advent friends

Here are the polar friends, nearly finished,

hoping to bring light and love

into the world.

They kind of make me feel like the party has arrived. 

See? They even brought candy canes and made cookies. 

 

I kind of forgot to make Christmas cards 

so these are going to be my tiny love and light-bringers.

And these.

Happy Advent, my friends.

May thankfulness, 

love 

and light 

fill you up

and bring you peace. 

Gifts for good monsters, and other brainstorms from Santa's workshop

What do you give your good monsters?

Here's what mine will find beneath the tree:

The bag is inspired by Tickle Monster, by Josie Bissett, illustrated by the talented Kevan J. Atteberry.

I got happy-growly about monsters when I won the art lottery recently - Kevan J. Atteberry sent me a gorgeous monster print which I'm framing up for Sugar Snack's room. Thank you, Kevan!

More of our monster book stash:

The Sea Serpent and Me, by Dashka Slater, ill. Catia Chien

Sylvia and Bird, by Catherine Rayner 

(of my delicious fave Augustus and His Smile, raved about here.)

The girls helped me sew up the book bag.

See that red pom-pom tail?

They say you teach a man to fish and he feeds himself for life, right?
Well, I taught them how to make pom-poms.
They are set for life.
They can make fake snowballs and luggage tags
and monster tails.  Who needs college?
And we are deluged by little ball-y pom-poms and yarn bits
on every surface.
ad infinitum.


The elves have also been helping to make gifts.




Gifts for our paleontologist pals: 
dinotopeancils. pencilausoars...

...dinosaur pencils.

(involving plastic toys, pencils, a drill and glue.)

Gifts for our writerly / readerly crowd:

button clips 

(paper clips meet buttons. The girls also made some to sell for "market.") 

Gifts for our dolled-up gals:

Hair button-ups. 

(same idea: buttons meet bobby pins.)

and

personalized paper doll cards. 

(I will put up a link for the free printable version of this soon.)

Gifts for lonely doors:

an art project I did with the girls' class - 

Holiday Wreath, Revisited

(involving sticks and yarn. shazam!)

Here's to happy, lovely, contended growl-y moments
this holiday season for you and yours!



More beast-y books, and what we're reading around the house:

The Friendly Beasts, illustrated by Tomie dePaola
The Nutcracker, by E.F. Hoffmann, ill. by Maurice Sendak
One Candle - Eve Bunting, K. Wendy Popp
A Little House Christmas, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, ill. Garth Williams
The Shine Man, Mary Quattlebaum, ill. Tim Ladwig