Merry Christmas!

Dollar Tree Ornament, Painted

How Lucy Became a Saint

My name is Lucy (means light), and it is the year 303 AD. Christians are experiencing the worst persecution yet, and I am one of them. Not satisfied with just taking food to the hungry, I gave all my money, including my large dowry, to the poor. My fiance was furious. He turned me into the Roman magistrate, who ordered me to burn incense to the Emperor. When I refused, they plucked out my eyes. When I still refused, they tried to take me away, but I was stuck fast to the spot and light shone from my eye sockets; so they beheaded me on the spot.

Italian missionaries brought my story, the story of Santa Lucia, to Sweden. My feast day of December 13th was long thought of to be the shortest day of the year. Swedes fell in love with my story and with the celebration of light on the darkest day of the year.

Growing up, my mom turned the celebration of Santa Lucia (getting up early and serving coffee and Lucia buns) into a Swedish dinner. When we got married, Daniel and I started hosting one for our friends as well. On the menu: Swedish meatballs from Ikea, Swedish flat bread, lingonberries, pan roasted potatoes, squash medley (because I happened to have it in the fridge), peas and broccoli. And for dessert, rice pudding and dairy free rice pudding (made with vanilla almond milk: it was my favorite), ginger cookies from Ikea, krumkakes, and Swedish Fish!

 

Same Blog

Don't worry, its the same blog, just a new name. I was getting tired of the old name but wanted to keep the same URL.

French Braid

I figured out how to French braid my hair in a circle! I've been French braiding my hair since I was a little girl, so this was fairly easy once I figured out where to stick my elbows!

Velvet Pumpkins

I bought five plastic pumpkins for a dollar each at Big lots {Dollar Tree will have some, too}. I was able to pull most of the stems out and set them aside. Using some velvet shirts {I found slightly stretchy velvet works best for this}I cut a circle out. You have to play with what size: I used a plastic child's plate and that was perfect. I also wanted it to be pulled tight. I ran a basting stitch around the edge of each velvet circle, and gathered it lightly, popped the pumpkin inside and continued gathering. Eventually, the velvet ran out of space to keep gathering, and the pumpkin was too tall for the circle. So I tied off the loooong threads and used those to sew opposite sides of the circle together until it was snug up to the hole where the stem was. I popped the stem back in, and had four velvet pumpkins!

I did not hem the velvet, the raw edge gets hidden nicely and it would have been to bulky anyway.

The last one I painted with white pearl Martha Stewart paint.

Welcome Fall!