Camping

Every year around this time - when the sun returns to Chicago, the leaves return to the trees and people come out of their houses - our homeschooling schedule gets all shaken up.

This year we are responding by doing a summer camp schedule. Our first camp week has centered around exploring the book What Do You Stand For, which I highly recommend. Next week we'll do math, then a week of science and a week of art. This better suits our spring time attention span, which has little to do with handwriting and vocabulary and more to do with exploring big issues in wide open spaces.

New Muse, Old Muse

I've started weaving again, after a long hiatus. My return to my old favorite art form was facilitated in part by my massive cleaning of the kids bedrooms. Once all the broken and unused toys, the long unread books, outgrown clothes and general junk was removed, I discovered that the boys room could really use a couple of chairs and a rug. I'm not all that into chair making, but have been saving old clothes and fabric for years, limiting myself to one giant Rubbermaid tub each for woven, knits and denim.

I took five pairs of Mark's old pants, put them in a dye bath so that each is a slightly different shade of denim blue, cut and stripped them, dressed the loom and began weaving. Dressing the room is a daunting task after three or four years off. Despite rereading my instructions, and with many interruptions, it took the better part of a week to get the warp wound and beamed. Even though I checked a few times, I managed to cross some threads in the heddle and did not admit to this until I had a good foot or two woven. Not being a perfectionist, I cut the threads and called it a design element. This left three threads loose at the back beam, so I weighted them with toys I found lying around. They look cute dangling there, don't they?

Another reason or the weaving is that I have two pairs of socks on needles, both knitted from the cuff down, both at the most boring part - past the heel and heading to the toe. All I have to look forward to is the toe and that doesn't hold enough interest. I could have just cast on another pair with different needles (I do two at a time on two circulars), but realized how ridiculous this is. So, I'm weaving when at home and knitting on the instep when I'm not. My blog has been suffering for the weaving, though. I have many, many projects lined up in my head now that I have the weaving bug back!

House Presents

I like to give our house presents for Christmas each year. Sometimes, like this year, we get necessary things like a set of tires. This was our first cash only Christmas, so we're pretty pleased the house could receive gifts as well. Along with the tires, we got a device to stream Netflix movies in to our TV without needing a disc. It's made by Roku, specifically for Netflix, although it will be able to take Amazon movies once Amazon is ready. This has been a great gift. We do still get three movies from Netflix at a time, but often they are not what we want to watch before bed. Or, as in the case of the Mr. Magoo series, they are languishing, unwatched, but unwilling to be returned.

So, say it's a pledge drive on PBS - and when, really, isn't it a pledge drive on PBS? It's 8:30, everyone is ready to watch something, but there's nothing on. We really only watch PBS, we choose not to get cable for more channels of stuff we don't want to watch. We have three Netflix discs at home - a 2 1/2 hour ballet, an orchestral performance, and Mr. Magoo. We click on the Roku, see what's in the queue, pick one and watch it. If the Internet is wonky, as it has been recently, sometimes it pauses to retrieve it again. And sometimes, strangely, the picture is distorted or the soundtrack isn't coordinated with the pictures. We need to figure out these problems, but we've been able to watch alternate shows instead. And when the kids had the flu last week, they camped out with Nature programs. Great present for the house.

Our second house gift was a polymer clay oven. I wont bore everyone with the details of the combination of coupons that made this unnecessary item worthwhile, it was a spectacular deal. And the kids really love it. At least Medium and Small do. They make new creations every few days. Medium even has a box with many small compartments to store her creatures
in. Here's a picture of her teeny tiny horse collection:


None of these are more than an inch big. She also has more teensy weensy animals and food items (cupcakes and sandwiches with eyes, that sort of thing).

Large had thus far only had one foray into the kitchen to work with the polymer clay and cook something up. This is his creation, which has left me speechless:

Somewhat handmade Christmas

Now that everyone has opened their gifts, I can share my handiwork. The cabled mittens on the left went to my sister-in-law. It was a really fun pattern from Ravelry, quick and easy to knit. The socks went to my brother-in-law, my usual 3x1 rib pattern. Stretchy and functional. The yarn is Opal, purchased at my weaving shop before it closed this summer. Very fun knits, those two.

And then I violated one of the Yarn Harlot's rules of holiday knitting. I knit for someone who doesn't appreciate handmade things. Actually, my sister's daughter may very well appreciate the little bundles of joy I gave her in the form of a bunny and a monkey, but my sister did not. Lesson learned. Ordinary plastic stuff is better. The monkey was a really fun thing to knit as well, although next time I'll do the smaller version to shorten the boredom of the arms and legs. The pattern came from Blue Moon and featured an afterthought heel for the mouth and butt. Much fun.

And then came the fleece pajamas for my kids. This was extremely difficult as I'm not good at sewing and the kids are with me all the time. One of the few drawbacks of homeschooling is that you can't sneak in a handmade gift too easily. But I kicked them out of the house or banished them to other rooms to get them done. And now they are matching, except for the dots I put inside as labels to help in the laundry folding.

All in all, I've had a very creative year. It was one of my resolutions last year to do something creative each day. And except for the few weeks surrounding my father's hospitalization and major life change, I managed to do just that. I feel better for it and hope to keep up the habit in the years to come. All told, I knit seven pairs of socks (and I'm on the 8th), a hat and gloves, mittens, a lace scarf, a failed sweater for Mark, a bunny and a monkey. Need to update my Ravelry notebook, which is really handy for notes. That and I sewed the Halloween costumes, pants for Small, the pjs, and did some paper crafting. It's really healthy to keep the creative juices flowing.

Shameless Plug

If you're in town this week, or near Oak Park, please head over to Pleasant Home (at the corner of Pleasant and Home). This wonderful old house is holding it's annual artisans sale with some of the proceeds going to the upkeep, restoration and maintenance of this historic treasure. I have a few silly things in the sale, but there are many, more serious artists involved.

The sale starts with an open house on Sunday, December 7th from 1 to 4 and runs all the following week. You can visit an historic landmark and finish off your holiday shopping in one fell swoop!

Creative Overload

Wow, this was one hard to carve pumpkin! Lots of little lines, curvy lines. But I was pleased with how it came out. And it made lots of grown-ups smile as they waited for their kids to get their goodies. I am hoping those smiles are ones of approval, ones of support. Only two days left, the anxiety is killing me.

And then there were my Super Mario kids. Mario, Luigi and fire Mario. I should really learn not to buy the cheapest fabric possible for these things, but I couldn't see forking over significant money for something they would be wearing just a few times. You may notice only Small, Fire Mario, got the side pockets. They were way too complicated with this slippery fabric to do six of them.

The reaction to my kids' costumes was best from the teenage set. They would answer the door to pass out goodies and get rave reviews on their costumes. they were just brimming from ear to ear.

I have to say I behaved myself pretty well for the holiday. I only complained to a few close friends about how it is my least favorite holiday, didn't hover over my allergic children or repeat endlessly that they shouldn't eat anything until we've read the label. Small announced to his Uncle Bill "I'd like to have a piece of candy, but can't have any milk, eggs or nuts!" No need for hovering anymore. They get it and have moved on.

Life and Art

So, we were messing around with art the other day at a library nearby. Lots of tissue paper, lots of glue, scissors, you get the idea. I was helping Small, following directions and making a tissue paper collage with boring circle and petal flowers. Medium and Large, on the other hand, were carefully crafting yellow cone flowers, obedient plant, compass plant, cardinal flowers - anything but boring daisy like flora. We were using a little art skills textbook, and true homeschoolers they are, they took what the needed and did what they wanted. Really beautiful creations!

And on an even more positive note, I haven't had any pain in 48 hours now. I'm cautiously optimistic that the corner has been turned, the super-duper antibiotic has done it's job and life will now return to what we call normal.

Strange mind work

This is my middle child, at Parent Observation Day in one of her dance classes. My mind doesn't work in the same way hers and she is a constant source of amazement - and amusement - to me.

The other day at lunch I mentioned that the next day was Leader Appreciation Day at Girl Scouts. The parents had not organized the kids for a group effort, so individual appreciation was in order. My girl really loves her leaders Lori and Tina, and got very excited about making something to honor and thank them. Girl Scouts is one of the highlights of her week, we drive a long way to get there, get out of the house - and out of bed - earlier than we'd like, but have never regretted our decision to join this homeschool troop.

A while later, as I was preparing fish for the dehydrator and trying to herd the kids into completing their minimum requirements for the day, she was camped at the kitchen craft table, intently working on her appreciation gifts. Trying not to be annoyed that the all important math was being overlooked, I asked to see what she was making.

For Lori she produced a not-to-scale model of the solar system out of Sculpey clay. The sun was yellow, the earth blue and green, the rest fabulous, teeny and highly breakable in the Sculpey clay tradition. For Tina she had produced an evolutionary time line - at least the primate portion. Ape, Neanderthal, modern day human. Beautiful

Again, she left me speechless. Chuckling, of course, was not appropriate. Instead, I complimented her work, turned on the oven to 275 for the clay and called Mark. He, at least, could laugh in wonder at the other end of the phone as I told him of her creations.

I also passed on an observation that dehydrating fish stinks up the whole house.

Culling the Hoard

This is how we spent our weekend. Our village had a spring clean out day to celebrate a new contract with the waste hauler. Prices, of course, are going up, so to make it more palatable, they offered residents a one time, all you can put out for 3 stickers deal. We put out everything our backs would allow and then some.

The picture does not show all of the junk we put out, as it was snatched up by people trolling in their cars all weekend. The old shower doors were taken right off the wagon I used to wheel them out. Three of four stacking bins were grabbed within minutes, as was the stroller, which we got third hand. I really enjoyed watching the trollers slow their cars to peer into each and every junk pile. Some came out and debated the worthiness of the junk on the curb, others drove slowly on. It was fascinating.

Included in our pile were four pieces of furniture the previous owners of our house left behind. That was almost 13 years ago! We've lived here too long, moving has a way of getting people to toss their garbage. Some things, like the shower doors and the water slide with a hole in it, should have been carted to the curb long ago. We were just too lazy.

The real victory in our garbage mountain is in coming to grips with my "fabric." I have a problem throwing away things I could use to make something else. Good intentions led to compulsive hording of old, stained clothes. I went through boxes and boxes of the clothes, limiting myself to four tubs in the end - knits, wovens, denim and fleece. There really isn't enough time left in my life to weave rugs or knit blankets from all the fabric I had saved! I'll never do it. Being on my organizing bend really helped me to come to grips with my stash. I was ruthless.

I did manage to fill the station wagon with unstained old clothes to give to Goodwill. My girl and I dropped the stuff off yesterday. 40 adult shirts. 29 pants and skirts. 20 baby outfits - my youngest is four years old! Books, unused appliances, blankets we don't use. An unbelievable amount of stuff, filling all but my seat and one seat in the back. At least someone else will get some use out of the things we donated.

Our backs and legs are killing us. All that time on cement floors, all that lugging up and down stairs. I hope my children never go through this, never have the need to save like their parents do. This weekend was a lesson for us and for them.

More amazing than the amount of garbage our house can hold, more interesting than watching the scavengers go through our junk, is the fact that some houses did not participate. Some of these people have lived here all their lives, or at least as long as we have. Maybe they are better and tossing as it comes, maybe they are waiting for another spring cleaning day, maybe they are hoarding more than we have.

Catching up

I haven't been writing about the thing-a-day project, but have been making a thing a day. I just caught up posting at www.thing-a-day.com and thought I'd share here as well.

First - I do, I do like that hat! Cables around the brim, cables going all the way up, really tiny 7 stitches to the inch yarn in the ss and 13 stitches to the inch in the cable. Did the fancy math to figure out the gauage, picked up 175 stitches from the brim cable stitch and followed a basic Ann Budd pattern from the Handy Book of Knitting Patterns to to the rest. I like the cables going up. They don't show up as sharply with the tweedy yarn, it's a merino wool/alpaca blend. Soft and warm. Now I'm working on matching gloves. I've never done gloves before...

This morning I made a card for my sister's birthday package. The card is from a template at www.alittlehut.com. It was fun to make. The paper is some we made at our papermaking workshop at www.vargasart.net and that's what I wrote the note on and glued to the inside of the card. Fun.


Over the weekend I made these earings. They are fun to wear, but I wish the pin were longer. The felt beads are from a local yarn shop, I just couldn't resist them. But I but couldn't figure out what to make with them. Then I used up a few of my zillion coupons at Joann's for the sterling findings.

OH, and yesterday we paid off the credit card. BAM. It's done.

My Allergic Valentines

Here is the valentine I made for Mark. I've been looking at a lot of papercrafting blogs lately, and wish I were better at it. Papercrafting can be done so beautifully, maybe I'll get there. But in the meantime, I know my hardworking, exhausted husband will enjoy this effort.

Yesterday I had the kids make Valentines for the party today at Writer's Workshop. It was a long shot that we would attend, but it helped with the grumpiness to have a project to do. The boys pressed designs and did some backwards writing into styrofoam and then rolled and printed it onto paper. Messy and fun. Little Missy wrote individual messages onto strips of paper, then folded and glued them into hearts - like the junk mail hearts I did the other day.

Today they woke and made special valentines for each other. They were shocked to learn that all the kids on the block were in school during such a huge holiday. Things like this make no sense to them, its another one of those meaningless rules. Later they asked to have some of the Sweet Tarts I bought to go with the Writer's Workshop valentines. They had shared a box of them yesterday.

After passing out a box to everyone and putting the rest away in the kitchen, Buddy came running and screaming into the living room to tell us to put them down. The Little Man actually spit his right out of his mouth. There, clearly labled on the individual box was a "made in a facility" message. It included more than just peanuts and tree nuts, also wheat, oats, barley and a whole host of other things my youngest is allergic to. The Sweet Tarts were packaged as twelve individual boxes, shrink wrapped together. On the outside of the shrink wrap was an ingredient sticker - with no warning, no "made in a facility" message. But each box had the message printed on the side. I didn't read the individual box labels.

Now I know that my oldest boy's bad cough yesterday was a result of eating these Sweet Tarts. He told me a couple of times that he needed the nebulizer, but he was able to get out complete sentences and run down the stairs to relay the information. And he wasn't wheezing. I put him under steam and made him rest, but he was still coughing. With hindsight, I can see he was having a reaction to the cross contanimated candy. And I gave him nothing for it, suspecting nothing. Worse than that, we had a heated argument over the need for the nebulizer.

Honestly, I know it would take a superhuman strength and power to keep my kids completely safe from food allergies. The list of foods we avoid for anaphylaxis is long: peanuts, tree nuts of all kinds, all legumes except soy. The list of foods we avoid for severe eczema is even longer: dairy, eggs, wheat and all gluten (oats, barley, rye, etc.), flax, pineapple, mango, papaya, corn starch and syrup, cranberries, blackberries, watercress, cabbage and some other greens. Labels are long and complicated. Some are clear, some are double labled like the Sweet Tarts. Some are over labeled, like every single cut cheese at Whole Foods, because they cannot separate their cheese from their nuts in the back. (The cheese guy cheerfully told me they wash the cutters for different molds on different cheeses, but they can't clean up their act enough to extend to the rest of the kitchen.)

So, the challenge is great. But I cannot stop blaming myself when we are accidentally exposed. Whether the reaction resolves itself in the emergency room or the living room, I still feel completely inadequate and unable to confront the obstacles. I am educated and hypervigilant, and yet my kid can have a reaction without me even realizing it.

McCain and Things

I was going to just update on my thing-a-day.com projects, but then Lori at http://www.chicagolo.homeschooljournal.net/ sent me this new video and I just had to put in in my blog. It's amazing. Out of the mouths of politicians...





We've all been pretty sick here. Fever, coughing. I thought Buddy was going into croup yesterday, his cough was very bark like. He goes to croup quickly and violently, usualy resulting in an oral steroid to reduce the inflamation. He was 8 1/2 the last time he had it, some people don't grow out of it. I called our doctor and she prescribes something called Viola Clear Fire Formula. It cleared his cough to normal. He's also taking Gan Mao Ling, San Ju Yin and what I call Su Ji Wada-Wada Boom Bang because the name is too long for me to remember.

I've had a lot of time to work on my thing-a-day, between nebulizer treatments and gatorade replenishments. First I made muffins because it was 50 below zero and our super efficient furnace, turned down to 64 degrees at night, could not catch back up to our normal 67. The wheat/gluten/dairy/egg free muffins are on the left. I made a double batch of the no-nut ones on the right, but they wouldn't fit in the picture.

Yesterday, I was messing around with valentines and decided to make hearts out of magazine pages. Parenting magazine has really flimsy pages, I get such a mainstream publication because I ordered diapers from somewhere that gave me a free subscription. Flimsy pages and flimsy advice all in one! I ended up gluing pages together to get it thick enough to make a heart.

I'm happy we homeschool and the kids can be sick and get better on their own schedule. It's amazing to me that we even got sick in the first place! For four weeks we've been stuck at home except for local evening activities like dodgeball, dance and gymnastics. It truly takes only one person coughing or sneezing in your face to pass the germ along. More likely, it took one four year old with his finger up his nose to touch my four year old...

Sunshine

I haven't watched TV news with regularity since 9-11. It disturbs me in so many ways, it's not worth it. Last night, though, I decided to watch the local news to catch the weather. I don't know what possesses me to compulsively get news about weather that is actually happening at the moment, I could just look out the flipping window. But I like to confirm our misery.

We had another snowstorm yesterday. Our house seems to be below the Mason-Dixon line and we only had 3 inches of snow (some areas got over a foot), but it was really wet and slushy. Walking the little man to dance proved impossible as it meant crossing great slush lakes at every intersection.

I learned two important factoids while watching the weather, and these kept me awake most of the night. The first is that we in Chicagoland have had 11 minutes of sunshine thus far in February. That's enough to depress even the most cheerful, half-full person without a Happy Light.

The second factiod was that the snow we received is called "Heart Attack Snow." Mark was already snoring when this information came out, so I carefully stayed primed all night to waken when his alarm rang at 4:15 to beg him not to shovel the snow. Then I promptly slept until 8 a.m. when the plow guy and his group of young, impervious to heart attack workers started plowing and shoveling.


This is my thing from yesterday. It's actually two things. The ball of silk came from the front of an old shirt. I have visions of going through all the old, stained and unwearable clothes I have stashed in the basement and making balls of knittable or weaveable yarn from them. Making a ball takes time as I like to cut it in one continuous loop to avoid sewing the strips together. And it creates a lot of waste as the ends need rounding. I came up with the idea of making a valenting with the waste fabric. Next time I'll use less glue to make it lie more flat and stay closed. Now all I need to do is make an envelope for it and send it to my mother!

Homecoming

I wish I had taken a picture or video of my girl's return from her Girl Scouts camping trip, but all I have is one of her leaving. She was exhausted from packing and waiting for me to get the car out of the garage. I had misjudged how much snow we had received and got stuck in the driveway.

Her homecoming was amazing - as I'm sure the trip itself was. The boys hugged and hugged her and wouldn't let go, even with the promise of dinner. They made a banner welcoming her home and put it across the hallway to the dining room. Then everyone talked at once to catch each other up on what happened in her absence, she telling us what she did on her trip. After all that energy fighting on a daily basis, we had an evening of love and togetherness.

It made me think we are in a rut. Certainly our financial woes have put a strain on the kids, although we aren't in a place where we are depriving ourselves of necessities. Our being stuck at home for lack of a car has stiffled us considerably. So, when the kids got up this morning, I told them the project of the day was to make an igloo before the snow melted. They had to go outside and work together and figure it out. They were out there 2 hours, but the rain and the melt hindered them. I hope the start of their structure remains for the snow we are supposed to get tomorrow night.

Every time I looked out the window, they were hard at work arranging their bricks, trying to figure out how to make it stand up and hold a roof. It was amazing to see them at work/play. Collaborating, discussing, throwing snow, making snow angles, working on the igloo, getting really wet and hungry. We need more creativity in our lives. And less fog.




Two more paper box animals today. I made some marble magnets yesterday, but am not happy with them. Aside from that I've been knitting, knitting, knitting on the baby blanket with no end...

Check-ups and Thing

We had two doctor's appointments this morning at 8 and 8:30. Not a good time for our family, except for Mark who is used to early rising. But it means we were the first appointments and only had to wait about half an hour to see the doctor. This is perhaps the only doctor I would ever be willing to wait for, and we wait evey time. The wait is always worth it. She really listens to us, spends more time with each patient than any other doctor I've ever seen, asks intelligent questions and is completely focused.

Our little man has struggled with severe eczema his whole life. Food allergies are a big culprit, but not the only one. He can't have wheat, dairy, eggs, legumes, nuts, corn syrup, pineapple and other fruits or flax seeds. We haven't tried new foods with him lately, but have been able to expand his repetoire lately as his tastes change. In the past month, he's developed a love for yogurt - soy and goat. The goat yogurt is much better for him, given it has 8 grams of fat a serving and is a simpler food than soy yogurt. His belly button is, for the first time, an innie. He looks less and less scrawny every day and we are thrilled. His eczema is better, he has two spots now; around his mouth and behind his knees. A year ago he was a full body, bleeding mess. And the chinese herbal treatments have strengthened his immune system to the point where when he gets a cold, it's very short in duration. The rest of the family has experienced this as well.

For my part, I had accupuncture for the first time today. It was the most relaxing thing I've ever done! She gave me needles to help my ankle pain and help with weight loss, after a regular office visit. I had them in for 45 minutes or so and feel fabulous now. It could just be that I rarely have 45 minutes to myself to do nothing but be. I wish I hadn't resisted accupuncture for so long, particularly if it gets me over the mobility and pain issues. With one car, Mark had to take the kids shopping and come back to get me. I was in there for two hours, so maybe the needles were in longer.



And here is my thing for the day. All the things up at http://www.thing-a-day.com/ are so interesting! I've been dreaming of ways to use up my fabric stash. It's clogging the basement and cluttering my life. But I can't just throw it out, most of it. I need to weave rugs, a stair runner, knit blankets, etc. Big plans for big fabric. So, last week I got out an old dress and cut some strips to make beads with. There were fun to make, I especially like the fringe. Then I made a box out of card stock and glued them to the top. Someday I'll open up an Etsy shop...

Unschooling thing

Here's my thing for the day. With Cooper, a real thing. My kids love these paper toys. At least for today and yesterday. Also go to http://www.thing-a-day.com/, when I posted some 550 people had already posted things they had made. Very cool.

But what everyone really needs to do it go to http://www.relaxedhomeschool.com/. Kim is hosting Unschooling Voices this month and there are some amazing things to read on there. Besides, Kim's blog is just generally cool.

In an unschooling manner, we took our Roots&Shoots cross country skiing today. We had probaby 8 inches of snow out here in the western suburbs between yesterday and today. (More fell near the lake, we are told.) We fought an as-yet unplowed driveway and poorly plowed or salted streets to a friend's house to take our girl on a Girl Scouts camping trip and then took our boys skiing at the same place we went to as a family last week. I use "we" and "took" pretty loosely, as I spent most of the time behind the Little Man or swinging him into a standing position one armed. He really got the hang of it today, though, and I am optimistic about our future skiing life. We all got to experience snow for the beautiful miracle it is, isntead of as an impediment or cause of traffic accidents. In our urban life, we tend to forget snow's purpose and wonder. That was lesson and learning enough for the day.

Thing a Day

I signed up for the thing a day challenge, because I felt my life hasn't been stressful enough lately. Actually, it helps me to be creative when life is stressful! So, I'll be posting my pictures there starting tomorrow. It's basically a site where all the registered folks create on thing a day for the entire month of February. That's 29 things this year. Registration ends at midnight tonight: www.thing-a-day.com.

Today's creation won't count, but he's cute! I really want a better exacto knife. Not an emergency. Not a need. The crab's legs would have been easier to cut out.

There's a beautiful, soft falling snow today, the house is warm and the kids have spend this morning working on their magazine submissions for their Writer's Workshop. Homeschooling life is back to normal, the kids didn't suddenly get stupid overnight because we spent the day reading out loud (finished The Wheel on the School) instead of calculating the permimeter and area of composite figures.

I don't know a homeschooling parent who doesn't occasionally go into a panic funk over what their kids are or aren't doing. It's painful when it happens, but a bit easier to overcome each time. Like me, my children are slow to get moving in the mornings. If their day doesn't start until 10 or 11, they still manage to learn and the earth still manages to spin on it's axis. Most days I can rememer that. Some days I have trouble. I think because it was so cold in the house yesterday - and too cold to knit! - my brain froze on the fact that the kids were having a hard time concentrating.

New Year's Resolutions

One of my New Year's resolutions this year is to do something creative each day. I get really cranky if I let it slide for a while and tend to have a happier day if I can discipline myself.

There is just so much to do. Today I've realized how far behind I am on many of my projects - my investment club, updating the Westside HOUSE website, planning the Roots&Shoots calendar. And this isn't even including the regular household duties, which have increased exponentially with the broken dryer.

But, it being January 1st, I kept to my promise and spent a half an hour in front of our HappyLight making tiny boxes out of Christmas cards. They are so cute! I'd like to make a bunch to put my mini-sweater, hat, mitten and sock ornaments in once I have those made. I'll have to start begging my friends and family who have not already recycled their cards to pass them on to me. The picture cards, like the ones we sent out, probably don't make good boxes and I'd have to use two to get a top and bottom, but I'll try that as well. The folded cards are the best for this project. It's quick and fun and filled my need to be creative on this cold and snowy day.