It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

I don't actually have an image, or video to share with  you, yet.  I am very busy promoting my Etsy shop, and I have had 3 sales already this month, so I am doing something right so far.  I am offering free shipping, on all domestic orders of 35 dollars or more, until Jan 1, 2017.  So, take advantage of that.  I have clearance/sale section, also.  You can get to my shop by doing a search for Missy69, or by clicking my Etsy shop widget in the column of this blog.

The kids, and I decided on two Advent calendars for this year.  I actually forgot that last year we decided, this year, that we would do a reverse Advent calendar.  What is a reverse Advent calendar?  First get a big box.  In the box, every day from Dec 1st through the 25th, add a nonperishable food item to the box.  On Christmas day you donate the food to a family that is in need of a Christmas dinner.  You can just set the box on their door step, and they will be blessed, and you get to be humble in your giving.  We will probably use one of the churches, or the school, to find a family that will need such a gift.  Some other ideas you could do are make a shoe box of gifts, similar to what churches do for Operation Christmas Child, but donate it to your local nursing home.  So many of the elderly have no families, and the smallest of gifts would make their day.  Be sure to ask your local nursing home, they might already have such a program and know just where the greatest needs are.  Make a care bag, or a few, for the homeless and drop them off to them on Christmas Eve.  Maybe that is what we will do with our dinner box.

The second Advent calendar, will be a fun crafty one.  We do one of these silly ones every year.  A friend of mine has given me two large wood slices.  I was thinking, if I get time, that I will wood burn a Santa face, or Nativity onto the wood slice, with 25 round spaces either on the beard, or around the Nativity.  Then we can tape things into the circles each day.  I would be totally reusable and look lovely on the coffee table, or dining room table.  I hope I actually get time to do it.  If not, I will be printing off a fun, silly one.  You can find a whole bunch of printable Advent calendars by doing a search on Bing or Google under images.  

Countdown To Christmas Painted Snowman, Snowman Coaster and Some Projects In Progress

I think I really need to be sure and blog at least 4 days a week. I have so many things already in my store, that I have not shared here yet. I try to be creative everyday. Some weeks that just is not possible, and some weeks it seems like I am just creating like crazy, lol. This week, so far, has been very productive. For those of you who blog, here is a question for you. If you have an Etsy store, where does the most of your non Etsy traffic come from? In other words, not people who favorite your item because they are in a team, but traffic from elsewhere. Mine are Facebook, and this blog. It is hard to say for Twitter and some others because they count in Direct Traffic ads and that could be a lot of different things.

 Yesterday, I finished a red and black, plaid, baby cocoon. It is so adorable, and I will share it here on the blog later. It is available in my Etsy store. Today, is painting day. My husband, finally, cut me some more wood slices from the tree we had to cut down. Unfortunately, I only got three that are small enough to be coasters. You can see one below in the early steps of painting it with an adorable snowman. Those will be available for sale, when I get them finished. I also painted one of the larger slices, white, and it too will have an adorable snowman painted on it. If you follow this blog, you know I did some poinsettias a few weeks ago. They are large, thick and heavy, so I will not sell them in my Etsy store. But, tonight as I was thinking about it, I am going to put them in the garden as wooden stepping stones. I think that is such a lovely idea. I also did a gingerbread painted gift bag, that too will be another day.

 Last but not least, I found these foam snowmen at the Dollar Tree. I painted the hat, the face, added some pine with holly berries, and snowflakes to the body of the snowman. Then I added the numbers 1-25, and crocheted a carrot nose. The nose moves to point to how many days are left until Christmas. These are not very big, and can be reused as long as taken care of. It is about 6 inches tall. This one is ours, because I am not crazy about how the numbers came out, but they will be listed in my store as made to order items. I think I have 5 more snowmen I can create. My kids love the advent calendars, and this one is so adorable. You will find it available in my Etsy store within the next few hours.

A Different Kind Of Advent Calendar

Wow sharing pictures with all of you has all of a sudden become a pain. My PC has decided that I need a new one, and will not download pics, so I have to download them to the laptop then email them to myself to use them. Ugh what a pain.

At any rate I wanted to share this with you as it is a craft after all. It is as of today 25 days until Christmas. I saw this idea for an advent calendar in a magazine, and tweeked it to suit my needs. They had a big fancy wooden bowl that they put the candles in. I used a round metal tin like a pizza pan, added 25 candles, cinnamon scented pinecones, and not pictured are tumbled rocks we got at the Aquarium when we visited. You can add garland, beads or whatever you like to it. Then every night you light one candle, until all 25 are lit, and then it is Christmas. I actually think this would be lovely as floating candles in water as well. Wish I had thought of that first. Some people count day one as tonight then the 25th is lit on Christmas Eve. I start on the first and the 25th is lit on Christmas. Try it, and tell me how you like it.