Showing posts with label make Christmas bright. Show all posts
Showing posts with label make Christmas bright. Show all posts

No Time Left Gift Shopping

Admittedly, I am very behind on my Christmas shopping and if I'm behind I'm sure some of you are too.  Maybe this quick gift guide will help you find just the right gift in just the right time.

All of these items are available in the store.

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Here's another link that might help you... {for Mother's}


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Making Christmas Bright: Playlist Part 2

A week on so ago I shared this playlist with for your Christmas parties.  But who has just one Christmas party?  No one.  That leaves us with a need for...an additional playlist.

Without further ado I leave you with Part 2.



White Christmas ~ Point of Grace
The Christmas Song ~ Michael Bublé
In the Bleak Midwinter ~ The Brilliance
Little Saint Nick ~ The Beach Boys
Kay Thompson's Jingle Bells ~ Michael W. Smith
Merry Christmas, Darling ~ The Carpenters
Mele Kalikimika ~ Jimmy Buffet
Lully, Lullay with What Child is This ~ David Phelps
Snow ~ Sleeping at Last
links provided to some videos.

Well, that's it for the Christmas songs.  Make sure to stay tuned the rest of the week.  I hope to be sharing a few pictures and maybe a clip or two from Christmas at Cathedral: Home for the Holidays.  I think you'll enjoy it.
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Making Christmas Bright: DIY Clay Gift Tags


When I saw these ceramic tags on the Anthropologie website I really liked them, but I'm not going to pay $3 per package to add one to each gift.  If you're giving away 20 present and you put one of each that'd be $60 plus tax and shipping.

I decided to try to find something that would look similar and would meet my wrapping needs.  I think I came up with one that will do both.


Before we can get to the creating, we have to make the clay.  Now, you could buy clay at the art store, but seeing that the main reason for making these gift tags is to save money, that option didn't seem like a good idea.

This is the recipe I came up with.









After the tags have cooled decorate however you want to.  Use markers, paints, stamps...whatever you like.  I would suggest sealing the tags with a clear coat of paint.

Here's a few more pictures of the finished product.



Make sure to check back this week.  I'll show you how you can use your clay gift tags.

More the Merrier Monday

Today's Creative Blog





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The December Must List




If you're looking for more Must List click here and here.



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Busy, busy + a look at Thankgiving

Life is crazy right now.  Like super crazy.

I've got a whole sloe of posts planned, but not written, wouldn't you know.  In the meantime, here's a few pictures of my family from Thanksgiving.  My sister, Dalayna, blogs at Pointing Up and these are her creations.

Hope you enjoy.


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December Kindness Month Link Up Week #1



If you're linking up here today it's because you've chosen to take the challenge.  You've chosen to strive everyday to do at least one extraordinary kind action for someone else.

Now, this can be a simple act but the point is that you do something.  Sometimes the simplest of kind acts can change someone's life. I know that some of you may be reading this post and thinking to yourself, "What a naïve thought.  To believe that one fleeting person could leave such a mark...ridiculous."

But it's not friends...not by a long shot.

Let me tell you a story and please understand that this is a difficult task for me.  I don't like writing about what I do for other people.  I tend to think that it's a little arrogant, but this is to prove a point.

This past week I was at the Dollar Tree purchasing some LED candles to make this craft (click the words to see the instructions) from A Night Owl, when the lady in front of me was having difficulty paying for her items.  I don't know if the card reader was having problems or if there just wasn't money in her checking account.  It really doesn't matter.

After quite sometime and many tries, I thought to myself, "Why not just pay for this?  It can't be that much."

So I did and guess what.  I think the total was under $3.00, but you would have thought that it was $100.  The cashier kept talking about it.  The person behind me kept talking about it.  They all just keep talking about it.  And it was uncomfortable.

But what was the girl's response, "Are you serious?  You want to pay for mine?"

She was shocked.  And I was shocked that she was shocked.

I truly hope that she looks back on that moment and feels joy and feels comfort and feels friendship.  Hopefully, she'll realize that she's not alone.

There's just something about those little acts of kindness that inspire us and make us want to be a better person.  Like when someone paid for my Starbucks.  I was shocked and so happy.  It made me want to brighten someone else's day in the same way.

That's what December Kindness Month is all about.  This is the brain child (or maybe Heart Child) of Jenn from My {not so} Glamorous Life.  Jenn has been inspiring me all week to be better.  We want you to join us and it's not too late.  If you missed the first week, no big deal.  Get in on the challenge now.  Start today.  Change a life today.

So here's the rules:
1) Aspire to do at least one out of the ordinary kind thing everyday.
2) On Fridays during the month of December link up your post about how you were kind.
3) Don't feel guilty for "bragging."
      -My voice teacher says it takes 21 days of consistant action to make a new habit.  Aspire to let kindness by your new habit.
      -Your story could help inspire others.  Let's start a revolution.

That's it.  That's all the rules.  It would be rather cool though if you'd join Jenn and me in tweeting using the challenge's hashtag.  It's #DKM.  It'd also be cool if you'd tweet, Facebook, and google share about this challenge.  The more people who participate the more lives changed!

Ok, so get to it!  Link up and spread love, joy, peace, happiness, and KINDNESS everywhere you go.

Until next time...



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Christmas Playlist Part 1...Making Christmas Bright

Every party needs a good playlist, wait, no, a great playlist and I think I have one for you.  My tastes in music are about as eclectic as any come so you can be sure there's something for you and everyone on this list.

Click on the song to go to a youtube.com video version. 

We Three Kings (feat. Mary Blinge) by Rob Stewart
Christmas Cookies by G. Love

This is only part one.  I'll have one other list in a week or two.  For now, my life is crazy.  Our production of Christmas at Cathedral is in one week.  It's crunch time, folks!

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Light in the Darkness


It was a dark, cold, hopeless Judean night.

There had been nights like this one before and there would surely be more to follow for such are the nights of servants--slaves--of an unjust king.  Caesar had ordered another count of his kingdom for the purpose of taxing his servants even further.

From all over the country side, men, women, boys, girls, entire families packed their belongings and headed on a journey to the town of their births.

I'm sure you sense it too...the tired in their voices...the sleep in their eyes...the hope in their heart that this census would be the last.  The longing for more than a life of servitude to an cruel man.  After all you can't build a kingdom on broken backs.

They knew, all too well, that this "exile" was of their own doing.  They had turned away from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to follow false gods.  They knew that all of this was a result of their sin, but they also knew that their Father God said He would send the Messiah--a Savior--to be their ruler.  So, with expectation, they waited in darkness for the Light of the world to deliver them from Caesar's rule.

As Mary and he new husband, Joseph, road into town there was no doubt in Mary's mind that this would be the night...the night that the strange life she carried would come.  You see, this life, inside of her still, was a miracle for she was a virgin.  Completely chaste.

The complications surrounding her mysterious pregnancy where trying, to be sure.  No one believed that she was a virgin.  How could a virgin be carry a life?  It was impossible.  Absolutely impossible, except that the life she carried was God made flesh.  The very incarnation of God Himself she carried and protected and loved before He was born.

So when on that dark, cold, hopeless Judean night, she heard Joseph say, "There's no room here" yet again, her body ached as her muscles contracted pushing God's Light from her.  Undoubtedly, her heart ached for her mother to hold her and guide her into motherhood.  Unfortunately, Joseph and animals in a stable were the only nurse she was allowed.

But it was in this miserable place--of loneliness, of pain, of doubt, of fear, of darkness, of sheer agony--that Light was born.

The Messiah had come.

He came for Mary...and Joseph...and the Jews in that Bethlehem town, but He also came for you and for me.



Just as Jesus came 2,000 years ago, He still comes today.  In so many ways I feel like Mary, Joseph and the people of Isearl.  I feel, sometimes, that I'm serving an unjust king whose only goal is to make me "pay" more.  Sometimes I'm lonely.  Sometimes I live in a fear and self-doubt.  Sometimes, I live in darkness.

But the Messiah has come and brought me out of darkness and into His marvelous light.

I'm certain that I'm not the only person who sometimes feels lost without hope of finding the light switch.  But I leave you with this today.  Find Christ and let Him light your life.


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Saturday's Songs Link Up


Join




for


***

Saturday's Song is a Blog Hop where bloggers who love Christian music share the music that God uses to speak to them!  So, turn on your radio, Pandora, Jango, or pop in your favorite CD, and get your post ready for next week's Link Up!!

This goal of this Blog Hop 
is to broaden your view of
Christian music using a different
theme/challenge each week.

If you are a blogger who loves Christian music, join us in connecting with other bloggers and sharing our love of Christian music with the blogosphere!  Enjoy!!

This week's theme/challenge:  
A Christmas song by a Christian artist
 
Enjoy Point of Grace singing Labor of Love

Tell me all about a Christmas song that you LOVE by a Christian artist!

 
Next week's theme/challenge:
A "newer" version of an "old" hymn.
Get your post ready for next week's Link Up!!

Let's get this Link Up Party started!
We would LOVE it if you linked up with a post about a Christmas song that you LOVE by a Christian artist.

Saturday's Song Blog Hop Rules:

1. Write a post that follows the weekly theme/challenge.
2. Follow the host and hostesses via GFC.
3. Grab a button to put on your blog - the more the merrier!
4. Check out (and comment) other people's blogs.
5. Be blessed by all the sisters and brothers around the world!




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make Christmas bright...a Christmas Free Printable


Today I'd like to share with you a printable to brighten up your day.  Just follow the link below and save.



Hope you enjoy.

Merry Christmas!

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making Christmas bright...the reason I want to Sparkle



Alone.
Cold.
Misunderstood.
Doubting.
Aching to be more, but with no means to be.
Hurting in a sea of total blankness.

These are all emotions that I've felt in my life.  Emotions that made me dull and boring and took away my spark for life.

As a child I was quite weird unique.  I was a child who wanted to live in an adult world and who fought to be an adult.

Yes, that was me.  The girl who wore only dresses because she really wanted to.  The girl who, at the age of 12, was mistaken for a manager at Wal-Mart (true story).  The girl who used the playground to advance my political agenda.  I was that girl.

And sometimes I still am.  I still care too much.  I still believe to passionately.  I'll still tell the cashiers how to run their machines (and for the record, I'm usually correct).  And I still sometimes feel like a person surrounded with humanity--with people who love me--but with no one who understands me.

And sometimes that's a lonely place.

But it's in this place of social silence, of secret solitude, that I'm reminded of one certain truth.  During my darkest times, this truth has become the rockbed of my foundation...the one truth to grab ahold of and refuse to let go.  It's in the Season, the season of celebration for Christ's de-scension from Heaven, that I'm reminded most.

God became flesh and came to dwell among us.  To live among us.  To die among us.  To rise among.  To be Immanuel, God with us. (John 1:14)

When I remember this truth, my self-doubt leaves.
My loneliness goes.
I feel warmth again.
I discover that emotions--hurt and joy--are gifts from God and a reflection of His personality.
My self-worth finds a home in God's opinion only.

It's for this reason that I can Sparkle.


I strongly sense that maybe this is all we really want...connection to something.  To know that we aren't alone...to know that somebody understands us.  And so we reach out into this community of  the social media world looking, hoping, wanting to not be alone.  But when you close the computer or shut off the phone or turn off the television or leave the restaurant that dreaded loneliness returns with a vengeance taking hold of our emotions.

But here is the truth of the Season: Jesus, God, Lord, Savior, lover...is Immanuel, God with you.

I challenge you in the busyness of the holidays, find Jesus.  Find God with you.  No longer alone, but surrounded with His manifest presence.  Be a reflection of His love and His light.

Sparkle.


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make Christmas bright with Marbleized Letters



Today I'm starting a series that will last through Christmas.  It's called making Christmas bright.  I hope that you feel inspired to change your environment,  your home, your life and the lives of people around you.

On Friday, Jenn of My {not so} Glamorous Life and I will reveal a big surprise.  It has all to do with you making the Christmas of the people around you brighter.  I think you're going to enjoy this challenge.  Be sure to come back on Friday.

Here's a little project I worked on this week.







Here's a look at the finished product. In hindsight, I wish the letters were bigger.  I got the largest available for purchase at the craft store, however, the bigger the room the larger the letters should be and this foyer is a very large room.
Thanks for visiting and don't forget to enter the giveaway.  And Friday, don't forget to come back and discover how you can make this Christmas season brighter for someone else.  Let's make Christmas bright!

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The DIY Dreamer
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