Holidays

My Top 7 Favorite Easter Traditions

April 1, 2015 By Leah Stirewalt This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Policy for more details.

I love Easter! From decorating, to worship, to family time, to fun food, to eggs…eggs…and more eggs…it’s simply a festive time and brings a smile to my face each year. Well…maybe except for this year. Everyone in my household has been sick! So, we had to alter plans a bit. But…on a normal year…these are my family’s top 7 favorite Easter traditions:

1. Decorating. I admit it…I am a bit of a holiday decorating junkie, and Easter is no exception. While it pales in comparison to my Christmas decorations, there is still no doubt the holiday is near when stepping into my home.

2. Baskets. While many of our children are grown, we now have grandchildren, AND we still love to give Easter baskets. With a large family like our own, it’s financially not practical to create an Easter basket for each of our children and grandchildren, so we try to concentrate on the minor children still living at home as well as our grandchildren. I’m sure as our family continues to grow, we’ll have to examine that tradition again in the near future.

3. Egg dying. This has to be one of our favorite Easter traditions! We all try to “outdo” each other with the most creative designs. I think my 18-year-old daughter loves this tradition as much as any of us, and she turns into quite the Michelangelo when it comes time to dying eggs.

4. Egg hunts. Rain or shine…I love me a good ol’ egg hunt! In addition to hiding the eggs for the kiddos to find (and sometimes the kids hide them for the adults), we also stuff each plastic egg with a little surprise…piece of candy, a penny, etc. There’s usually one “special” egg that contains an even bigger price…”the golden egg”!

5. Worship. As Christians, worship is paramount to our family’s Easter celebrations, and the rest of the traditions would be in vain without the key events leading up to, and including, the Resurrection. We happen to attend worship at our own church on Saturday night in order to be able to travel Sunday morning to visit with family and attend church with them.

6. Travel to see-out-of-town friends. As I alluded to in #5, we travel to my mother-in-law’s house on Easter Sunday morning and attend church with her, my husband’s siblings, and their families. Celebrations with a crowd can sometimes produce a little angst, but in our group…mostly fun and lots of laughter!

7. The Easter meal. Yummy with a capital “Y”! Who can have a party without food? If our family knows anything…we *know* how to eat! There is never a shortage of food, and there are always new dishes to try!

I would love to hear about your Easter traditions!

ABCs of Christmas Gift Idea

December 6, 2014 By Leah Stirewalt This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Policy for more details.

I LOVE homemade gifts! I love to get them and especially love to give them. One of my favorite homemade ideas came from a book my grandmother made for my daughter right before she was born. It was a scrapbook she learned to make from her sister entitled The ABCs of Christmas. Now…this was made from one of the “old-style” scrapbooks without the acid free pages, etc., but it could most easily be adapted to products we use today. I’ve made a couple of them for other children through the years, but the pictures I’m including here are of my daughter’s book (now over 18 years old!).

The cover is made from letters stenciled and cut from gold paper and glued on the book.

Inside the book, two pages are allotted for each letter. Every letter of the alphabet has a verse from a poem that was adapted for the book. My grandmother typed the verse onto shipping labels, but you could certainly use something like card stock, an acid free label, or anything else that suits your fancy. I’m not sure where the poem originated, but it can certainly be changed to meet your needs. I’m including the poem at the end of the post.Each letter represents something in the poem…examples – I is for ice, L is for lantern. Then, actual Christmas cards are used to represent each of the letters. Sometimes, you have to stretch your imagination a little to represent some of the letters. The letter V stands for VISIONS of wreaths. Well, the cards you might use for that letter would be wreaths – not necessarily visions. The letter U stands for Universe, so I generally try to find cards to use with lots of children (of different races if possible) or pictures that reflect the world in general. Z stands for Zenith representing the star, so the cards I choose for Z will have the Bethlehem star. Here are a few examples of the inside pages.

There are so many ways to make this ABC book idea your own. I’m simply sharing my daughter’s original book made by her great-grandmother. I love the fact you can reuse those Christmas cards you get every year. I continue to hang onto them and will also ask friends to save theirs for me as well! Maybe this will give you a unique homemade Christmas gift idea for a young one. As promised, here’s the poem…

A is for Angels
With halos so bright
Whose carols were heard
On that first Christmas night

B is for Baby
The Christ child so dear
We celebrate Christmas
His birthday each year

C is for Candles
That so brightly shine
To give a warm welcome
To your friends and mine

D is for Doorways
With garlands of green
To make Christmas merry
As far as they are seen

E is for Earth’s flowers
With colors so gay
That brighten our lives
With their beauty each day

F is for Firesides
Cheery and gay
To give a warm welcome
On each Christmas day

G is for Greetings
A merry hello
With a heart full of love
For people we know

H is for Holly
With berries so bright
To make into wreaths
To hang just right

I is for Ice
And snow covered hills
Where skating is fun
Along with the spills

J is for Jingle bells
Merrily ringing
To the whole world
Joy they are bringing

K is for Kris Kringle
As merrily he stands
That is what they call Santa
In some other lands

L is for Lanterns
I am sure that their light
Helped Mary and Joseph
That first Christmas night

M is for Manger
A crude little bed
The place baby Jesus
Laid down his sweet head

N is for Noel
That choirs now sing
Herald the birth
Of the newborn King

O is for Ornaments
So shiny and gay
To make our tree pretty
On each Christmas day

P is for Presents
Packages so gay
All around the tree
To open Christmas day

Q is for Quiet
That first Christmas night
When a big star in heaven
Glistened so bright

R is for Rudolph
With his big red nose
The favorite reindeer
Santa Claus chose

S is for Shepherds
And the big star
Seen over Bethlehem’s manger
They followed it far

T is for Trees
We decorate gay
Then wait for old Santa
To come around our way

U is for Universe
The whole wide world
Where Christ brings joy
To every girl and boy

V is for Visions
Of wreaths so bright
That hang in doors and windows
They make a pretty sight

W is for the Wisemen
Who brought gifts so rare
And fell down and worshipped
The Christ child there

X is for Christmas
A short way to say
All good things
That mean Christmas day

Y is for Yule logs
Whose bright sparks fly high
And give a warm welcome
To all who come by

Z is for Zenith
Where the Christmas star stood
Guiding the wisemen
As God meant it should

Easy-to-Make Ornament Tree

December 5, 2014 By Leah Stirewalt This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Policy for more details.

Creating crafts for the Christmas season is one of my favorite types of crafting! I’ve discovered so many cute ideas via Pinterest but realized pretty quickly that if I didn’t create a crafting plan for actually making all those cuties, they’d never happen. They would simply be more “pins on a board”.

Therefore…early in 2014, I decided I’d work on a Christmas craft each month until I had a total of twelve different projects. You know what they say…”best laid plans”. With us beginning our adoption journey this past year, I wasn’t able to execute my Christmas crafting plan, but stay tuned for a fun series later in 2015. In the meantime, I can’t wait to show you one project I was able to complete!

Without further ado…a super easy-peasy ornament tree!

Easy-to-Make Ornament Tree

This truly was a VERY easy project and yet adds so much color to my home for Christmas.

Supplies used:

Styrofoam cone
Round Christmas ornaments, of your choosing
Hot glue gun and glue sticks
Garland, for filler

That’s it! Inexpensive and simple!

Start by removing the tops off each ornament.

After all the tops have been removed, dab a little hot glue to the open end of each ornament and push gently into the cone, beginning at the bottom. Continue this process all the way up the tree. Make sure to have the ornaments as close together as possible. The gaps of styrofoam still showing will be taken care of in the next step.

For the next step, I chose some inexpensive silver beaded garland to use as filler between the ornaments.

I cut the 9-foot string of garland into smaller pieces to simplify the process. I then added hot glue to one side of the garland and followed by carefully pressing into the places of the “tree” where styrofoam was still visible. I continued this process until all bare areas were filled. And that’s it! A simple, yet beautiful, decoration to keep or give away!

Patriotic Bandana Wreath

June 23, 2014 By Leah Stirewalt This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Policy for more details.

I loved, loved, LOVED this wreath project I found over at Girl in the Garage! I am the first to admit that my Pinterest boards are full of DIY/craft projects I fully intend to do, but__________. I could fill in the blank with any number of excuses, so we’ll just leave it open.

However, when I first discovered this project, it caught my eye. I love 4th of July craft projects…so festive! And…it’s economical to make and took me only about 30 minutes! That’s a win win win for me!

Materials needed:

16-inch white wreath form

3 bandanas (red, white, blue)

scissors

Cost: Only $8.00! I used a 40% off coupon on the wreath form at Michael’s, and I found the bandanas for $0.99 each!

I first cut the fabric into 3-inch pieces. I measured the first one to get a ball-park for the size, and I simply eye-balled the cutting mark for the rest of the pieces.

I then formed a u-shape with each strip under the wreath.

I put the two ends together and pulled them through the loop on the other side, making a knot. I then pulled them tight. I found it also worked well to criss-cross the ends together to help tighten up the knot a little better.

I continued this pattern: red – white – blue until I used all strips of the bandanas. I pulled out the ends of each tied piece a little to give it a fuller look. Lastly, I repositioned each piece around the wreath form to ensure all pieces were as evenly spaced as possible.

Ta-da! A patriotic, bandana wreath! Inexpensive and easy!

What projects are you working on (or maybe have already completed) for the upcoming Independence Day holiday?