christmas frenzy...

I finally finished up the Christmas decorating tonight! The tree is up, the kids hung all their ornaments, the garlands are all hung and the front yard is lit up too. Tomorrow Logan and Lynn have a cub scout thing in the morning and Caleb, Molly and I will be raking the last batch of leaves from the yard and pruning back the last few plants that need pruning.

After that the boys want to make more ornaments. So far the boys have made polymer clay lions and snowmen (which still need painting) and then we painted plaster of paris "wreaths" (a term I use loosely, because I was informed they could be sugar plums or life savers or, or, or - you get the picture :)).



We are definitely going to make some more wooden knob snowmen (instructions can be found here) because Molly will be able to play along fairly easily. After that? Who knows? Maybe some more borax snowflakes?



With the few we've made so far we've discovered a few things:

• crystals do not want to form on curved lines like they do straight lines (which is a bummer, because how cute would snowmen be?)
• you will get a much more consistent covering of crystals on your pipe cleaner base if you suspend your snowflake surface parallel to the bottom of your container versus suspending it perpendicular.
• if you make a super saturated solution (4-4.5 TBSP dissolved in a cup of water versus the 3 that Martha suggests, your crystals will form quicker)

I had another reason for popping in, but at the moment I can't remember what it was...

I hope everyone is getting done what you need/want to get done and that you're having a good time doing it! xo