Friday, December 02, 2011

peace on earth


The children that live with me seem to like to fight. A lot.

The babies are the main culprits.  There is screaming and hitting and pulling hair and yes, unfortunately, even biting.  The problem seems to be that they are both of the age where they believe they own the world and everything in it. And nobody is allowed to touch or look at anything they own. Or look directly at them while they are carrying one of their possessions.

It's really quite exhausting.

Now the boy, he's a teaser. A heckler. An instigator.  He knows allll the right buttons to push when it comes to the babies.

Like I said before, there's a lot of screaming.

So out of pure desperation, I have declared this Christmas to be the year of "Peace on Earth". (Read Peace in the Meeker House.) I'm also for world peace and all, but it's baby steps people. Baby steps.




So far it's not working.

They have fought over ornaments. They have fought over who gets to open the advent calendar.  They fought over Christmas music lyrics. They even fought over the baby Jesus in our navitity. Baby Jesus!

Oy.


Here's the DIY details on the mantle:

The trees are just foam cones covered with felt. I don't use cheap felt. Ever. It's just not worth it. Find good felt if you can!

I used a Sizzix machine to cut the circles of felt for the garland. I ran them through my sewing machine to join them together.

The peace dove felt cut outs and jingle bell wreaths are from Target $1 Spot. I made bows out of felt to top the wreaths.

The letters are from Paper Source. They are paper mache that I painted silver and then used pattern craft paper to embellish.

The wreath is made from two pool noodles. I used one noodle to create a circle. I duck taped the ends together. Then I used the other noodle to make the inside lines of the peace sign.  Again I used duck tape to secure the pieces to the outside circle.

I spray painted the noodle peace sign silver.

From Target $1 Spot, I bought tubes of small plastic Christmas bulbs.  My wreath took about 450 bulbs. I cut the top hanger part off the bulbs and hot glued them to the noodle wreath. I wasn't able to get all my bulbs in silver so I had to then spray paint all the bulbs silver. I highly recommend Valspar paint. It covers really well with very little paint. I glittered some of the bulbs for dimension.

I cut up a strand of tinsel and filled in the small gaps between the bulbs.

The end result is one super sparkly peace wreath.

The mercury glass pieces are all part of my collection. I found the vintage strands of beads on Ebay. I got the blue trees at Home Goods this year. I was so excited to find them.

So there you have it.

Even if it does nothing for the children, it inspires me to try to be the peace maker instead of screaming at them for screaming at each other.

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Okay! The winner of the Mindy Gledhill "Winter Moon" album is Katie Johnson who told me about the She and Him Album, that my husband also recommended, that I love love love.

Katie send me your address!



7 comments:

laurie lariviere said...

beautiful mantle April!! love the bright colors :)

Cheryl G. said...

I love it all!
Peace out!

Rosemary said...

Oh sister woman, I know the pain of which you speak.

I have almost-two-year-old twins. And a 3 year old. And 4 year old. And a 5 year old. They fight over who gets to be what character on tv. They fight over who gets the answer to the questions Mickey Mouse asks on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. They fight over who gets to sit in the red chair and who gets to bang on the piano.

And this is all generally before 7:00 am.

My father keeps telling me that this is a self inflicted wound. I in turn keep telling him to shove it.

Have a Merry, Peaceful Christmas. I may have to turn to drink this holiday season.

Rosemary said...

Did we just become best friends?

Yep! {If you can name that movie, then truly we are soul mates}

Thank YOU for your constant honesty. I love that while it's absolutely obvious that you are head over heels in love with your family and are incredibly grateful to be so lucky to have them; you admit that there are times you want to check into the looney bin. Just for a damn moments peace.

Whenever I read your blog I feel we are kindred souls. Keep fighting the good fight knowing that there is someone out there that would take you out for a milkshake in a heartbeat, if I didn't live in AZ ;)

melissa said...

Oh, how I love your blog! To use the "Oy" when refering to baby Jesus. So multi-cultural. Your blog in photos shows such a perfect and creative life. If you didn't have the running, and truthful, commentary, I couldn't read it. I would feel to unworthy.

Wishing you peace in your world!

Ruth Kelly said...

Kids fight no matter what you do but the key is to stop them from fighting. It's constant teaching until they finally get it later in life.

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