out the shape of the holly leaves and berries, and put out the paint. We used a mixture of reds for the berries and greens for the leaves. After it dried, I glued all the pieces together.

It was simple, sweet, and handmade. 

And as I look back on the title of this post, I am reminded of the real reason of Christmas, Jesus' birth. He was born in a stable/cave. It was outside and there were smelly animals. It was most certainly messy. But God sent His Son Jesus on that day for our freedom.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 

2 Corinthians 3:17

He brings freedom in our messy. 

thanksgiving leftovers

I realize there are several things that I did not "catalog" from Thanksgiving. These are ideas that came to fruition and that does not always happen around here. So hooray for a project dreamed up, executed and it held together!

First off, we made these cute notebooks for Thanksgiving. We called them our thankful books. 

I bought small note books that were very inexpensive from Hobby Lobby that had blank white pages on the inside. I cut out fabric pieces in the shape of turkey feathers, as well as a body and gobbler. Its not called a gobbler. Its called a...?

The kids got to pick whatever 6 feathers out and I helped glue everything on. They then wrote "thankful" on a small piece of cardstock and glued it on. 

I thought that they turned out really well and each child could master it. I had 4 to 9 years old aged children and they all loved making them. 

The best part was the inside. The kids drew pictures of things they were thankful for. This girly was thankful for rainbows:) Yes, this project makes my heart happy.

And for the second project, we decorated our house for Thanksgiving with old works of art. My daughter and I cut out feather shapes from old drawings. ( Yes, it hurt a little but also I was proud of me for 

recycling!) We then did a quick wash with watered down paint over the feathers. After they dried, we sewed them together into this garland. 

Happy way late Thanksgiving!

DIY ottoman of non perfection

I have been working on these puppies for awhile. In my head I have been. They were 2 ottomans I got from Target and they weren't anything special. Actually, they didn't match. With an on sale fabric, Viola! ( Yes, I know its voila.) Sewed a bit, stapled a bit and now my babies' babies have a home. These house our baby dolls. 

I see now how they aren't perfect, but I am not perfect, either. We go well together!